A Fool There Was

I've been frequenting YouTube a lot lately in order to search for various movies I'd like to see that happen to be in the public domain (and many that aren't that haven't been taken off). Many of these movies are shown in segments that last little more than ten minutes each though there are some exceptions like this one that was shown in its one hour, seven minute entirety. It's one of the few surviving films of Theda Bara who is a pioneer as an alluring sex symbol of the movies. Here she likes to take happily married rich men and play with their emotions for the fun of it. Having said all that, while I found Ms. Bara's vamping pretty entertaining near the end, the first 30 minutes of A Fool There Was almost put me to sleep since that time mainly concerned the man she was fooling with's family. It probably didn't help that many messages that were shown on screen were mainly blurry. So for that, I'd only recommend A Fool There Was for any silent movie buff out there. P.S. This is the one with the famous inter-title card "Kiss Me, You Fool!"

Considering that 1915 was the year of "Birth of a Nation", it is interesting to see what else passed as entertainment for cinema goers that year. "A Fool There Was" is probably the equivalent of your average Sharon Stone epic; lurid, melodramatic and utterly irresistible. This was a star making vehicle for Theda Bara, and though her style seems as remote as the ice age, one can clearly see the strength of her persona. Her appeal to 1915 audiences must have been profound.

The film is primitive even by silent standards. Close ups are stinted upon, the direction is rudimentary. Alone in the cast Bara is worth watching, though I suspect it gives but a glimpse of her full powers. Good fun, if hardly profound entertainment.

Theda Bara plays The Vampire in this early film about a man who gets whisked away from his loving family by a seductress.

This isn't a brilliant film, I have to admit. A lot of it doesn't quite work so well.

I'll start with Bara, who is the main reason to watch. As soon as she appears on-screen, you get an idea of why she was such a star.

A fabulous presence throughout, she sells her role so well with the little things. Like how, when a man pulls a gun on her, she smiles at him, her body showing no fear whatsoever. Instead, she taunts him, and we don't need titles to tell us this.

It's a terrible shame so much of her work was lost. And that Hollywood was so awful to her, for her talents could surely have made her a star - had the studios been willing to help her instead of dropping her immediately.

As for the rest of the film, it is messy, at best. None of the other actors are very good. They seem on the level of very amateur dramatics, and you can hardly tell what they're doing, were it not for the inter-titles.

The direction and staging is almost non-existent, with overcrowded, messy shots that don't convey any emotion. It gives the whole film the feel of a home movie someone shot, interesting only for the period which it is in.

I realise a lot of this can be put down to how early the film is. The crew were still coming to grips to with the technology, and they would learn fast.

There are a few really well composed shots, but they are not in service of anything. They're there to look pretty.

Bara manages to take control of the screen when she's on it. Holding attention and actually acting with her entire being, much like Lon Chaney used to do. No one else in the cast does this.

The wife is ineffectual. The brother is just a man. The sister an idiot that falls out of a car for some reason I still don't quite understand.

All this leads to a somewhat listless film. Any scene in which Bara is absent may as well be skipped, for it is either of the wife being sad or the child playing with the butler. Visual storytelling is wholly absent.

All in all, see it for Bara alone, but don't be surprised if the rest of the picture doesn't live up to expectations

I also find it entertaining how The Fool is ostracised from society for having a mistress, when I am sure that he would be perfectly fine. A rich man taking a mistress would hardly have led to his servants quitting or a decline in his social standing. His wife and mistress would surely have suffered, but the man would have been fine.

This is a wonderful early cinematic gem that we are fortunate to have survived. The strong screen presence of the legendary Theda Bara is its greatest attribute. I don't think her talent gets the recognition it deserves and this is sadly due to the fact that this and one other film, 1925's "The Unchastened Woman" actually survive to my knowledge. Ms. Bara was the ultimate femme fatale and this is clearly seen in this film, her first starring role. Her film career was relatively short and many of her films were the tragic result of deteriation that so many of the early nitrate films were subject to. This makes film preservation a very vital movement so that many movie icons, such as Ms. Bara can be preserved for posterity.

There's no question about its imperfections, but "A Fool There Was" is still an interesting melodrama, and it also looks better when considered in the context of its era. The pacing and storytelling are often uneven, but they are not too bad for a time when everyone was still learning how to tell a feature-length story on film. Theda Bara's performance is sometimes exaggerated, but it also contains some very effective moments, and it's not hard to see why she was something of a phenomenon for a time.

The story is relatively simple, with Bara as a 'vamp' who enters the lives of a respected statesman and his family. In general, the story works rather well, resisting the temptation to resort to anything forced or showy. It's driven solely by the strange power that Bara's character can acquire over good-natured but weak-willed males. Similar stories have been used in recent movies, but usually with the addition of a lot of extraneous or indecent material that adds nothing of genuine value.

To be sure, only someone who already enjoys silent movies will be interested in this one. Within just a few years, film-makers would learn many better and more efficient ways of setting up and telling a lengthy story. Bara is also the only performer here whose performance is of particular interest. But there is more than enough here to make it worth seeing if you like the silents.