A Fool There Was is a 1915 silent film drama. Bara plays a vamp who uses her charms to seduce and corrupt a moral Wall Street lawyer, John Schuyler . A Fool There Was was long considered controversial for such risqué intertitle cards as "Kiss me, my fool!" The film was based on a 1909 Broadway play titled A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Browne, which in turn was based on Rudyard Kipling's poem The Vampire. On the stage Bara's part was played by actress Katharine Kaelred and was simply referred to as "The Woman". The star of the play was actually a male, Victorian matinee idol Robert... C. Hilliard, whose name featured prominently in some advertisements for the movie though he had no connection with the film. The producers were keen to pay tribute to their literary source, having a real actor read the full poem to the audience before each initial showing, and presenting passages of the poem throughout the film in intertitles. Bara's official credit is even "The Vampire", and for this reason the film is sometimes cited as the first "vampire" movie. A Fool There Was was also a watershed in early film publicity.
more
| Release date: | 1915 |
| Directed by: | Frank Powell |
| Runtime: | 67 Minutes |
| Producer: | William Fox |
| Screenplay by: | Frank Powell |