it’s sure strange watching fredric march and clara bow in a scene together. bow’s large acting and doll eyes and constantly waving her arms around seems histrionic next to march’s much more subtle line delivery. there’s a scene where she comes to his room at night and barrels through the door while fumbling through her lines before fredric effortlessly continues the dialogue. it feels like an amateur has stumbled into a well-rehearsed play after having only read the script five minutes beforehand. I’m not saying clara bow is a bad actress, she was just used to a very different kind of acting. and I find the transition from silents to talkies so interesting in terms of how much film actors had to relearn how to do their jobs. I think that’s why there are so many awkward pauses in these early talkies, because that’s what sound introduction did for cinema: created an awkward pause that lasted for a good few years where actors just kind of bumbled around, hoping they didn’t look too lost while trying to find the mic hidden in the bush.
