"The Unchastened Woman" is a rather oddly plotted and otherwise forgettable picture, but Theda Bara shines in it. Today, Bara is mostly a lost figure of the silent era; only a few of her films are known to survive, and, of them, I know of only two feature-length ones that have been so far made available on home video. One of those is this film, which was made at the end of Bara's career--or, in a way, after the end of her career; it was a failed comeback attempt. The other film, "A Fool There Was" (1915), is from the beginning of her career, when she first began to introduce her vamp to the screen.
From viewing these two films, it's evident that Bara evolved considerably as an actress during the decade's length (as did film technique). In "The Unchastened Woman", she demonstrates a fuller command and, thankfully, mostly relies upon subtle facial expression, which is enhanced by the standard use of close-ups and generally more intimate camera perspectives in 1925, as opposed to their comparative rarity and distance in 1915. As with "A Fool There Was" and as indicated by the publicity stills for her lost films, Bara wears a heavy white make-up and some extravagant outfits (there's a hat in this one that never stops moving) and, sometimes, is provocatively under dressed. In the film, I like the part where Bara's character gives a dress to her husband's mistress, as this underscores in the narrative the importance of Bara's costumes to her films' appeal.
In this film, Bara is, surprisingly, introduced as a modest and pregnant housewife--the antithesis to the vamp character she introduced to the screen in her Fox releases. That changes, however, when she discovers her husband's affair with his secretary. Rather than be the quietly suffering wife, Bara decides to hide her pregnancy from her husband and to go live in Venice for a while. The film's narrative, which involves Bara hiding their son from her husband for a considerable time and some other rather odd battles over marital infidelity, is rather unappealing, but it does at least seem to offer a rather novel twist on Bara's vamp persona. The film also appears to be a bit unpolished for 1925, although it was reportedly made by a small company, which explains the awkwardness of some of the angle shifts during scene dissection.
Especially interesting methinks is that the husband's mistress played by Eileen Percy is a flapper type of character. Like the vamp, the flapper was a sexually liberated and independent new woman, who were sometimes home wreckers and destructive of the men who fell victim to their allure. Later and in film noir in particular, this type was redone and called the femme fatale. Nevertheless, in the end of this picture, Bara returns to being a faithful wife and mother, which, come to think of it, is rather appropriately reflective of Bara's reported life: after leaving Fox and the movies, she married a film director, who supposedly saw it unfit for her to return to acting, and, shortly after this comeback attempt, she remained retired from the screen.
From viewing these two films, it's evident that Bara evolved considerably as an actress during the decade's length (as did film technique). In "The Unchastened Woman", she demonstrates a fuller command and, thankfully, mostly relies upon subtle facial expression, which is enhanced by the standard use of close-ups and generally more intimate camera perspectives in 1925, as opposed to their comparative rarity and distance in 1915. As with "A Fool There Was" and as indicated by the publicity stills for her lost films, Bara wears a heavy white make-up and some extravagant outfits (there's a hat in this one that never stops moving) and, sometimes, is provocatively under dressed. In the film, I like the part where Bara's character gives a dress to her husband's mistress, as this underscores in the narrative the importance of Bara's costumes to her films' appeal.
In this film, Bara is, surprisingly, introduced as a modest and pregnant housewife--the antithesis to the vamp character she introduced to the screen in her Fox releases. That changes, however, when she discovers her husband's affair with his secretary. Rather than be the quietly suffering wife, Bara decides to hide her pregnancy from her husband and to go live in Venice for a while. The film's narrative, which involves Bara hiding their son from her husband for a considerable time and some other rather odd battles over marital infidelity, is rather unappealing, but it does at least seem to offer a rather novel twist on Bara's vamp persona. The film also appears to be a bit unpolished for 1925, although it was reportedly made by a small company, which explains the awkwardness of some of the angle shifts during scene dissection.
Especially interesting methinks is that the husband's mistress played by Eileen Percy is a flapper type of character. Like the vamp, the flapper was a sexually liberated and independent new woman, who were sometimes home wreckers and destructive of the men who fell victim to their allure. Later and in film noir in particular, this type was redone and called the femme fatale. Nevertheless, in the end of this picture, Bara returns to being a faithful wife and mother, which, come to think of it, is rather appropriately reflective of Bara's reported life: after leaving Fox and the movies, she married a film director, who supposedly saw it unfit for her to return to acting, and, shortly after this comeback attempt, she remained retired from the screen.