Slideshow
THE WILD PARTY
U.S., 1929
Directed by Dorothy Arzner
With Clara Bow, Fredric March
Cinematography by Victor Milner
Approx. 77 min. 35mm print courtesy of Universal.
Dorothy Arzner’s raucous pre-Code comedy THE WILD PARTY, starring Clara Bow in her—and Paramount’s—historic first ‘talkie,’ is celebrated for the sapphic implications in its portrayal of female friendships. It skyrocketed Arzner’s career, the first out Lesbian director to work in Hollywood.
Reviews
“Arzner also creates romantic interpersonal space, most strikingly in the naturalistic choreographies of homoerotic body language between Stella (Bow) and Helen (Shirley O’Hara). As dialogue scenes, they are discussions of heterosexual activity; as images, they are depictions of a lesbian relationship.”
– Senses of Cinema