Movies by Theda Bara
Her Double Life
Mary Doone (Theda Bara) is a poor British girl who runs away from her adopted family because the father made a pass at her. She lives at a parish house, and at the outbreak of World War I, she becomes a Red Cross nurse.
Camille
Camille is a courtesan in Paris. She falls deeply in love with a young man of promise, Armand Duval. When Armand's father begs her not to ruin his hopes of a career and position by marrying Armand, she acquiesces and leaves her lover. However, when poverty and terminal illness overwhelm her, Camille discovers that Armand has not lost his love for her.
The Forbidden Path
Mary Lynde (Theda Bara) is an innocent girl who has grown up in New York's Greenwich Village. One of the artists there, Felix Benavente (Sidney Mason), uses her as model when he paints a portrait of the Madonna for a church. His friend Robert Sinclair (Hugh Thompson) corrupts Mary so that her father (Walter Law) casts her from his home. She goes to live with Sinclair in his mountain lodge, but after the birth of a child, he callously casts her aside. Subsequently, her baby dies and she sinks to the depths of despair.
La belle Russe
In this film, her next-to-last picture for Fox, it was Theda Bara's turn to tackle a double role. Bara's characters are twin sisters La Belle Russe, the wicked one, and Fleurette, the nice one. They're Parisian dancers, and Fleurette marries Philip Sackton (Warburton Gamble). However, Sackton is a member of Britain's snooty aristocracy, and his family disinherits him.
Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films
Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara; The Miracle Man (1919), with Lon Chaney; He Comes Up Smiling (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks; an early lost sound film, Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), filmed in early Technicolor, and the only color footage of silent star Clara Bow...
The Darling of Paris
This film is a very loose film adaptation of the 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo and presumed lost: The wealthy girl Esmeralda is kidnapped by gypsies at birth and becomes, as one might assume, the darling of Paris. She is loved by the bell ringer and former hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo, the wicked surgeon who cares him, and an equally wicked Captain Phoebus.
Lure of Ambition
Theda Bara plays the social-climbing Olga Dolan, who becomes the Duchess of Rutledge by means of deception and sheer ruthlessness. Sadly, Bara, who had more or less single-handedly begun the "vamp" craze with the prototype of the genre, A Fool There Was, went out with little more than a whisper. She left films after the ironically titled The Lure of Ambition, and was lured back only twice, in: The Unchastened Woman (1925), a poverty row concoction which had few takers, and Madame Mystery (1926)
Heart and Soul
Desperate to change her vixenish image, Theda Bara was called upon to play a sweet young thing (she was nearly 30) who sacrifices herself for the happiness of her sister (Claire Whitney).
Lady Audley's Secret
Florid melodrama of misunderstandings, betrayal and desperation as Theda schemes to keep the title secret.
Kathleen Mavourneen
Kathleen, the daughter of a poor tenant farmer, dreams of her wedding with her beloved Terrence. The dream is interrupted when the Squire of the estate takes an interest in Kathleen and forces her father to allow him to marry her to forgive the father's debt.
The Soul of Buddha
Theda Bara plays a Javanese priestess who elopes with an English military officer (Hugh Thompson). Bara's Bavahari becomes a celebrated dancer but is murdered onstage by a vengeful Buddhist priest (Victor Kennard).
A Woman There Was
Theda Bara plays Princess Zara, who lives on a South Sea Island. A handsome young missionary (William B. Davidson) arrives and there is a romance, which is hindered by various complications including a typhoon.
The Vixen
In this lost film, Theda Bara took the role of spoiled, deceiving nymphomaniac "vixen" Elsie Drummond. She wooed Wall Street businessman Martin Stevens (A. H. Van Buren) away from his interest in her sweet sister Helen (Mary G. Martin). She continued to seek after rich men, eventually marrying young statesman Knowles Murray (Herbert Heyes) (again stolen from Helen) - but still willing to be unfaithful with Stevens who had since regained his fortune. (filmsite.org)
The Rose Of Blood
Lisza Tapenko (Bara) is governess in the household of Prince Arbasoff (Charles Clary). After the death of his wife, Lisza and he become involved, but because of the difference in social station he refuses to marry her. Lisza's former lover, Vassya (Richard Ordynski), convinces her to join the revolution and she goes off to the group headquarters in Switzerland. But the prince's little boy begs to have Lisza come back, so he goes after her and marries her.
Sin
Italian peasant girl deserts her fiancé for wealthy gangster and departs for America.
Gold and the Woman
The daughter of a Mexican aristocrat endures the travails of the Mexican revolution.
The Clemenceau Case
This was Theda Bara's third starring film, and the first which she carried all on her own, with no other name actors in the cast. Based on the Alexander Dumas story, The Clemenceau Case involves Iza, a vampire-wife (Bara), whose wicked ways scandalize her husband, Pierre (William E. Shay).
The Devil's Daughter
"My heart is ice, my passion consuming fire. Let men beware," exclaimed Theda Bara (via an inter-title, of course) in this "Vamp" melodrama based on Grabriele D'Annunzio's 1898 story La Gioconda.
The Two Orphans
This picture is based on the same story that became D.W. Griffith's Orphans of the Storm in 1921. This version, made by the Fox Studios, stars famous "vamp" actress Theda Bara in the role that Lillian Gish later made famous
The Eternal Sapho
A scheme by a beautiful vamp to marry a wealthy young man fails, and the woman returns to her former lover, a sculptor. She is shocked to discover he has committed suicide, and the tragedy catapults her into insanity.