The Wild Party (1929)

Originally posted to Facebook on 6/1/2019

The Wild Party was our seventh film from 1929, the second time we've seen Clara Bow, and our second true sound film. It is also the first time we've seen Fredric March, and the first movie we've seen directed by Dorothy Arzner -- one of the very few woman directors of this time.

Clara Bow plays a student at a women's college, and Fredric March plays one of the professors. They become romantically involved, contrary to college rules. This film has some of the content that one would guess from its title -- drinking and dancing by reckless, carefree young people, very much evoking the received image of the 1920s -- but there are also a fair amount of plot machinations revolving around the progress of March and Bow's relationship, and their efforts to keep it secret. Though I've seen performances by March elsewhere that I enjoyed, here he is rather unappealing; in addition to the inappropriate nature of his interest in Bow, he is also a misanthrope, calling other students "morons" -- and he treats Bow badly, sometimes ignoring her, other times scolding. Bow, on the other hand, displays the same high-spirited charisma that she did in Wings -- and although it turned out that at just 24 she was already on the back-end of her career, I think this movie makes a good case that this wasn't due to a lack of ability. She occasionally mugs or gestures a hair too much, but no more than one would expect from a silent veteran in her first sound film.

In the end the relationship between March and Bow is so flawed that it is hard to recommend this film -- and the ending unfortunately adds a sour little coda. The acting too is a bit off, with odd pauses and word emphases -- the result no doubt of everyone's initial foray into sound acting on film. The creaky technology doesn't help matters; the sound is muddy, and we missed snatches of dialog here and there. The bare-bones DVD we watched would definitely have benefited from an option for subtitles.

Our next film is Linda, our eighth from 1929, starring Helen Foster, whom we last saw in 1928's terrible The Road to Ruin. The link, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT