Clara Bow: Discovering the It Girl

Clara Bow personified flapper exuberance, beauty, and sexuality on the screen.

This documentary, "Clara Bow: Discovering the It Girl" tells her personal and professional story with screen clips, photos, and interviews with family, friends, and biographer David Stenn.

Bow was an amazing looking woman - a Kewpie doll face, round, with huge, expressive eyes, a brilliant smile, and thick, luxurious hair. But that was only part of the package. She POPPED. While on the screen, you couldn't take your eyes off of her for one second. She exuded a flamboyance as well as a wide emotional range.

Like many people who seek the spotlight, Bow had a disorganized, lonely, and sad childhood. Eventually she found public life too difficult and retired - in fact, she developed such a violent distaste for it that when her husband, Rex Bell, ran for a government position, she attempted suicide.

Most fascinating about the documentary is the sound of Bow's lovely voice, not only in talkies, which she dreaded entering, but later, when she was living alone in Los Angeles. She taped herself reading Shakespeare and other works - obviously, the actress in her still needed to express herself in some way.

The readings impressed her son, Rex Bell Jr., (though he said he and his brother would slip into another room when she started taping) who knew nothing of her work in films until later. On seeing her work, he said, "I saw all those expressions on her face - why, I had seen those every day of my life." He was in awe.

The only negative thing about this documentary is the voice-over by, of all people, Courtney Love. Apparently someone saw some sort of connection between her and Bow - I'm not exactly sure what that would be, but speaking is not Courtney Love's strong suit.

In describing the life of this ebullient woman, Love does so in a dull tone and, worse, mumbles. A poor choice. Otherwise, a wonderful documentary on one of the greatest stars in film history.

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 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 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.