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Theda Bara was a silent film actress nicknamed “The Vamp” for her darkly beautiful looks and gothic persona. She was an object of both fear and lust, and at one point the most famous actress in the world. 

 A 1915 Fox publicity report said of her:

“Have the physical attributes of scheming Delilah, of cruel Lucretia Borgia, or of diabolical Elizabeth Bathory fatefully found reincarnation?

 Are the souls of those monsters of ancient and medieval times welded with others to form the soul of Mlle. Theda Bara, the moving picture actress known as the most wicked-faced woman in the world?”

Mary Pickford wrote:

“After Theda, a vampire wave surged over the country. 

 Women appeared in vampire gowns, pendant earrings, and even young girls were attempting to change from frank, open-eyed ingenues to the almond-eyed, carmine-lipped woman of subtlety and mystery.”

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Blonde Crazy (Roy Del Ruth, 1931)

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Sylvia Sidney

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What Price Hollywood?, 1932, George Cukor

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Miriam Hopkins, Herbert Marshall, and Kay Francis in publicity photos for Trouble in Paradise  (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)

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A Bill of Divorcement (1932)

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Gary Cooper as The Kid

City Streets (1931)

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Merrily We Go to Hell (Dorothy Arzner, 1932)

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Joan Blondell in the pre-Code comedy The Greeks Had A Word For Them  (Lowell Sherman, 1932).

Blondell was a very popular star for Warner Bros. They starred her in 9 films in 1932. She said she hardly knew sometimes where she was or what she was doing, asking simply for her lines and the situation before the cameras starting rolling.

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Carole Lombard in Virtue (1932)

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W.C. Fields, Elise Cavanna, and Zedna Farley in The Dentist (Leslie Pearce, 1932)

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Design for Living, Ernst Lubitsch (1933)

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The New Movie, July 1930

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Promotional stills of Ann Dvorak in Scarface, 1932.

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The Smiling Lieutenant (1931, Ernst Lubitsch)