A LIVE "Anything But Silent" Event!
Clara Bow in MANTRAP (1926)
featuring Live
Piano Accompaniment by BEN MODEL from home!
Live Streaming on Tuesday,
May 18th at 7:00 PM ET!
General Admission is Pay-What-You-Want! – Click "Buy
Tickets" above for price options
Ralph
Prescott, a New York divorce lawyer and his buddy, E. Wesson Woodbury, decide
to get away from it all on a camping trip near Mantrap, Canada. However, the
city slickers are a bit out of their depth in the North woods. After the two
get into a tussle, Joe Easter, the local trading post owner, takes Prescott to
Mantrap, where Prescott meets Joe’s new flirtatious wife, Alverna (Clara Bow). The sparks begin to fly…
Paramount
Pictures paid $50,000 for Sinclair Lewis’ long and justifiably forgotten novel,
"Mantrap," but happily, the female screenwriters turned Lewis’
misogynistic tirade into a funny comedy romp that is light as a feather. The
credit goes to Clara Bow who represents an
erotic whirlwind in an otherwise womanless Western wilderness; an outrageous,
good-time girl who leads at least two men by the nose, but nevertheless
eventually honors her commitment--at least until the next interesting prospect
comes along. Bow, of course, perfectly embodied the Jazz Age, the first era in
American history to celebrate women’s sexuality as something other than a
function of man’s desire. Although Bow had at that point made over thirty films
in four years, Mantrap was her
breakthrough. Variety noted almost
ecstatically in its review of the film: “Clara
Bow! And how! What a ‘mantrap’ she is! And how the picture is going to make
her!... Miss Bow just walks away with the picture from the moment she steps
into camera range.” Ernest Torrence,
who could play monsters such as the brutal operator of an orphanage in Sparrows (1926), opposite Mary Pickford,
here plays an easy-going and somewhat gullible giant. Neither Easter nor
Prescott have a clue how to control the in-your-face vitality of Alverna, who
makes no apologies for her manipulation of anyone with pants on. The film was
shot at Lake Arrowhead by Victor Fleming (The Wizard
of Oz), who was not necessarily known as a comedy director, but does elicit
comedy performances with impeccable timing, a feat he would accomplish again
with Jean Harlow in Red Dust (1932).
-Jan-Christopher Horak (USA, 1926, 86 min., NR | Dir. Victor Flemming)
Ben Model is one of America’s leading silent film accompanists, and has been playing piano and organ for silent films at the New York MoMA since 1984 and the CAC since 2006. Since March 16th, 2020, Ben has been hosting a weekly live-streamed silent film show from his living room, “The Silent Comedy Watch Party.” Click here to visit Ben's YouTube page!
Tickets are limit one (1) per order. Advance registration may be made any time prior to the start of the event. Ticket-holders may enter the live stream by returning to this page and signing in to their Cinema Arts online account to bring up the “Enter Live Stream” link.
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