It (1927)

A salesgirl with plenty of "it" (sex appeal) pursues a handsome playboy.

Director:

Clarence G. Badger

Writers:

Elinor Glyn (story), Hope Loring (screen play),

Stars:

Clara Bow, Antonio Moreno, William Austin

1 win.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Clara Bow	...	Betty Lou
Antonio Moreno	...	Cyrus Waltham
William Austin	...	Monty
Priscilla Bonner	...	Molly
Jacqueline Gadsden	...	Adela Van Norman (as Jacqueline Gadsdon)
Julia Swayne Gordon	...	Mrs. Van Norman
Elinor Glyn	...	(as Madame Elinor Glyn)

Storyline

Shopgirl Betty Lou has designs on Cyrus Waltham, the handsome owner of the department store where she works. Waltham, though, doesn't even know Betty Lou is around. In hopes of attracting Waltham's attention, she accepts a date with his best friend, Monty, under the condition that they dine at the Ritz, where Waltham also has a dinner date that evening. Her plan works and in no time at all she and Waltham are contemplating marriage. The romance cools when a newspaper reporter mistakenly writes a story depicting Betty Lou as an unwed mother.

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Plot Keywords:

department store | hot dog | reporter | newspaper reporter | mother | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Romance

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Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

USA

Release Date:

15 February 1927 (USA)

Also Known As:

Das gewisse Etwas

Company Credits

Production Co:

Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, Paramount Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

72 min

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Elinor Glyn gave many confusing and sometimes contradictory explanations for what "It" meant, but she always said that "It" did not mean "sex appeal" and anyone who said it did was vulgarizing her concept. Nonetheless, it was as a euphemism for "sex appeal" that "It" entered the language in the 1920s.

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Quotes

[On whether Betty Lou lacks "reserve."]
Cyrus Waltham Jr.: Personally, I think she has plenty - in reserve!

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Connections

Referenced in Jeopardy!: Episode #26.7 (2009)

User Reviews

The Material Girl?

Inspired by Elinor Glyn's novel which fashioned the eponymous catchphrase for sexual magnetism, the film provides a précis of the piece in short Cosmo excerpts that seem to conclude in no uncertain terms: Clara Bow has 'it.' And the film earns that dicey claim and then some: by sheer dint of the effervescent charisma and It-ness of its actors, this succeeds as a suitably complicated Love Triangle (in the screwball tradition), a sympathetic expose of proletarian living, and a lighthearted salute to class subversion. It is also subtler in its physical comedy than one might expect: the exact synchronicity between a raised eyebrow and a peculiar inter-title, for example, can result in the film's funniest and most poignant moments. This witty comedy of errors, misdirection and misunderstanding is a trifle, but it's rousing in its occasional provocations: there is a subplot about Bow's attempt to hide her distraught co-worker and illegitimate son in her tiny apartment that works as an evocation of the stifling, claustrophobic social mores that ruled the day, and then there's the director's earnest attempt to illustrate Bow's purity in courting her wealthy boss (and would-be benefactor) as anything but a money-move, yet we can undoubtedly cheer her material success in the end, her untainted heart leading her to pleasures on both sides of the fence.

While some might find this a cheap breach of the film's established ethics up to that point, one can imagine Bow's character putting her old friend up in the biggest bedroom in the mansion--that's the biggest difference between a determinist, cynical class-iconoclast hero like Morvern Callar and our porcelain Clara Bow. This depiction might reek of star worship (and it might be damned condescending to say It depicts the 'right' way of escalating the social ladder) but it has the unmistakably sweet smell of a caring, smart person trying her best to persuade others of her (and by extension, those that belong to the macrocosm of struggling working girls) value.