Clara Bow was the "It" girl and the epitome of a Roaring 20's flapper. Bow lit up the screen; she was vivacious, exuded sex appeal, and, with the flash of an eye and the glimpse of a leg, let the audience know she liked men and sex. Whenever she was on screen, all eyes were fixated on her. Well, almost all eyes; in "Get Your Man," the boyishly handsome Charles "Buddy" Rogers has his own charisma, and viewers will be riveted when the pair share the same frame. Unfortunately, "Get Your Man," adapted by Hope Loring from a play by Louis Verneuil, is a lackluster vehicle for the dazzling co-stars, who, like Norma Desmond, definitely "had faces then." Set in a sound-stage French château, Rogers is Robert Albin, son of the Duke of Albin, and he has been betrothed to Simone de Valens, daughter of a Marquis, since he was in short pants and she in diapers. Seventeen years after the betrothal arranged by their respective fathers, Robert and Simone are to be wed. Enter Clara Bow as Nancy Worthington, an American from New York, who quickly sets her eye on Robert, betrothal or no betrothal. After Robert and Nancy meet in Paris and spend some quality time together in a wax museum, Nancy manages to wangle a stay at the Albin château, where ostensibly she is recuperating after a car crash at the gates to the estate. Continuity during the first half of the movie is choppy, because two reels of film have been lost; the action jumps from reel 1 to reel 4, although viewers can easily fill in the gaps. Unfortunately, even the surviving footage is in poor condition at times. Especially distressing are handwritten notes that the characters read; only a few frames of them exist, and they flash by. Viewers must freeze the image to read them.
Beyond the allure of the two stars, "Get Your Man" is a dated production that is generally static and stagey; although made in 1927, the film does not reach the heights of the great movies of the late 1920's, which was the apex of the silent era. The contrived situations are not convincing, such as Nancy's silly flirtation with Simone's father or the nonsensical reason for her staying at the château. Bow and Rogers re-teamed later that same year in the classic "Wings" to much better effect. However, the film does have historical import in that the director was Dorothy Arzner, Hollywood's only female director during the "Golden Age." With but 20 directorial efforts to her name, Arzner was nevertheless the first woman to become a member of the Directors' Guild, and any of her films merits attention.
Patient viewers able to tolerate a partially deteriorated silent film with two reels missing will be rewarded with the glow of two enduring stars, Clara Bow of the flashing eyes and Charles "Buddy" Rogers of the boy-next-door smile. While the theatrical shenanigans on screen belong to a world that vanished nearly a century ago, the film offers the opportunity to sit in the dark and bask in the glow of bygone glamour and discover the work of a pioneering female director.
