''A Woman There Was'' is a 1919 American silent

South Seas Today the term South Seas, or South Sea, most commonly refers to the portion of the Pacific Ocean south of the equator. The term South Sea may also be used synonymously for Oceania, or even more narrowly for Polynesia or the Polynesian Triangle ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by J. Gordon Edwards and starring

Theda Bara Theda Bara ( ; born Theodosia Burr Goodman; July 29, 1885 – April 7, 1955) was an American silent film and stage actress. Bara was one of the more popular actresses of the silent era and one of cinema's early sex symbols. Her femme fatal ...

. The film is based on the short story "Creation's Tears", by George James Hopkins (under the name "Neje Hopkins"). Bara portrays Zara, the daughter of a South Seas island tribal chief, who falls in love with a missionary and is killed after helping him escape.

Plot

As described in a film magazine, Zara (Bara), daughter of tribal chief Majah (Ardizoni), is beloved by Pulke (Elliott), a pearl diver. When New England missionary Winthrop Stark (Davidson) arrives, Zara has no time for Pulke but offers her love to Stark, who refuses her as he expects to wed a girl back home. Pulke, jealous of the missionary, attempts to kill him with a spear but Zara shield him at risk to her life. When a typhoon hits the natives, to appease the gods, decide to offer Stark as a sacrifice, but again Zara saves him by offering herself in his place. She plunges into the ocean but is saved by the missionary before she drowns. As a result of his exertions, Stark lingers near death. Zara steals the sacred black pearl from the tomb of her father, who died during the storm, and with it Stark recovers. The natives stab Zara for taking the pearl, and once more she saves Stark, though dying herself, by returning the black pearl as payment for his safety.

Cast

as Princess Zara * William B. Davidson as Reverend Winthrop Stark * Robert Elliott as Pulke *

Claude Payton Claude Duval Payton (March 30, 1882 in Centerville, Iowa – March 1, 1955 in Los Angeles, California) was an American actor in many silent films and other films. On stage, Claude Payton toured with the Spooner Stock Company, which was heade ...

as High Priest * John Ardizoni as Majah

Production

''A Woman There Was'' was filmed in

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. The municipality is located on natural and human-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean an ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, which at that time was often used as a substitute locale in South Seas films.

Reception

Compared to her earlier films, ''A Woman There Was'' was a commercial flop. Prior Fox films had

typecast In film, television, and theatre, typecasting is the process by which a particular actor becomes strongly identified with a specific character, one or more particular roles, or characters having the same traits or coming from the same social or ...

Bara as a vamp, and the public would not accept Bara in a non-vamp role in films such as ''A Woman There Was''.

Preservation status

The studio prints of Bara's films were destroyed along with the rest of Fox's silent films in the

1937 Fox vault fire A major fire occurred in a 20th Century-Fox film-storage facility in Little Ferry, New Jersey, United States on July 9, 1937. Flammable nitrate film had previously contributed to several fires in film-industry laboratories, studios and vaults ...

. With no copies of the film in any private collections or archives, ''A Woman There Was'' is now considered to be a

lost film A lost film is a feature film, feature or short film in which the original negative or copies are not known to exist in any studio archive, private collection, or public archive. Films can be wholly or partially lost for a number of reasons. ...

References

External links

*
''A Woman There Was''
at silentera.com
Theda Bara during shooting of film ''A Woman There Was'' in Miami Beach, Florida
at floridamemory.com (photograph)

at silenthollywood.com (several film stills) {{DEFAULTSORT:Woman There Was, A 1919 films 1919 lost films 1919 romantic drama films 1910s American films 1910s English-language films American black-and-white films American silent feature films English-language romantic drama films Films directed by J. Gordon Edwards Films shot in Miami Fox Film films Lost American romantic drama films Silent American romantic drama films Lost silent American films