Battle of the Screen Divas Part One

Pola Negri

Before Dietrich, before Garbo, there was Negri. She became the first major European star to be signed by a major Hollywood studio (Paramount) and she hit the ground with drive to spare. While The Spanish Dancer marked her 4th film in one year, Pola still had time to become a style icon tightly wrapped in Hollywood mythology, her public hungry to lap up what she and her studio threw at them.

Negri had a dancer trained sensual body and deep, penetrating eyes perfectly suited to playing the seductive dancer and fortune teller Maritana of the title and she lit up the screen at every instance.

Spendthrift, but penniless, Spanish aristocrat Don Cesar de Bazan (Antonio Moreno) is unceremoniously thrown out of his countryside castle after his latest extravagant party leaves him bankrupt. He catches sight of the sultry Maritana, a Roma dancer, and suddenly his lower income bracket doesn’t seem as hard to take that is until he gets arrested and sentenced to the firing squad. A lecherous King Philip IV (Wallace Berry wearing what may be the worst wig in history) tries to make a deal with her for the Don Cesar’s life and things start to get very complicated.

Now restored to very close to original glory, this highly entertaining film filled with suggestive and sarcastic wit, inspired cinematography by James Wong Howe, and solid scripting is back to be enjoyed again.

Live piano accompaniment by Marilyn Lerner

Tickets $16

Make it part of a Saturday Pass or Festival Pass

Battle of the Screen Divas continues tomorrow with Gloria Swanson

TSFF runs Nov 11-13