User reviews

CALL HER SAVAGE concerns the tumultuous adventures of a tempestuous, rebellious girl named Nasa Springer (Clara Bow). It is definitely not a film for everyone, as it contains some perverse elements such as a whipping scene. Indeed, CALL HER SAVAGE sometimes approaches high camp, such as in the film's prologue.

Despite the film's rambling storyline, however, it is never dull. This is chiefly due to Clara Bow's remarkable performance. CALL HER SAVAGE is proof that the silent star could easily handle talking films, using a low, throaty voice that matches the sensuality of her looks. Bow runs a gamut of emotions from anger to tenderness to elation to self-pity, and always with passionate conviction. Her performance conveys a well-rounded character who elicits the audience's sympathy and always remains credible, even if the scenario sometimes isn't. CALL HER SAVAGE is a must for Clara Bow fans.

*** out of ****

This is a tale of tragedy with a very old fashioned message - that the sad life of the protagonist Nasa Springer (Clara Bow) is part God's vengeance for the sins of the fathers, and part the result of her heritage, because Nasa is half Indian and thus has a savage nature. Cue eye rolls.

The film opens on a 19th century wagon train with the head of the wagon train, Silas Jennings, openly cheating on his wife and also getting violent with anybody who calls him on it. One man says that the Indian attack that the wagon train suffers and the resulting dead are God's judgment and talks about the sins of the father passing on to Silas' further generations. Next the film is in Texas, eighteen years later, and Silas' daughter Ruth has married her childhood sweetheart Pete. But Pete has no time for romance since he wants to get rich quite badly. Sad and neglected Ruth strikes up a friendship with a well educated and handsome Indian, Ronasa, and the two have an implied affair. The fruit of that affair is Nasa. (Didn't Pete think it strange that his wife basically named her after Ronasa? But I digress.)

So about 18 years later we meet grown Nasa (Clara Bow), fiery in both hair color and disposition. She gets into physical altercations, gets sent to a finishing school by her disapproving "dad" and manages to finish off a few of her classmates in fights in the process, rejects dad's choice for her marriage and weds a wastrel, and things just go downhill from there. At times she has money, at other times she doesn't, but she just can't stop being a wildcat.

The end is bittersweet, and the implication is that Bow will end up with "Moonglow" (Gilbert Roland) because the two are racially alike, NOT because all through the years, and the ups and downs, and through Nasa's bad treatment of him at times, this guy is the sweetest nicest person you could ever meet, has always been there for her, and is not bad on the eyeballs either.

Bow's acting is wonderful in this. Fox, at a time when it seemingly could do very little right (1930-1935), managed to make a true classic here, and a true precode, and they managed to do what Paramount never really could do - give Bow a really meaty talking picture role. Bow's outfits take great advantage of her figure, with bold shots of her cleavage and everything else she has above the waist There is plenty of infidelity and the resulting VD that occurs in one case, an attempted rape, prostitution, and a tragic fire. . And all of this from a studio that, at the time, was known for its homespun entertainment for rural folk. Gilbert Roland has a pretty small role, but he is absolutely charming. Thelma Todd is true to her nickname of "Hot Toddy" and almost unrecognizable with that short haircut, vying with Bow for the same men and matching Bow's character insult for insult and hair pull for hair pull when the two get into some very public altercations.

I'd strongly recommend this. It is great precode entertainment even with some of the maudlin melodrama and the muddled message.

Lurid-but-fascinating tale of wild half-breed Texas heiress has everything in it, including whippings, prostitution, extra-marital affairs, a neglected baby, and singing homosexuals. Pre-Code stunner boasts Clara Bow's great talkie comeback (after a bunch of so-so talkies) and she is WONDERFUL as well as Gorgeous. Playing Nasa Springer, Bow gets to whip a snake and Gilbert Roland, have a cat fight with Thelma Todd, beat Monroe Owsley senseless, smash a guitar over a servant's head, and run wild from Texas to Chicago to New York City. Clara Bow is great in this film. Too bad Bow made only one more film after this one (the underrated Hoopla).

Estelle Taylor, Weldon Hayburn, Russell Simpson, Fred Kohler, Dorothy Peterson, Margaret Livingston, Anthony Jowitt, and Mischa Auer co-star.

Great line as the father drives up and says "Why are you whipping that man?" Clara Bow answers, "I'm practicing in case I ever get married." Priceless!

It is sad that the demons in Clara Bow's life curtailed a career in talking motion pictures that would have seemed promising. She positively sizzles in Call Her Savage.

