Clara Bow: Discovering the It Girl

Clara Bow: Discovering the It Girl (1999)

**** (out of 4)

Another excellent documentary from Turner Classic Movies. Outside seeing It, I'm really not too familiar with Bow. I was disappointed in that film but I could certainly see why Bow was the first sex symbol in the business. This documentary was a great step in learning more about her career and her life, although it's pretty damn depressing. It was rather amazing hearing all the gossip column stories that brought her career to an end including one story that she took on the USC football team!!! I had known she had an affair with Gary Cooper, which is talked about here and I also knew about her fling with Bela Lugosi. The stuff with Lugosi is also mentioned here and the story told is actually one I hadn't heard before. In the end I'm really looking forward to seeing some more of her work.

This is a good look at Clara. It is a very brief overview of her life, particularly her private life. Too bad there are very few people left who knew her, the interviews are sparse and not totally satisfying. I would have liked to hear more from her son (and wonder why her other son wasn't interviewed).

David Stenn's book covers her life in much more detail. I appreciate the opportunity to see rare footage and clips from unavailable films, but to understand the story of her life, read the book.

There are many tragic lives and many sad stories in Hollywood. Clara Bow, in my estimation, is one of the saddest stories in Hollywood, a truly tragic life. We can be grateful that she was able to give us a few years of marvelous films.

This is an engaging documentary of one of the most celebrated actresses on the history of the screen, Clara Bow. The snippets of movies not available to the viewing public is at once wonderful and sad, because unless we make a trip to MoMA, we won't be able to view most of these films. The only thing that makes this less than perfect is that Courtney Love is the narrator. She has an irritating voice, and sounds as if she's falling asleep during parts of the film. I'm sure that she was picked because she's considered an It girl of today, but why not get someone with real "oomph" and warmth to their voice, like Kate Hudson? Or someone with more voiceover experience, such as Glenn Close or Holly Hunter? Love's narration ruins an otherwise excellent documentary.

I just watched this last night, and I have to say that I was very impressed. I'm not going to go into a lengthy review here, but I'll just say that I previously did not know much about Clara Bow, but after watching this I am now fascinated. I also found Courtney Love to be an amazing narrator for the piece. Unlike some of the other comments here, I thought she really breathed life into the story of Ms Bow.

I would recommend this documentary to anyone who likes movies and is interested in learning of past stars.

This is a genuinely good biography, but I agree with the rest of them: why Courtney Love as the narrator? She moves away from the microphone sometimes and you can't really hear her voice. But why would you want to anyway - it's emotionless and boring. She is hardly an 'It' girl either, so not really an appropriate choice. I think someone with more 'energy' to their voice would have been so much better... it really distracts you from the biography. Although this is very accurate and interesting, it is not as thorough as David Stenn's biography, Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild (an essential for every Clara fan!). So if you want the COMPLETE low-down on Clara, read the book, because this only skims the surface.