A Fool There Was
About A Fool There Was
John Schuyler, a Wall Street lawyer with a wife and daughter, is sent to England as a diplomat. His family stays behind. On the ship he meets a woman billed as the Vampire (Theda Bara), who takes up men and leaves them ruined. He drops his family, his job, and his standing, and drinks. Their attempts to bring him home fail. The intertitle 'Kiss me, my fool!' is the line the film became known for.
Cast & crew
More about A Fool There Was
William Fox produced. Frank Powell directed and adapted, with a scenario by Roy L. McCardell, from the play by Porter Emerson Browne. George Schneiderman photographed. The Box Office Attraction Company released it on 12 January 1915. Fox Film reissued a five-reel version in June 1918. Scenes played as England and Italy were shot in St. Augustine, New York Harbor, and Fort Lee.
Themes
Background
Released 12 January 1915, before the feature industry had fully left the East Coast. Fort Lee was still Fox's studio town.
In film history
Bara's Vampire, and the line 'Kiss me, my fool!,' fixed the vamp as a movie type: a woman who fascinates a man and then uses him up.
Making
Fox shot the 'foreign' decks and streets in Florida, the harbor, and the Fort Lee studio, which was still a main production center in 1915.
Look
George Schneiderman photographed the shipboard meeting and the later scenes of Schuyler's collapse, with Florida and Fort Lee standing in for England and Italy.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
One of the few surviving Theda Bara films. Selected for the National Film Registry in 2015.
Notes
- Edward José plays Schuyler. May Allison, in her first film, is in the cast. Runa Hodges plays the child.
- Bara's credit is 'The Vampire.' The word is used as in Kipling's poem, not for a supernatural monster. The film is one of the titles that put 'vamp' into general use.
- It is one of the few Bara films that survive.
- The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 2015.
- A print is on the Internet Archive and on Wikimedia Commons.
Scenes
- Schuyler meets the Vampire on the ship after his wife and daughter have been left at home.
- The intertitle 'Kiss me, my fool!' is addressed to the man she has already ruined.
Influenced by
- A Fool There Was (play by Porter Emerson Browne)
- The Vampire (poem by Rudyard Kipling)
Also available
- Internet Archive (A_Fool_There_Was)
- Wikimedia Commons (A Fool There Was.webm)
Quotes
Kiss me, my fool!
