Dorothy Arzner – one of Hollywood’s only female directors in the early 20th century who helped launch the careers of Katharine Hepburn, Lucille Ball, and Rosalind Russell – was the first woman to direct a film with sound. The Wild Party, Paramount’s first talking picture, was also fans’ first chance to hear silent era star Clara Bow talk. She plays college student Stella Ames, navigating compromising situations with (and, later, her love for) Professor “Gil” Gilmore (Fredric March). The female students at the college are boy-crazy and rarely caught learning anything; the antics don’t conform to recent notions of appropriate faculty behavior, to say the least. Yet even at this distance, the movie has a rollicking appeal—and that’s due mostly to Bow, one of Hollywood’s most charismatic performers. The Wild Party was a hit, and Bow continued to make successful talkies until her well-known personal and financial problems led to a stay in a sanatorium, and Paramount released her from her contract. Her last two films (Call Her Savage and Hoop-La) were made at Fox, after which she retired to Nevada with her husband, Rex Bell, and two sons. 

35mm print courtesy of Universal Pictures.