Talk:Theda Bara

Number of surviving films?
One part of the paragraph on Ms Bara's career states that six of her films survive and another part states that three survive. I checked various online sources for silent movies, and couldn't find a definitive answer to how many actually do survive - six seems to be a more likely answer, but tbh I'm not anywhere near knowledgeable enough about the subject to want to correct either statement. Can someone knowledgeable take a look at this?
 * I just read this article and wondered the same thing. i believe the answer is that six still exist – presumably The Stain, A Fool There Was, East Lynne, The Unchastened Woman, Madame Mystery and 45 Minutes from Hollywood – of which three exist in complete form, with no missing footage.


 * The article tells us that A Fool There Was is one of the three complete ones. Of The Stain, IMDb says that "for decades a projectionist admirer hoarded one of the original 231 copies made on the early Diacetate safety stock, passing it to a friend who would keep it under his spare bed for another forty years", so that seems to be whole too. The print of East Lynne at MoMA, discovered in 1971, seems to be intact (IMDb refers to it as one of the only Theda Bara films to survive the silent era, no reference to it only partially surviving or to any cuts). 45 Minutes, also notable as the second film Laurel & Hardy appeared in together, also appears to be intact (although Theda is really only in it by default, as Hal Roach recycled footage of her from Madame Mystery after she left her contract with him). Oddly, i can find nothing to suggest any cuts to The Unchastened Woman either.


 * The article says the 9.5mm print of Madame Mystery may have been cut for video presentation; this excellent piece also notes that some scenes are missing towards the end.


 * Forty seconds of Cleopatra exist. Bits of Madame Du Barry allegedly exist. And a French documentary named Theda Bara et William Fox contains clips of two of her other films, both unidentified. And that would appear to be the size of it.


 * So i make that five existing intact, one existing but with missing sections, fragments of three, and rumours of fragments of a fourth. Will update the article accordingly.  tomasz.  00:59, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Named for Aaron Burr's Daughter?
Why would European immigrants choose the name of Aaron Burr's daughter (Theodosia_Burr_Alston) for their child? Could her parents have a Burr connection from his years in Europe?

The Carmen (1915) link points to another movie of the same name made many decades later. I have no idea how to fix that.

Needs better sources
This article was very poorly footnoted. I've removed most of the footnotes pointing to external links, as several simply led to sites with just one or two poor-quality photos of Bara and no further information. The link to http://www.mutoworld.com/Bara.htm seems to have been meant merely to promote a fetish site, as it requires a paid membership to read a brief bio of Bara that was plagiarized from http://www.bombshells.com/gallery/bara/theda_bio.php anyway. The essay at http://www.theolddyke.co.uk/nazimova.htm only mentioned Bara once, in passing. Surely we can do a better job than this. CKarnstein 03:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Theda Bara was on Broadway in 1920, not 1926
"Her film career soon began to slow down, finally ending in 1926 with the Hal Roach comedy Madame Mystery. The following year, Bara made a successful but much maligned appearance on Broadway in The Blue Flame."

The NY Times reviewed her performance in 1920: http://snipurl.com/blue_flame

Theda Speaking
I'm not sure what the complaint is here since the other FTT link was left. I would like other users input, Wildhartlive is welcome to her opinion but I am disputing it and I would like more than 2 people's opinions. This link (http://forgetthetalkies.com/2008/09/silents-talk-theda-bara.html) is my site, and I would like to know how else to show Theda's voice on Wikipedia without linking there. I feel its a relevant link because many people are curious what silent film stars sounded like (or indeed if that ended their careers, though in Theda's case she was long fallen by talkies). How could this be unsourced or wrong?

As for the filmography link hard research went into that which is not linkable in a simple way on Wikipedia. A silent film forum full of authors and preservationists looked into archive records and some have even gone their themselves to find what still exists. This is verifiable by looking at something like the UCLA film archive online. But how in the world would you link that elsewise? On the lost film page the PSFL was cited for Camille existing even though it was wrong and user added. They had had that up for 4 years. I wrote them and they changed it. Film historian Bob Birchard found this was indeed a mislabelled tin. I linked the filmography but Wildhardlive removed it, I dont know why its extremely valuable here.

