Cinema: The New Pictures: Dec. 5, 1932

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Call Her Savage (Fox) is a blatant and tasteless libel on the Amerind, notable only because its heroine is impersonated by Clara Bow, who retired from the cinema in 1931 after winning a suit against her secretary, Daisy De Boe. When, after retiring to a Nevada ranch and marrying Actor Rex Bell, Cinemactress Bow announced last summer that she would resume acting, producers were dubious. They felt that Miss De Boe's revelations about Miss Bow's private affairs might have injured her popularity. Having decided to take a chance, Fox did more. It chose as a vehicle for Cinemactress Bow a story as crude as possible. Author Tiffany Thayer's Call Her Savage. As the heroine of this opus, Miss Bow is called upon to show the sexual glamour for which she is celebrated by beating a rattlesnake to death with a horsewhip, flaying a half-breed Indian, marrying a libertine (Monroe Owsley) and knocking him unconscious, blacking the eye of her husband's mistress (Thelma Todd), practicing prostitution, boxing the ears of her second fiancé (Anthony Jewitt) and punching a horse in the stomach. The only explanation for her behavior lies in the fact that she is not, as she supposes, the daughter of a Texas railroad millionaire (Willard Robertson) but the bastard offspring of his wife (Estelle Taylor) and a yodeling Indian chief named Ronasa.

Monroe Owsley, who has been a cinema cad so often that his last name sounds like a pun, tries hard to be an oily villain but his part, like everything else in the story, is cheaply invented and implausible. The only redeeming feature of Call Her Savage is Miss Bow's performance. Looking slightly more blowzy than she did in the days when she played flapper parts in silent cinema, she shows with enthusiastic violence and a flat, tough Brooklyn accent what such flappers can turn out to be when they grow up. Typical shot: Nasa (Clara Bow), insulted in a café, hurling a plate with one hand and striking a waiter with the other. Confessed Actress Bow when she arrived in Manhattan last week: "I'm getting older, and hot-cha doesn't pay."

The Half Naked Truth (RKO). Lee

Tracy: "A row of farmers is a circus man's rosary. . . . Never give a sucker an even break, 'cause it's dog eat dog all along the line. . . . For every kid that's born with a dollar there's twins born on the other side of the street aiming to take it away from him. ... So the only way to make a ten strike is to strike up the band. . . . Anyway, what the heck, it's a lot of fun.

Lupe Velez: "Ha! So you are jealous of me!"