Hoopla (1933)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Best movie ever!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

After 60+ motion pictures, Clara Bow Bell made her exit with this fun Mae West like drama about a bad girl who finds the opportunity to go good when a scheme of revenge goes awry. She is a hooch dancer who "collects favors" and goes after the boss's son (Richard Cromwell) after the boss's mistress (a most feisty Minna Gombell) convinces her to seduce him and get her hands on some of papa's (Preston Foster) cash. Of course, the fabulous redhead is hiding a heart of gold behind those trashy looking gold sequins and love comes flying out of the big heart that melts the ice in her outside demeanor.Having gained a bit of weight and looking a bit blowsy, Bow still has "It" as she plays one of her few bad girls. She's not as sexually aggressive as Mae but plays cute and coy when out to seduce the innocent Cromwell. Florence Benson is amusing as a haggish looking fortune teller who first encounters Cromwell, believing him to be a naive patron. She steals the spotlight in an amusing drunk scene with Bow, Gombell and Cromwell. While not as glamorous looking as Mae's big 1933 carny hit "I'm No Angel", it is still fun, a bit more high brow than MGM's cult horror film "Freaks" which showed a much darker side of carny life. Clara may not have liked the results of this film, but over 80 years later, it holds up better than some of her higher budgeted talkies she did while still in her prime.

HOOPLA is a remake of a part-talkie film THE BARKER (1928) which in turn was based on a play. It was also the basis for two films by Ozu, the silent STORY OF FLOATING WEEDS (1934), and the Cinemascope and color FLOATING WEEDS (1959).In this permutation, Preston Foster is the father of Richard Cromwell who shows up one day at the traveling carnival he runs. While Foster tries to discourage his son's interest in show business Foster's neglected mistress Minna Gombel pays the carnival's resident femme fatale, Clara Bow, to distract the son, Richard Cromwell to allow her access to Foster.When first seen Foster has his hair grayed so patiently artificial I almost expected the film to be a flashback (music from Showboat can be heard disguised as circus music). The gray had obviously been added because in real life Foster was a mere ten years older than Cromwell.The main distinction of HOOPLA was that it was Clara Bow's last film. Its not difficult to see why her career ended. Though she got an especially up-beat review in Variety, she was at the beginning of an irreversible slide from Kupie cute to dumpy. Her stock in trade was 'perky' and it was looking out of place. Not only was her type going out of fashion and the arrival of the code was merely the coup de grace, she really didn't seem to want to continue. Both Harlow and Monroe, her successors as sex goddesses, projected other qualities which were more long lived. Harlow was elegant and Monroe child-like. Yet both died very young and Bow was quite elderly when she went.It might have been fun when she was one of the biggest stars in the world, but she didn't have the will to become a mere player. She was adequate or even fun playing herself, or at least a representation of the self manufactured myth, but she would never be able to do or enjoy merely continuing on as a working actress.Its an old story, one that is so common today that it barely attracts comment. Watch a decades worth of opening TV credits sometime. Bow does the things that wowed then a few years before. She is seen getting in and out of her clothes numerous times and takes a swim in the nude. You don't actually see anything but this was standard operating procedure for Bow. And now nobody cared.She does seduce the boy (she had been seen as something of a chicken queen earlier in the picture). It was sometime after her nude swim I think. They just barely get back to the train steaming out of a sidetrack (in order to let the Limited pass) and they stand in the vestibule and he says "Well we made it". Pretty unambiguous stuff.Bow regrets having taken on the trick but, well folks, she has fallen in love with the boy never-the-less. What a surprise. A woman manages, once again, to come between two men but it all ends happily in the end. The men are reunited.The print I saw had French titles at the beginning and the end (with no sound track) but an English language track with one reel having rather dodgy sound. Possibly this was found someplace as a dubbed print while a separate sound track was all that was left in the Fox vaults.Its a pleasant enough ride whose non-code details add immeasurably in unfolding the narrative in a straightforward fashion. But this is in a totally different universe from either of Ozu's masterpiece films, which, unlike HOOPLA, are highly recommended.

This is one of my favorite movies from Clara. She shows her usual yet incredible range of emotions perfectly blended to her character, Lou. Although a beautiful performance by Clara, the movie seems somehow restrained, not being as heart-stirring as some of her silent performances. It is unique, though, in the fact that Clara seems to have shed much of her "IT" girl image that was so evident in her later silent films. All-in-all, a beautiful performance by Miss Bow and a deliciously intriguing story line.

Carnival manager and barker Preston Foster (Nifty) is going with Minna Gombell (Carrie). When his son Richard Cromwell (Chris) shows up on summer break from law school, Carrie gets the air since Nifty wants to keep his son away from the evil influences of carney life and people. Carrie then pays Clara Bow (Lou) to seduce the son in revenge, but she falls for him.Nice carney atmosphere but few carnival acts besides Clara Bow's 'Egyptian' dancing. Her costume working the Chicago Worlds Fair midway shows even more of Clara Bow then her nude swim.