I haven't seen all of Clara Bow's talkies, but this is easily the worst I've seen. Of course some of the clumsiness is simply because it's a very early talkie—but the primary problems are with the script and acting, not with the direction or technology. The dialogue is moronic, to the point where you wonder if the characters are really intended to be moronic—or did they think audiences were so simple they required simpleminded figures on screen to relate to? OK, the characters are circus people, but Clara in particular talks like what we might today call "white trash."
That makes her dully sincere character irritating—no wonder Richard Arlen's hero doesn't reciprocate her obvious romantic interest until a convenient last-minute turnabout—and helps rob her of the spark Bow usually had. Admittedly, she probably wasn't yet fully comfortable with sound acting, and her voice was always a blunt instrument. But really, you'd have no idea why she was popular then or a cult figure now if you only saw her here. She's unappealing, sometimes downright amateurish.
The other performers are at least professional, including Francis as Clara's elegant rival (so elegant it's ridiculous—it's as if she were employed by some separate, old-money Upper West Side circus while Clara works for one in the Bronx). David Newell, whose acting career strangely dried up soon afterward (though he stayed in the industry, mostly doing makeup), cuts a handsome figure as the fourth side of the conflicted love quartet.
Anyway, this is watchable as a curio. But it's exactly the kind of movie that makes people who think they "don't like old movies" believe that films made this long ago aren't just antiquated, but kind of remedial in other ways, too. Maybe Paramount just didn't have enough competent screenwriters to go around at this early point in the talkie revolution. Whatever the reason, "Dangerous Curves" (a title that, by the way, makes no sense whatsoever, since Bow plays one of her least sexualized roles and the circus performers are tightrope walkers) is pretty simpleminded even for a programmer of the era—and this in a year when Clara Bow was the #1 attraction in the nation, so by any rights her vehicles should have been top-shelf. She complained they gave her just any old script, and this is a movie that proves her right.
That makes her dully sincere character irritating—no wonder Richard Arlen's hero doesn't reciprocate her obvious romantic interest until a convenient last-minute turnabout—and helps rob her of the spark Bow usually had. Admittedly, she probably wasn't yet fully comfortable with sound acting, and her voice was always a blunt instrument. But really, you'd have no idea why she was popular then or a cult figure now if you only saw her here. She's unappealing, sometimes downright amateurish.
The other performers are at least professional, including Francis as Clara's elegant rival (so elegant it's ridiculous—it's as if she were employed by some separate, old-money Upper West Side circus while Clara works for one in the Bronx). David Newell, whose acting career strangely dried up soon afterward (though he stayed in the industry, mostly doing makeup), cuts a handsome figure as the fourth side of the conflicted love quartet.
Anyway, this is watchable as a curio. But it's exactly the kind of movie that makes people who think they "don't like old movies" believe that films made this long ago aren't just antiquated, but kind of remedial in other ways, too. Maybe Paramount just didn't have enough competent screenwriters to go around at this early point in the talkie revolution. Whatever the reason, "Dangerous Curves" (a title that, by the way, makes no sense whatsoever, since Bow plays one of her least sexualized roles and the circus performers are tightrope walkers) is pretty simpleminded even for a programmer of the era—and this in a year when Clara Bow was the #1 attraction in the nation, so by any rights her vehicles should have been top-shelf. She complained they gave her just any old script, and this is a movie that proves her right.