NOTES

Photos #s 1,4,5,11,12,14 courtesy of the author.

1.– Although Dorothy Arzner’s work is generally unknown except to film historians and specialists, the author is happy to report that her reputation continues to rise. When the British Film Institute recently released its list of 360 key films in the history of cinema, most critics for whom the list was submitted for comment felt the lack of a single Arzner film was a major oversight.

2.-- Although Bow was a featured player in Dancing Mothers, her presence is entirely irrelevant to the film’s similarity to Party. For the record, Alice Joyce was the star of Dancing Mothers and Joan Crawford was the star of Our Modern Maidens.

3.-- Needless to say, the author would love to see the first Bow/Arzner collaboration: 1927’s Get Your Man. However, at this time the only known print – albeit missing several reels – is in the Library of Congress and is unavailable for review.

4.-- Among the other films made during the 1929 – 1930 period that I compared Party to on a technical level: Anna Christie, Sunny Side Up,Marianne, Not So Dumb, The Floradora Girl, Free and Easy, Doughboys,Madam Satan, Atlantic, Blackmail, The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, The Big Trail, and of course, Bow’s Dangerous Curves, The Saturday Night Kid, and True to the Navy. By far, the only one that seems as adventurous as Party is Hitchcock’s Blackmail; and without a doubt the worst is the one that is probably the most seen: the Marx Brothers The Cocoanuts.

5.–- It’s not at all ironic that one of the lines Fredric March says to Bow is: "I hate you – and I love you."

6.-- The author apologizes at this point for deliberately intermixing Clara’s name throughout the article with that of her character, Stella. However, this is central to the author’s intention as the two seem deliberately to be so much one and the same.

7.-- Compare the climax of Our Modern Maidens. In that film, Joan Crawford isn’t married to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. for two minutes before she discovers he’s the father of best friend Anita Page’s child. So she walks out on her wedding claiming to the crowd it was her indiscretion that is now causing the wedding to be annulled. Then she flies off to Paris and into the arms of second lead Rod La Rocque.


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