Curvas Perigosas

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.

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.

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.

If there were any doubts about Clara Bow making the transition from silent to talkie films, then this ought to put those to bed. That said, it's not the most imaginative of plots that sees her "Pat" and married, mischievous and dipso circus trapeze artist "Zara" (Kay Francis) seemingly squabbling over the attentions of the handsome but rather drippy "Larry" (Richard Arlen). Now we know that the latter lady has an ulterior motive but neither of the others do and so as the emotions kick in, well let's hope they have a safety net! We also discover that alcoholism might be contagious and bitterness and jealousy are amongst it's best friends, so things start to look quite precarious for the airborne "Larry" too as the poor man isn't quite sure where to turn - or fall! It is a bit wordy, procedural and perhaps even earnest at times, but there is still plenty active swinging going on - even if I doubt either the studio nor their insurers would have allowed Miss Bow much more than four foot off the ground. These films were all an integral part of cinema's recalibration to sound and at times there's a bit of rigidity to the set piece scenes here as it looks like both Arlen and Bow are a shade uncomfortable finding their microphone spots from time to time. The lively circus scenario allows for plenty of fluidity from a production and direction that delivers quite proficiently a story that does just about enough.

This isn't the first time that I have observed that the Male actors in this transition period had been too off the mark to be anything less that an eye-sore. It is always left to the poor women to carry the movie on their shoulders. In this movie too, not only Clara and Kay, but other women, the two uncredited co-showgirls and May Boley (the mother figure) too were good, especially Roy Barnes (the Pa against the Ma) and Charles Brown (the Assistant to Pa?). Newell was still OK, but the real failure in execution was Arlen.

Clara played the role of a teenage show girl - and I was surprised to see she did look mid-teen, even at the mid twenties, some of the activities, I don't know directed, or naturally, like scratching her legs while talking to Arlen, showed the 'girlish' mind. She looked quite lovely. may be a bit overacting by today's standard, but I would rather say it was quite good, considering that this was one of the transition era movies, when talkies were not even infant, may be almost in pre-natal ward.

Kay has played a bit of complicated role, of being in love with the lesser of the group, but ready to flirt with the star, so that the bacon is ensured at home, even going to the extent of hiding her marriage, so that the allure on the star isn't lost. Well, one could call that manipulative/ heartless, but it might as well be survival instinct. After walking out, the couple had miserably failed, and were on almost dole, till the Star brought them, or her, back.

One probably weakness I could find - sacking of the girl - the owner, and his wife behaved almost like parents of the girls, and this looked to be the favorite 'daughter'. Sacking was really unexpected, but may be he said that at the heat of the moment, and the girl took it seriously. Unless she was thrown on street, there won't have been the drama.