The film has Clara cast as one wild child Texas heiress, granddaughter of Willard Robertson and daughter of Estelle Taylor. Robertson has his hands filled with her and finally sends her off to school in Chicago.

After that the post flapper era men just flock to her. But Clara sets her sights on dissolute playboy Monroe Owsley, taking him away from Thelma Todd. Owsley is brutally frank about his male privilege telling Todd in no uncertain terms as he's allowed to stray because after all he pays the bills. The chick fight that Bow and Todd engage is one for the books, much better than Marlene Dietrich and Una Merkel in Destry Rides Again.

Clara's ride goes up and down from the wild child to the degradation of prostitution to back up on top again. Through it all the reason for her wildness is given in the explanation of her heritage. Her one true friend in the end is grandfather's faithful ranch hand Gilbert Roland and what they have in common.

I agree with another reviewer that the film is both sexist and racist and glories in it. It's also brutally frank and no wonder Joseph Breen and his crowd got such fits over films like Call Her Savage.

A great before the Code film and a sad reminder in what we lost when Clara Bow couldn't make more films like this.

In the Golden Age of Hollywood, amid the storied eons of the great glamor stars, you had the Stanwyckian tough cookies, the Rogers-like high society sophisticates, and the Garboish fragile beauties - but no one was quite like the Jazz Age wild child Clara Bow. When she made an entrance, she burst onto the screen like a whirlwind and didn't look back, positively exuding earthy vitality. That she didn't have a significant sound career is truly unfortunate, for one's imagination plays happily with the notion of Clara bawdily defying the frigid censors well into the culturally stolid war years. Though we didn't get much in that way, CALL HER SAVAGE is fortunately a picture worth a thousand words.

Okay, the first ten minutes make it look like a dusty old western, but STAY WITH IT...otherwise you'll be missing one of the boldest and brightest pre-Code items this side of CONVENTION CITY. When Clara first appears on horseback, the wind blowing through her hair, you will be transfixed for the remainder of the show. The narrative opens in Texas, with a rich landowner punishing his tomboy daughter Nasa (Clara) by sending her off to Chicago for charm school. He also has latent motivation in wanting to marry her off to the man of his choice. Once in the big city, Nasa becomes known as "Dynamite" in the tabloids for her volatility and elopes with a slippery charmer instead of her intended beau. He strays, so to speak, as soon as their honeymoon, leading Clara to take her leave. From here, it's a road to ruin and back again for the young lady, with a startling secret in store for her at the climax. A free-form blend of western, romantic comedy, tragedy, and everything in between, CALL HER SAVAGE takes (sometimes jarring) turns from comedy to pathos, creating an absolutely unique experience.

I can only imagine how Joseph Breen and his ilk must have gnashed their teeth over this film - virtually every scene seems to have been calculated to drive them up the wall. For all its brazenness, it's surprising that CALL HER SAVAGE was a Fox production, for one would expect it more from Warner Bros. We first see Clara in a tight-fitting white shirt, enthusiastically whipping a snake - then a handsome ranch hand when he laughs at her! Clara then tears off a portion of her shirt to tend to his wounds (my, hasn't that one been appropriated time and time again!). Further mix in race relations, prostitution, and an attempted rape of Nasa by her STD-ravaged husband ("Don't get up" she cautions. "I GET UP every afternoon!" he answers). And don't miss the detour to cinema's very first gay bar where the waiters sing about sailors in pajamas (!). On a seedier level, there's a brief but unsavory taste of pederasty when a drunken old fool approaches a little girl.

But it's Clara who makes this movie. The early scenes of her scantily clad and writhing on the grass have a palpable erotic charge that no black and white vintage can dilute (remember, this was the woman who sat through a stage performance of Dracula dressed in a fur coat - and little else). I really hope that Clara is well remembered today, for she was TRULY a star and incredible personality. A lively, vital, and eternally beautiful free spirit. But there was always a touch of sadness in those big, childlike eyes, wasn't there...

It's hard to know where to begin with this film, but no discussion is going to be complete without talking about its racism. It's pretty insidious stuff too, because aside from the depiction of Native Americans as savages bent on massacring white folks in the first five minutes, something pretty common out of Hollywood in this period and for decades afterwards, the film equates having "Indian blood" in descendants with impulse and anger issues. It essentially says that such blood will taint the pure white blood it's mixed with, and the person carrying it will have a diluted form of all that savage behavior we saw early on in the ol' west. To top it off, the film brings the Old Testament into play, promising that a vengeful God will "visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation," the sins in question being adultery, and more significantly, a relationship across racial lines. I don't think you can craft more racist subtext.

