Book Reviewed: Damsels and Divas: European Stardom in Silent Hollywood by Agata Frymus

Tinseltown and the European rhapsody

Studying the female performers on American cinema during early 1900s is fascinating. The success of European women in Hollywood was particularly noteworthy. This book discusses the lives of three women from Europe: Pola Negri, Jetta Goudal, and Vilma Banky, and it attribute their lack of success in showbusiness is due to their “ethnicity,” “femininity” and the cultural process of “Americanization.” This argument is somewhat strange since all of them were white and their spoken language and accents did not matter since the movies were silent. Despite this, all of them gained good roles opposite well-known male actors, and they lived comfortably amidst success during the silent era. The transition from silent film to the “talkies” in the late 1920s transformed the movie industry. Many American icons could not make it into talkies successfully. It hurt more American actors/actresses than European performers who had voice and accent issues that made it harder. Despite this shortcoming, some European women succeeded, like Greta Garbo, Marlena Dietrich, Alla Nazimova, and others.

The author repeatedly uses ethnicity and feminine nature of European performers. There was nothing special about the feminine nature of these three women that contrasted others in Hollywood, Vilma Banky spoke little English. But she got to costar with matinee idols like Rudolph Valentino and Ronald Coleman. Some of them like Jetta Goudal was casted as Mexican or Asian was due to the available roles in their studios. American actresses like Loretta Young, Katharine Hepburn, Myrna Loy, Mary Pickford, Gale Sondergaard and Barbara Stanwyck have played roles of an Asian character. The author’s labeling Jetta Goudal as physically different from the ideals of white femininity is groundless and unwarranted. How can European be a racialized spectacle? The logic behind the author’s judgment is unreasonable. Despite this shortcoming in author’s assessment, the book covers the personal and professional career of Pola Negri and Vilma Banky to an acceptable level.