At the height of her career, Pola Negri was the highest paid woman in the film industry. She lived in a mansion in Los Angeles that resembled the White House and set the fashion tone. That's how America knew red nail polish pedicures, fur boots and turbans.
Not bad for a Polish immigrant born into poverty. She had famous lovers like Rudolf Valentino or Charlie Chaplin and several princes and counts. She was the first European star to kill it at Hollywood, signing a contract with Paramount for $3,000 a week, and one of the few actresses to make the transition to talkies.
Negri was a vamp, a flamboyant personality or, as they would say in her adopted country, a lager-than-life figure. Beast (or The Polish Dancer) is her only surviving film from the Polish period, which is reason enough not to miss the unique screening at TIFF, set to live music by Włodek Pawlik. You'll have the chance to admire a phenomenon from another world.
In Beast, Negri plays a dancer, which is somewhat natural. The young Pola, who lost her father when he was arrested and sent to Siberia for alleged revolutionary activities, was accepted at the Imperial Ballet Academy in Warsaw for her talent as a ballerina, but turned to acting after health problems. In this film she is only 20 years old and already shows talent, vivacity and the qualities of a femme fatale. The qualities that would later seduce international audiences, such as exoticism, mystery and intensity, are already clear here. Beast, 20 June, 21:30, The Art Museum
Article written by Anca Grădinariu