I am sick of these blog accusations. Sites like (or their variants) and  are all run by one person, and in certain cases have user contributions like Wikipedia (the PSFL list). Those sites are allowed to link and generally added on wikipedia, I do not see what the difference between them and Forget the Talkies is. We do valuable research and I think it is INSANE to be written off based on layout, and not content.--Maggiedane (talk) 00:20, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not going to go around to each page and restate the same thing. If I left a link, that can be rectified. Your site link was removed per WP:SPS, WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:ELNO. It doesn't do your case any good to keep putting the links back in. When, and if, the noticeboards I mentioned determine your site is a reliable source, not original research and your adding it is not a conflict of interest, then fine. But until then, please don't keep readding your website. And again, there is only your word that the owners of the sites you mention add the links themselves and meanwhile, WP:Other stuff exists isn't a good argument for your site. Wildhartlivie (talk) 09:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I understand about the filmography not being acceptable (bc it's original research), but what exactly is the problem with linking to the voice? Givememoney17 (talk) 21:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Could someone add a pronunciation guide on her name? Would it rhyme with "Greta Barbara?" "Zeta Sarah?" 68.165.77.136 (talk) 19:15, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, it looks like it actually rhymes with "Rita Sarah." 68.165.77.136 (talk) 19:23, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Can you tell me what is totally wrong . ..
with the second paragraph from Theda Bara's page??? 'Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" (short for vampire). Bara made more than 40 films between 1914 and 1926, but most are now lost due to a fire that destroyed the majority of her films in 1937. She retired from acting upon her marriage to Charles Brabin in 1921, and never appeared in a sound film.' johncheverly 02:14, 17 February 2013 (UTC)johncheverly 02:15, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * No, I can't. So why don't you tell us? GrindtXX (talk) 13:58, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm not seeing what is "totally wrong" with those sentences either. If you find something confusing or grammatically incorrect, edit the page to correct it. If you don't want to fix it, it makes more sense to clearly explain what is "wrong" on the talk page instead of trying to get others to read your mind.  Pinkadelica ♣  19:26, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I would guess the problem being pointed out is that she supposedly retired in 19*21* but made more than 40 films between 1914 and 19*26*. There's an unexplained 5 year gap there. And I guess before fixing it we would need to figure out which one is more reliable. DreamGuy (talk) 03:15, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I fixed it. It's explained in the article but it doesn't make sense in the lead all buy itself - she had a five year contract (which presumably began in 1919) and let it run out. She then appeared in two films in 1925 and 1926 and then she retired. Thanks for pointing it out. You don't win anything though :).  Pinkadelica ♣  09:15, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

When Men Desire
Article states there are fragments of When Men Desire. I've never seen that written anywhere else. Did the film get found recently? What's the deal? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.36.107.205 (talk) 20:05, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Even mentioned in Dragnet
Was surprised to hear Officer Gannon (Harry Morgan) describe some girl as being almost as pretty as Theda Bara in a 1969 episode of Dragnet. As her career ended with the introduction of talkies in the mid-20s, Gannon must have been the oldest officer on the force. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:801:4280:A710:84A1:2254:5C2D:974A (talk) 09:53, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Theda Bara. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120901030944/http://oncotton.co.uk:80/starr/documents/THEDAprogramme&PDF.pdf to http://oncotton.co.uk/starr/documents/THEDAprogramme&PDF.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 04:17, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Theda Bara. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20120406214701/http://www.wlwt.com/news/28472524/detail.html to http://www.wlwt.com/news/28472524/detail.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 22:49, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on Theda Bara. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120716222612/http://www.classicimages.com/1996/july/theda.html to http://www.classicimages.com/1996/july/theda.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101102145730/http://www.bombshells.com/gallery/bara/theda_gallery.php to http://www.bombshells.com/gallery/bara/theda_gallery.php
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120716222612/http://www.classicimages.com/1996/july/theda.html to http://www.classicimages.com/1996/july/theda.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20030805031539/http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~pringle/silent/ssotm/May96/ to http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~pringle/silent/ssotm/May96/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 11:27, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Strangely appearing Hays Code
In the "Persona" section: "Bara was known for wearing very revealing costumes in her films. Such outfits were banned from Hollywood films after the Production Code (a.k.a. the Hays Code) started in 1930 under Will H. Hays and then rigorously enforced beginning in mid-1934 by Joseph Breen. It was popular at that time to promote an actress as mysterious..." The Hays Code postdates Bara's career so the sentence "Such outfits..." is irrelevant and should be deleted. Anyway it appears to be a random interpolation since "It was popular at that time..." fits only with "in her films", not with "1930" or "1934". I am deleting that sentence; if someone thinks it should be restored, I've copied it here. Zaslav (talk) 05:39, 20 April 2024 (UTC)