The girl can’t help it in Mantrap, a raucous silent romantic comedy starring the inimitable Clara Bow as an out-of-control flirt at the center of a madcap love triangle in backwoods Canada. It’s a testament to Bow’s endearingly audacious appeal that Mantrap was a hit at the box office, despite having been adapted from a commercially unsuccessful novel published by Sinclair Lewis less than two months before the film’s release. (The sharp direction from Victor Fleming and the gorgeous photography from James Wong Howe surely helped, too.) Fleming, who had directed eighteen tepidly received films by the time of Mantrap’s release, was uniquely suited to the material as a rugged sportsman, a great director of actresses, and a bit of a Casanova. The film became the 37-year-old director’s breakthrough in a career that was really only just beginning, and he wasn’t the only one — Wong Howe had yet to establish his reputation, and Bow was just on the cusp of dominating the zeitgeist with 1927’s It. (Bow would name Mantrap as her enduring favorite among her own films.) In the film, Alverna (Bow), a head-turning Minneapolis manicurist, agrees to dinner and a marriage with Joe Easter (Ernest Torrance), an oafish yet adoring shop owner based in Mantrap, Canada. Ralph Prescott (Percy Marmont), a hotshot New York divorce attorney, takes a troubled sojourn to Mantrap, where the jaded bachelor is flabbergasted and irritated to find Alverna making eyes at him from the dock. She shamelessly pursues him and we can’t quite blame him for buckling, just as we can’t quite blame her for flirting. The script’s paper-thin characterization of Alverna and her motivations are rendered inconsequential by the vitality of Bow’s intuitive and intelligent performance. What else is the consummate flapper supposed to do in Mantrap, Canada? Can a woman so vibrant handle being so bored? She can hardly be contained onscreen!

Preceded by: “Alice in the Wooly West” (Walt Disney, 1926) – 8 min – 16mm