Call Her Savage

Clara Bow gives one of the greatest performances of any actress of the early 1930s. She's a million miles away from the iconic flapper of the 20s which made her famous. In this masterpiece, she brings to life a role you'd expect to find someone like Barbara Stanwyck playing - astonishingly, Clara Bow is easily as good.

If Clara Bow conjures up the image of a good time girl, a saucy sexpot, Betty Boop or the epitome of The Jazz Age, then like me you will be blown away by this. Just how good an actress she is, is a complete revelation of Road to Damascus proportions. Sadly dealing with her own troubled life was more important to her than acting so despite some very lucrative offers from the big studios, she retired from acting shortly after making this. It was a sad loss to the industry because on the basis of this, you can imagine that if she'd carried on, she'd be remembered as someone like Bette Davis, Greta Garbo etc

As Hitchcock said, you can't make a good film unless you've got a good story and this is certainly a good story. It's heavily imbued with moral righteousness but it's thoroughly engrossing. In reality it's probably unlikely that so much bad fortune could befall one person but the brilliant way this is made makes this most melodramatic of all melodramas utterly believable.

Director John Francis Dillon is virtually unknown not just now but even back then. Unfortunately for cinema, he died young so never became famous which, from the evidence here, he was destined to be. This obviously big budget production isn't just magnificently directed, it's beautifully and imaginatively photographed as well. The guy behind the camera was one of the superstar cinematographers of the 30s, Lee Garmes so you know you're going to see something excellent if it's associated with him.

Perhaps what makes this story so relatable to a modern audience is that Clara Bow's character Nasa, seems so normal to us now. OK, she's got an uncontrollable temper but she's very much like any normal girl you'd find anywhere today. Her sense of independence, her crazy notion that a woman is not simply a possession of a man and that a woman can make her own decisions seemed outrageous in 1932: that was not just a different time but a whole different world.

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.

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.

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 ****