Will Clara Bow's Really Quick Topless Scene Be In Restored Print?

Most people seem to think that the tendency towards protraying sex in film forms one long upward curve from, say, 1900 on. Actually that's not at all true.

By the late 20's-early 30's "sophisticated" films were getting closer and closer to the bare facts (so to speak), in subject matter or actual portrayal onscreen.

So you have Clara giving us a glimpse of a boob, you have Miriam Hopkins very obviously (VERY obviously!) completely naked and with only her absolute goodies covered up by a sheet in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and you even have Jean Harlow pulling her sweater off slightly off-camera in some film ("Bombshell?" I'm not sure), but not quite off-camera enough to prevent us catching a glimpse of nipple.

The trouble was that, even that recently, there was still a sizable audience of bible-thumping small-towners who would have none of it...and when Mae West came along, throwing all morals to the wind, they decided enough was enough and exerted enough leverage to get the Hayes Office to clamp down on stuff for the next 30+ years.

Of course, it wasn't as bleak as all that. If not for the censors there'd have been no such thing as film noir! And Cecil B. DeMille discovered that virtually any subject matter was allowed as long as it was biblical. (And goodness knows how the Marx Brothers kept getting away with their double entendres.)

But just imagine how things would have shaped up had things kept going the way they were! I'm quite certain that by the 40's female nudity would have been as passe as it is today.

Hey, sex wasn't just invented in 1969, y'know!

No offense, Kerry, but your line about "The film is very crisp,and way ahead of others, at that time" begs the question: how many other well-restored films have you seen from around that time?

"Wings," great film as it is, was actually only one of two films that won "Best Picture" that first year from the Academy. Unfortunately, they didn't call either category that at the time, and ever since they've been backtracking to try to make things cohesive, neat and tidy for everyone, with only one winner. (I swear I'm gonna start a petition someday to get them to finally admit BOTH films as their original "best picture.")

I forget the precise names of the categories, but "Wings" won for something like "Best Money Production" (no, they didn't call it anything like that, but it was certainly the intent), and there was also "Best Artistic Production," for which "Sunrise" won.

It was the one and only year that there were two such categories; although the big winner wasn't named "Best Picture" for quite a few years yet, the Academy never again made the mistake of confusing people with more than one.

So you can look at it two ways: the way that most people do, going along with the Academy's retconning and thinking that "Wings" was the only first year winner and "Sunrise" got slapped, or the way that I do, which is probably closer to the reality: the Academy felt that BOTH pictures were deserving equally of honors and had two different categories to bestow them in, and afterwards backtracked.

Only the Academy, of course, can ever make things really right by finally admitting that Sunrise was just as much a winner that year as Wings was, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. (More's the pity for them, though: Wings is a great picture, but Sunrise is a CLASSIC. But then, look at all the turkeys that have won over the years over so many great films. The awards are, first and foremost, political.)

As for the film being "very crisp," I presume you're talking about the recent much-appreciated restoration. But do you think other films from back then weren't equally as "crisp?"

Arguably the films from back then were MORE "crisp" than anything you've seen made over the past fifty years or so. They were filmed on nitrate, which, according to just about every expert, is hands down the best film medium. (Unfortunately it's also highly flammable, even EXPLOSIVE! Which is why it isn't used anymore.) If other films you've seen from back then don't meet the standards of the restored Wings it's probably because you've been looking at third- or fourth- (or seventeenth-! lol) generation prints, long divorced from their nitrate origins. But look at a well-cared for old film from the 20's and you'll find that they ALL used to look as crisp as Wings does now. (And bear in mind that the best you can possibly do now is see a second- or third-generation print! No one's gonna run the risk of putting an actual nitrate film through the sprockets anymore.)

As for its being "well ahead of others," what are you comparing it to? Not to denigrate Wings, but if you want to see a REAL anti-war film from that time, watch "The Big Parade" sometime. (Unfortunately we're still waiting for someone to restore and put that one out on dvd. Amazing film, though...and I'm surprised that Criterion or Kino or Flicker Alley or someone hasn't dug it up and put it through the works yet.) Now THAT'S a film to be reckoned with! Quite possibly the second-best anti-war film ever made, after the original "All Quiet on the Western Front." Well...except for "Duck Soup," of course!

By the way, from what I've heard, "The Big Parade," like "Wings," wasn't just some obscure art film in 1925; it was the second- or third-highest grossing film of the year.

My goodness, how soon they forget!



Losing your virginity, burying your pet and killing your sister...can take a lot out of a girl!