Mantrap

The year before she became internationally acclaimed as the original “It Girl” for starring in the film It, Clara Bow made this peppy silent comedy directed by the Wizard Of Oz’s Victor Fleming, which had a gala screening at HippFest with live accompaniment from Neil Brand.

Bow doesn’t actually turn up until part way through the film that begins firmly with the perspective of men. Ralph Prescott (Percy Marmont) is a divorce lawyer, tired of both life and the flirtations of his clients who decides to head up country to the delightfully named Mantrap for some R&R. Joe Easter (Ernest Torrence), meanwhile is a backwoods trader lured by the bright lights and finely turned ankles of Minneapolis.

It is there that Joe crosses the path of the flirtatious Alverna (Bow), a manicurist who gives plenty of flutter with her polish. As is often the way with silent films, things move on at speed and soon Joe and Alverna are married and back at the trading post, just in time for Ralph to enter the picture causing the bored Alverna’s flirtatious to rev up.

The star quality of Bow seems to shine brighter than ever here given that her male co-stars are no heartthrobs. Marmot looks as though he hasn’t seen a dentist’s chair for some years and Torrence is an archetypal big galoot. It’s to her credit then - and that of witty screenwriters Adelaide Heilbron and Ethel Doherty - that she makes her approaches to both men seem plausible. The casting makes good use of her petiteness in comparison to the men and her easy going coquettishness contrasts perfectly with the stiffer acting of the male leads. It is also an early entry in the career of cinematographer James Wong Howe, who would go on to shoot everything from Yankee Doodle Dandy to A Farewell To Arms and Bell Book And Candle, working right up until his death in 1976.

The film zips along as Alverna and Ernest get lost in the wilds with Joe in hort pursuit - and it seems appropriate for a film with a distinct eye for hosiery that the arduousness of their hike is signified by Bow’s increasingly laddered stockings. Despite her flirtations, Alverna is no dope and the film retains an enjoyably feminist feel as its happy ending beckons.

Read more about this year's HippFest programme