Like a tonic though, Clara Bow arrives riding a horse with great spirit, and from that moment on, she's simply fantastic, lighting up the screen in every scene she's in. Bow certainly has considerable charm but her acting is also top-notch, and she conveys a wide range of emotions very well. It's something the role allows, you see, because while it doesn't tell us this explicitly until much later, you'd have to be pretty dense not to know she's the daughter of an illicit union (among other things her name is a shortened form of a Native American's we see).

There are scenes where Bow whips snakes and a man, wrestles braless with a Great Dane, smashes a guitar over a guy's head, brawls with another woman at a society party, fights like a wildcat in fending off a man who tries to rape her, throws plates back at someone who chucked a bottle at her in a subterranean nightclub, punches several men in the ensuing melee (quite a right hook she had!), and soundly slaps a would-be suitor for insulting her, prompting him to say "You savage!" Through it all she flaunts her body in gorgeous evening gowns and silky lingerie, always seems to have the perfect comeback line with bantering with men or women, and is obviously ready to stand up for herself, with her fists if necessary. In other words, despite the repugnant subtext, her character is fascinating, and she's wonderful playing it. I loved seeing her fight off her rapist, even if the film gives her that power because she's half Native American.

The film gets very melodramatic as it plays all this out, as she marries a cad, is left with a child, turns to prostitution, loses her child, gets an inheritance, and is then wooed by a rich man. It's all over the place, and along the way we see everything from the sordid streets, to elegant parties, to a couple of openly gay guys performing in a nightclub. It's all pretty scandalous stuff, but not very artistically done. However to see Clara Bow in her penultimate film at just 27, and to perform so well, I guess I didn't care. She's certainly what pulled my review score up out of the gutter, even if it is a contradiction to how I've viewed other old movies disparaging Native Americans.

What a film! Daring to tackle issues few films would even look at today. Stunningly photographed and directed, and with greater style than many early talkies. And at its heart is one of the best film performances ever - Clara Bow proves herself to be a magnificent actress in a role that demands she go through every possible emotion. What a loss it was to cinema when she retired, as great a loss as Garbo. Please MOMA get that restored print out on DVD, so that this great classic can be seen in all its glory!

The reason to "Call Her Savage" is made clear, in a well-produced opening. Clara Bow (as Nasa Springer) was born unto generations of sinners. Her grandfather committed adultery, and was cursed by God-fearing cowboys. Her mother carried on the family tradition by carrying on with a handsome Native American Indian. Without showing the actual sex, the film suggests Bow was fathered by the "savage" Indian. Due to her family's wickedness, God damns Bow, because, "I am a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon their children."

Bow makes a grandiose entry into the film; she takes a wild ride, straddling a horse, to a scene wherein she whips both a snake, and "half-breed" Gilbert Roland (as Moonglow). Whipping the snake (symbolizing Satan?) shows her good side, but she cannot understand her "savage" nature. Thus, Bow's cursed life is filled with melodramatic tragedy.

After a (relative to the time, but not really) short absence from the screen, this was considered a "comeback" vehicle for Bow. It was a tawdry, exploitive, offensive, and unsuccessful attempt; although, Bow is entertaining, and continued to prove herself a capable actress. After a more focused attempt at a characterization, the career-ending "Hoop-la", Bow would retire. At least, she left showing she would have been capable of continuing on, had the material been more worthy.

Today, the preposterous premise of "Call Her Savage", and its outmoded luridness, may unintentionally amuse. Bow's performance is quite good, considering the ludicrous situation. A couple of effeminate homosexuals entertain Bow and courtly Anthony Jowitt (as Jay Randall) in a New York diner. You won't believe God's wrath on prostitution. Presumably, Bow's cursed existence is ended with revelation, and acceptance of her lot in life.

******* Call Her Savage (11/24/32) John Francis Dillon ~ Clara Bow, Gilbert Roland, Thelma Todd

Beautiful, in a modern way (contrast with co-star Thelma Todd), facile with her lines, natural with her mannerisms, this lady can act! And she has a fine voice, so the "couldn't make the transition to talkies" bit doesn't apply here.

And the off-screen items that supposedly led to her decline are pretty lame explanations. I mean, suing someone who embezzled her was supposed to be scandalous? Even back then? What was she supposed to do, sue by proxy? I smell a John Gilbert-style studio sabotage of a "difficult star" here.

