They say there's a first time for everything. And this Sunday will be my first time with Theda Bara.
And that seems surprising. After all, I've been doing silent film music for 20 years. In the hundreds of movies I've accompanied, you'd think the list might have included ONE Theda Bara film.
But nope! A combination of scarcity (very few of her films survive) plus lack of availability of good-looking prints has led to a prolonged Theda Bara drought in my performance schedule.
Well, that changes this weekend! On Sunday, Sept. 13, I'll have the privilege of accompanying 'A Fool There Was' (1915), one of the iconic star's few intact surviving films, at the Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H.
Showtime is 2 p.m. Admission is free; a donation of $10 per person is suggested to support the Town Hall Theatre's silent film series.
For all the Theda Bara groupies out there, here's a rare chance to see one of the mysterious star's surviving films on the big screen and with live music.
And yes, there are Theda Bara groupies. Her reputation as a "vamp"—and one of Hollywood's earliest sex symbols—has stood the test of time, even if most of her films haven't.
And about that title: 'A Fool There Was.' Sounds like Yoda came up with that one!
Well, weird syntax or not, lots more info about the screening and film can be found in the press release below:
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MONDAY, AUG. 24, 2026 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com
Most of Theda Bara’s films are lost. See one that survived.
Silent screen’s original sex symbol stars in rare 1915 thriller ‘A Fool There Was,’ screening Sept. 13 in Wilton with live music
WILTON, N.H.—She was one of the biggest movie stars in the world. She became one of cinema’s first sex symbols. She made more than 40 films.
And almost all of them are gone.
Theda Bara, the legendary “vamp” of the silent screen, returns to the big screen in one of her rare surviving films when 'A Fool There Was' (1915) is shown on Sunday, Sept. 13 at 2 p.m. at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.
The melodramatic thriller will be presented with live music by silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis, recreating the way audiences experienced movies when Bara was an international sensation more than a century ago.
Admission is free. Donations are gladly accepted to support the venue's silent film series, with $10 per person suggested.
For film fans, 'A Fool There Was' offers something increasingly rare: the chance to see an authentic performance by one of the first superstars of the motion picture era.
Bara appeared in more than 40 films during a career that made her among the most recognizable faces of the 1910s. But because of nitrate deterioration, fires, neglect, and the wholesale disappearance of early motion pictures, only a handful of her films survive in substantially complete form.
That makes 'A Fool There Was' much more than an antique curiosity. It is a survivor.
And it’s the film that created the Theda Bara legend.
In 'A Fool There Was', Bara plays a mysterious seductress who ensnares a respectable married man and systematically brings about his downfall.
The role turned Bara into cinema’s original 'vamp'—a woman whose sexual magnetism proved irresistible and potentially fatal to the men around her.
Audiences had seen nothing quite like her.
With her darkly exotic appearance, heavy eye makeup, revealing costumes, and brazen sexuality, Bara became one of Hollywood’s earliest sex symbols before Hollywood itself had fully emerged as the center of the movie industry.
Her studio heightened the sensation by concocting an outrageous publicity campaign that portrayed the Cincinnati-born actress as an exotic woman of mystery, supposedly born in the shadow of the Sphinx.
The public ate it up.
Bara became a phenomenon, and the 'vamp' became a permanent character in American popular culture.
But unlike Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and other silent-era stars whose work remains widely available, Bara today is largely a legend without films.
The vast majority of her screen appearances have vanished. Audiences can read about her extraordinary fame and see her famous publicity photographs, but they have few opportunities to actually watch the woman who once fascinated millions.
'A Fool There Was' is the great exception.
The Wilton screening offers a chance not merely to watch the film, but to experience it in the environment for which it was created: on a big screen, with live music, and surrounded by an audience.
Silent movies were never intended to be silent. In their original theatrical runs, films were accompanied by musicians who supplied everything from atmosphere and emotion to rhythm and dramatic punctuation.
For the Wilton screening, Rapsis will improvise a complete score live as the film unfolds.
And the audience is part of the experience.
A century ago, movies were intensely communal entertainment. People laughed, gasped, applauded, and reacted together. With a good-sized crowd and live music, that same chemistry can still happen today.
The result is something streaming at home cannot reproduce: a century-old film suddenly becoming a live event.
And in the case of Theda Bara, it’s also a chance to encounter a performer whose work came perilously close to disappearing altogether.
Most of Theda Bara’s movies are gone forever.
On Sunday, Sept. 13, one of them gets another afternoon on the big screen.
'A Fool There Was' (1915), starring Theda Bara, will be shown with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis on Sunday, Sept. 13 at 2 p.m. at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.
Admission is free, with donations gladly accepted to support the silent film series. A donation of $10 per person is suggested.
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