It (1927)

This is the Clara Bow silent film. Let's not confuse It with the Stephen King work or the 1966 Roddy McDowall horror film. The title does lend Itself to the horror genre, ala Them! and The Thing. In this case, It's a story of a poor salesgirl with "that special something".

And she does. Clara Bow is hot. Elinor Glyn wrote a book called "It", where she describes this special quality some people posses. This story is not an adaptation of the book. It's a story about people who read the book and then go mad for Clara. Glyn actually appears as herself.

Silent movies are weird, what with the exaggerated reactions and all. The story isn't much. Business upper-muck reads about "It", identifies the quality in Clara (and, mistakenly, himself), and tries to woo her. His dashing friend is too preoccupied to notice, falls for her, hard feelings, comic mischief, misunderstandings, bla bla bla, you know the drill.

I long knew that Clara Bow was the "It" girl long before I knew what the hell that meant. It's good to see the film that started It all off, but I don't need to see It again. AMRU 3.