Theda Bara at New York City’s MOMA
May 4th, 2006 by Andre Soares
Directed by Hugh Munro Neely, The Woman with the Hungry Eyes: The Life and Films of Theda Bara will have its New York premiere at the Museum of Modern Art on Saturday evening, May 20, at 8:00 PM.
Theda Bara (nee Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati, Ohio) was the supreme film vamp of the 1910s, a welcome example of the feminine dark side during an era in which most film heroines were of the saccharine, curly-top variety. What Bara wanted - usually a man’s body, blood, and/or soul - was hers for the taking. Unfortunately, most of her films are now lost.
Dana Delany provides Bara’s voice in Neely’s documentary.
4 Responses to “Theda Bara at New York City’s MOMA”
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I’ll probably mention it in a few weeks; but I might as well share it with you here. As late as 8 June 1936, Bara announced to the listeners of the Lux Radio Theatre that she was “going to do some motion picture work.” After chatting with W. S. Van Dyke about Cleopatra–for which role she claimed to have worked for months with a curator of egyptology at the Metropolitan Museum in New York–Bara assured audiences that she wasn’t quite done with Hollywood: “I am considering an offer now, running through scripts and ideas. Oh, I just hope everyone will be as happy about another Theda Bara picture as I am. The public has been very good to me in the past.”
I wonder what she was like as the scheming Lady Audley in Lady Audley’s Secret, based on a “sensation novel” a Wilkie Collins reader is likely to enjoy.
And thanks for editing! Ouch!
Thanks for the Bara story, Harry. Actually, it’s really too bad she never made a talkie. What did she sound like, I wonder.
I’ve read Collins’ “The Moonstone” and “The Woman in White.” Enjoyed both tremendously. Now I gotta look for “Lady Audley’s Secret.”
Bara sounds smart, has a good reading voice (a recording of “The Thin Man” production is available online). She did appear in a radio sketch some years after that, playing Cleopatra again. “Lady Audley,” to avoid confusion, is by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, who rivaled Collins as a so-called “sensation” novelist. Henry James described the novel as a “skilful combination of bigamy, arson, murder, and insanity.” It’s just the right material for Bara, I think. For another thrilling Collins, I’d recommend “No Name.” Cheers, Harry.
Thanks for the clarification, Harry. I must have misread your previous post. I’ll look for both Braddon’s “Lady Audley” and Collins’ “No Name.”
I’ll also look for that “Thin Man” radio production. I’ve never heard Bara’s voice.