Back to the film. Call Her Savage is a Bow vehicle throughout, showcasing her broad range. Though an interesting nature-vs-nurture yarn, with frank pre-Code allusions to sexual kink and promiscuity which give us a peek into the mentality of the age, the stagy mannerisms that are the baggage of the silent era make for a somewhat dated melodrama. And the direction is pretty awful, too. But Bow manages to isolate herself from these drawbacks; in fact, throughout the film, she distinguishes herself from her surroundings. Isn't this star power?

Ordinarily, this film would score a6 or 7, but I give it a 9 because it's a rare opportunity to watch an actress whose star never should have faded.

On the face of it, 'Call Her Savage' has all the element needed for a smash hit and a pre-code classic. It is sexy, shows things designed to shock audiences (such as a drag act in a bar) and does not shrink from addressing issues such as prostitution. More importantly, it is also well-acted throughout, with Clara Bow deserving special praise. She displays a range of emotions rarely seen in one actress in one and the same film, and she does so absolutely convincingly: from boisterous fun to despair, it is all there. Still, the film is today almost forgotten: 29 user reviews on this site and on the date I am writing mine is not a lot. Why? I believe there are two reasons. First, the plot is pretty episodic and jumps from one setting to the next - from the ranch in Texas to Chicago, to New York, New Orleans etc. Etc. The episodes are linked by the character played by Bow and by a few minor figures who appear in several of them, but they are so disparate that the audience has no chance to get into the mood of the film, so to say. A secondary issue that is jarring at least for modern audiences is the blatantly racist message of 'Call Her Savage'. Bow's character literally is a 'savage'; her lack of self control and bouts of violence are explained with her Indian ancestry (rather than for example with her father having neglected her). She is a half-blood. The film thus denounces indigeneous Americans as unfit for civilised society, and what is worse, unfit not for cultural but for biological reasons. Hard to stomach. I am rating 'Call Her Savage' seven stars in recognition mainly of Bow's performance.

Any film that contains:

1. Clara Bow and Thelma Todd in a catfight

2. Clara Bow in a tight silk shirt where it's obvious that (A) she's not wearing a bra and (B) the set was cold that morning is an instant classic, no matter how meandering the rest of the film is.

Also, after seeing the film, I'm at a loss as to why Clara Bow didn't succeed in talkies. She's a wonderful actress, even when the material veers back and forth between sub-par and bizarre.

Call Her Savage (1932)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

"It" girl Clara Bow made her comeback with this at times raunchy Pre-Code that features the actress turning up the sex level. In the film she plays a wild child who goes through various up and downs throughout her life. This starts with stealing a husband (Monroe Owsley) from his wife (Thelma Todd), which turns into a disaster but these two will pop up again later in her life. As with Bow's characters life, this film is up and down from start to finish. At times the film comes off very sexy, at times it's funny, at times it's heartbreaking but there are other moments where the film comes off as pure camp. Since this is a Pre-Code we get all sorts of scenes where Bow is showing off her sexuality, which includes scenes showing off her legs and one memorable scene with her nipples showing through her clothes. Before we get to all the sexual stuff we have a prologue that tells us Bow's character is cursed by God due to her grandfather's bad doings behind the back of his wife. These religious elements come off very campy and really put the movie at a slow start. The reason to see this film is due to Bow's terrific performance. She was always great at being the wild child and her funny side has always been good and that continues to be the case here. What really works is her dramatic turns, which includes one heartbreaking scene that I won't ruin here. Bow's comeback would only last one more film, which is a shame because it's clear she hand more punch than a lot of the actresses of this era, which went onto have long careers.

Owsley, who was the second male lead in Call Her Savage (CHS) is little known and seldom remembered today. Too bad, because he had a special acting talent that enabled him (like in CHS) to convincingly play both seemingly "good guys" and edgy "bad guys" at one and the same time. In the 1940s, that skill was also represented by several roles created by the young Vincent Price. Owsley could project menace quite easily, and you were never sure exactly what he was going to do next. The famous film historian Lawrence J. Quirk best described Owsley as " a brilliant actor who died early in life (and) had in common with another goose-pimply-grater, Dwight Frye, an ability to make the collective audience's hair stand on end. He came on with a sandpaper-oozy-with-glue repellence that perfectly contrasted with the handsome profiles and bejeweled shapelies around him." In CHS, Owsley certainly provided a clear distinction to the matinee-idol-like appearance of stalwart Gilbert Roland in one of his entertaining early sound leading man roles---although it was actually more like a supporting part. And strange as it may now seem, Owsley gave us a performance in CHS that made it seem plausible to believe that he and Clara Bow could end up as a real married couple in the film!

CHS's curious title and dense plot have been adequately explained by others. Perhaps this film would be better remembered today if its creative artists had tightened the story somewhat to make the narrative flow more smoothly with less over the top melodrama. However, it remains of interest today because it also captures the magic of Clara Bow at the height of her powers as a truly unique performer. She was exciting to watch and impossible not to like. Her career has a parallel with that of Frances Farmer---a similarly gifted actress with major mental issues who also had difficulty being accepted by Hollywood because of her like unorthodox behavior. Both Bow and Farmer realized only a fraction of their great potential, and we are left to wonder how those careers might have turned out if each had received the right help at the right time.

While CHS may not be a particularly memorable film, it does stand out as a cinematic record that captures Bow, Roland and Owsley at their very best. Only Roland survived to have a long career during the sound era as a dependable supporting actor of the first rank.

One last word about the long forgotten Monroe Owsley. Quirk in his illustrated biography of Claudette Colbert stated that Owsley was given a rather unflattering nickname by his fellow colleagues "because his sadistic treatment of the fair sex on screen .....came off as serpentinely evil.". While that may be a harsh way to refer to a fine actor's rather unique talents, it does remind us of just how remarkable and varied the roster of performers was during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Being a long-time fan of Clara Bow's, I have seen most of her surviving films. By far, this is Clara's best "talkie" performance. She has complete control on her emotions and her character which complete the story-line perfectly. Clara is able to show her amazing range of emotions in this movie and one cannot help but be greatly moved by her performance. All-in-all, a stunning and heart-stirring film--a must for anyone interested in Clara Bow.

Worth seeing as a curiosity and for Clara Bow's near-unhinged performance, but there's still no way to describe this as in any way a good film. Tonally schizophrenic, it veers from comedy to florid melodrama to unintentional laughs. It also manages to be simultaneously socially permissive while indulging the hoariest stereotypes of American Indians. The one thing to hold onto is Clara Bow. Her performance transcends mere notions of 'good' or 'bad'; whatever it is, it's never dull and you never take your eyes off her.

Plot? Oh yes, lots of it, which I won't try to describe. The narrative here has all the rigor and logic of a Dario Argento horror flick. Just go with it. You're unlikely to see another movie like this.

Also: this must be Exhibit A in IMDb users' deference in rating older films. 7.2?? Sure, on a scale of 1 to 50.

A good historical example, though, of how films were generally more puritanical during the middle of the 20th century than beforehand. In this movie, which veers from camp to slightly surreal melodrama, viewers are treated to a wide range of prominent details that they might not expect from such an old film.

For example, we see Clara Bow playing a promiscuous young woman (though this is eventually explained away with an excuse unlikely to be used today). Her nipples are clearly displayed (through a sheer blouse, no bra) for quite a long time, and there's an undeniable S&M scene in which she whips a forbidden love interest.

There's a frank, even casual approach taken to extramarital sex, adultery, interracial liaisons, and prostitution, and we even see a working-class gay bar complete with transvestite cabaret.

Most of these topics are treated so unjudgmentally that I was really curious if the director had any opinion at all, and I wondered how a contemporaneous audience, with both the Roaring Twenties and the stock market crash recently behind them, would have viewed the film.

An interesting film, very watchable (and frequently unintentionally amusing, to the modern eye), and, of course, historically important for being a Clara Bow talkie.

I must have had this film at least three years before I finally watched it. Films of the 1930s seem so dated, and I read where Clara Bow was the "It" girl more than anything. However, this film for me was not dated as others have been, and it gave me a nice glimpse of the early 1930s. And as for Clara Bow, I saw her as a very talented dramatic actress. So talented that it is sad her life later went downhill. A very good story and very worthwhile film. I won't drag out my review repeating what others have written, but I suggest to skip any spoiler. Better to see it without knowing what happens. Watch it and you'll be glad you did.

Clara Bow's grandmother has an adulterous affair with the leader of a wagon train. Her mother sires her illegitimately with a "half-breed". Claiming the sins of the parents are passed to the children, the movie has us believe that Bow is a wild hellion as a result. Her Texan father sends her to a finishing school in Chicago to learn manners. Instead she marries a rich playboy who marries her to spite the girl he really loves. Bow lives the life of a kept woman for a while, but leaves him and ends up poor with a child who dies tragically. Then she inherits all her father's money. This is a really wild pre-code melodrama that features everything but the kitchen sink. I normally like these, but this one just felt really sloppy and poorly made. Worth a look for pre- code antics and Bow's zesty performance, but not a great example of pre- code film making.