Bare Knees

Bare Knees is the epitome of the Jazz Age, but because of its obscure cast, it will most likely remain a rarity forever. The story revolves around Billie (Virginia Lee Corbin) who comes to a small town to visit her sister (Jane Winton). She stirs things up with her short skirts, bobbed hair, and flapper mannerisms. She catches the eye of Larry Cook (Donald Keith) who gives her his pin to wear. She is a flirt who likes to have a good time, but the townspeople cannot see past that to realize she is really a moral person.

This film is purely entertainment. Corbin is beautiful and plays her role to a T. Also notable is the bow-legged maid (Maude Fulton) who does her best to adapt to Billie's flapper lifestyle. Bare Knees has several memorable scenes like the baseball game and the fire on the pier, but you should really see it for yourself.

The Grapevine release has a better-than-normal print which was struck from the original 35 mm nitrate film. There are only a few scenes where the faces look washed out and the ending is a bit dark due to the purple tinting, but otherwise, it is in great shape. The musical score suits the action well too.

Thought I'd trot out some 20's jargon to describe this very entertaining roaring twenties film. It is presented tongue-in-cheek and is a satire on stuffy prohibition-era morality. A staid, boring couple plan a staid, boring house party at about the same time the sister of the wife plans to visit. Her arrival takes place while the party is ongoing, and everyone is aghast - her knees are showing beneath a short skirt! The reaction of the guests is priceless, as the camera pans around on several of them with mouths open, chins hitting the floor.

As if things weren't bad enough (or funny enough), she unleashes a torrent of flapper-era expressions which indicate what a funeral she thought the party was and proceeds to take matters into her own hands. She asks the band to play something 'hot' and shows a few Charleston-like maneuvers and asks a man to join her. No one had evidently ever seen the like before. Finally, some young buck asks if she would like to go for a ride in his motor car, rescuing her from reproach and rebuke - and this is only about the halfway point of the picture.

Most of us weren't alive in the 20's and this film is as revelatory as it is humorous. The tenor of the story is hyperbolic in nature but it is great fun, a satirical look into a clash of cultures from an earlier time. It was shown on a print from the Library of Congress at Capitolfest, Rome, N.Y. 8/12.

This must be the ultimate flapper comedy - an hilarious and risque look at a new fad, full of the new slang (in titles of course), bobbed hair and short skirts. If you love the roaring twenties don't miss this film. Virginia Lee Corbin is the head flapper - and she's delicious. Also gorgeous is Jane Winton as her straight sister. Corbin invades Winton's quiet life in a small town and shocks everyone - but she also reveals the underground activities at the local fun pier and married Winton's secret affair!

The story comes to a climax on a burning rollercoaster that has to be seen to be believed. Nice score on the Konadog print too! A pure delight.

Bare Knees is a flapper film that is hopelessly dated, but still fun to watch, just to see Virginia Lee Corbin all grown up, showcasing her independence and her pretty figure.

I'm not sure this film honestly represented the 1920's however; it was a much more complex era than Hollywood chose to present to the populace through its films. This film had to have been made before the Wall Street crash as well, since after that tragic event, which ushered in the Great Depression, flapper films quickly lost their popularity, to be replaced by breezy musicals or social dramas. After the crash a flapper film like Bare Knees, which showed women raising their skirts and smoking, was seen as rather shallow entertainment.

When we think of silent screen stars, the usual big names jump up--Gloria Swanson, Colleen Moore, Clara Bow, etc. But there was a whole little world of independent studios that showcased lesser known names--like that of Virginia Lee Corbin. Her name is hardly known today among film buffs but in this delightful, satirical tale of Vixen-Comes-To-Small-Town, she's perfectly suited. She's beautiful, lively, wise-cracking and wearing some beautiful Jazz Age frocks. What makes watching this antique from 1927 is the beautiful print and musical score. My copy was so well preserved it looked like the movie was filmed yesterday. There's a great, tinted sequence of a pier fire at a park that's very ambitiously done. The whole cast is attractive and give it their all. Too bad lesser known silent movies like this one are totally forgotten today. They evoke a lost era of talented, beautiful screen hopefuls that never got their big break in a major studio.