A Fool There Was (1915 film)
| A Fool There Was | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Frank Powell |
| Produced by | William Fox |
| Written by |
Roy L. McCardell (scenario) Frank Powell (adaptation) |
| Based on |
A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Browne |
| Starring |
Theda Bara Edward José |
| Cinematography | George Schneiderman |
| Distributed by | Box Office Attractions Company Fox Film Corporation (1918 re-release) |
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Release date
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Running time
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67 minutes (1915 release) |
| Country | United States |
| Language |
Silent film English intertitles |
A Fool There Was (1915) is an American silent film drama, produced by William Fox, and starring Theda Bara. The film was long considered controversial for such risqué intertitle cards as "Kiss me, my fool!"
The film is one of the few movies with Theda Bara that still exist today. It popularised the term "vamp" (short for vampire), referring to a femme fatale who causes the moral loss of those she seduced, and about how a vampire fascinates then exhausts its victims.
In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
John Schuyler (Edward José), a rich Wall Street lawyer and diplomat, is a husband and a devoted family man. He is sent to England on a diplomatic mission without his wife and daughter. On the ship he meets the "Vampire woman" (Theda Bara) who uses her charms to seduce men and leave after ruining their lives.
Completely under the influence of this woman, he loses his job and abandons his family. All attempts by his family to get him back on the right path fail. And the life of the "idiot" degrades more.
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. However, in the film as in Kipling's poem, the term is used metaphorically as the character is not literally a vampire.
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Wikipedia