Dangerous Curves

There are only so many stories, especially stories of love.

This is rather ordinary. It consists of three threads.

The first is of a relatively plain girl who loves a star, but he loves another, a vamp who doesn't care for him but manipulates him. But our gal sticks with it, even though the guy is an unfaithful, lying drunk. Eventually she does something heroic and saves his reputation. Impressed, he falls in love with her. Ho hum. That someone once related to this is mildly interesting.

And then there's the spectacle of the circus. In 1929, this would have still thrilled, what with the risks and spectacular falls.

But the reason to watch this today is because the "plain" girl is played by Clara Bow! Only a couple years before, this was the sexiest woman in the world, our first redheaded film sex symbol. She, the IT girl. Here, she is absolutely the least attractive girl in a skimpy costume. Here, she lacks all the poised seduction she had mastered before. Its because she speaks, I think.

The stories are well known, how she froze with insecurity. How audiences abandoned her instantly when hearing her low class, Yiddish-tinged Brooklyn squeak. This, the sexiest woman in the entire world of media.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Clara Bow (Pat Delaney) loves star tightrope walker Richard Arlen (Larry Lee), but he loves his partner Kay Francis (Zara Flynn), who is two timing him with the third partner David Newell (Tony Barretti).

Acting and some of the dialog is OK, but there is not much to recommend the picture for. Other than the tightrope walking, there are few circus acts to be seen.

Clara Bow is excellent in this picture- she really could act...very animated, very ebullient performance. Remember that this was something like only the second 'talkie' that she had ever done, but she knew how to modulate her voice (she did have a Brooklyn accent, but that was kind of interesting). Hands down the best actor in the movie.

Another impressive aspect of this film was the quality of the sound- for 1929 it was impressive with articulate dialogue, clear audio.

This, I believe, is Kay Francis's first film. Francis is beautiful with a sultry voice; not too difficult to see how her career took off like a rocket.

Silent film superstar Clara Bow made three talkies in 1929. This is her second talkie (The Wild Party and The Saturday Night Kid were the other two). In this circus picture Bow plays a 2nd-rate bareback horse rider with an eye for Larry Lee (Richard Arlen) billed as the world's greatest high wire walker. He's nuts for his co-star Zara (Kay Francis) but she's two-timing him.

Bow discovers that Francis is seeing this other guy and spills it to Arlen. That night on the high wire he catches Francis kissing the other guy and goes nuts and falls to the ground. Out of the hospital he quits the big top but Bow tracks him down and talks him into returning in a new act with her as co-star. Everything goes well until Francis returns (she's been dumped).

Solid film with good atmosphere and zippy dialog. The acting is a little rough (it's 1929 after all) since the stars are still learning to "talk." Interesting to see Clara Bow as the "good girl." May Boley, Stu Erwin, Joyce Compton, T. Roy Barnes, Charles Brown, Anders Randolph co-star.

Dangerous Curves (1929) is Clara's second talkie and she really carries the movie. The male lead isn't very strong or very likeable but Miss Bow makes up for any shortcomings with her charm and likeable vulnerability. Dangerous Curves is a must own for any Clara Bow fan.Pretty rare on dvd,never getting a official DVD release,but worth getting a hold of if you love the IT girl like I do.