Vilma Bausly, born January 9th, 1898 in Haygroog, Hungary, became one of the most popular European actresses in Berlin, Vienna and Paris, between her debut in 1920 and 1925. Almost all the films from that period seem today to be lost, with the exception of L’Image (1925) by Jacques Feyder and Le Roi du Cirque (1925), the last film where Max Linder appears as an actor (he committed suicide immediately after completing the film). However, news media from that period is full of praise for films such as Hotel Potëmkin (1924) by Max Neufeld and Das Verbotene Land (1924) by Friedrich Féher, based on a novel by Felix Salten, where Vilma is the esteemed leading lady. While talent hunting in Europe, Samuel Goldwyn saw pictures of Banky, and at a theater in Vienna he was spellbound by the actress’s beauty in Das schöne Abenteuer (1923). He bought the film and presented it in the States as The Lady from Paris. Finally, he went to Budapest where he convinced Banky, at the sight of the dollar signs, to sign a five year contract. Her first Hollywood film was The Dark Angel (1925), paired with Ronald Colman, a young English actor on a rapid rise to success. Vilma was then “loaned” by Goldwyn to United Artists, where she made two films with Rudolph Valentino, The Eagle (1925) and The Son of the Sheik (1926). Once back with Goldwyn she made three more films with Colman: the western The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926), in which an extremely young Gary Cooper also appears, The Night of Love (1927) and The Magic Flame (1927).  And while everything led to the believe that Vilma and Colman were also partners in real life, the actress instead married Rod La Roque, also a very popular actor. Many thought the newlyweds would appear together on the screen, but it was not to be. It may be precisely for that reason that their marriage lasted 42 years, ending only with the death of La Roque. Vilma acted in a few more films, but her strong accent, that persisted despite diction lessons, would not allow her to go much further after the advent of sound.

Vittorio Martinelli

Romantic but not an idealised heroine, she was perfect for costume films such as The Night of Love (George Fitzmaurice, 1927), from a text by Calderon de la Barca, written by Lenore Coffee, a sort of Spanish Robin Hood. As in The Son of the Sheik, she plays the white aristocratic woman, held prisoner by fiery Ronald Colman (Montero), the exotic son of a gypsy king, turned into a bandit. Obviously she falls in love with hilm, although being married to Montagu Love (Duke de la Garda), the man who made Montero an outlaw, having forced the ius primae noctis on to his betrothed (who preferred killing herself rather than accepting his vile attentions). Eroticism in costume is one of the strong points of American cinema of the Twenties, as it enabled to shift desire and transgression into the past and in an exotic setting, with maybe a veneered touch of culture, giving free rein to spectacular productions with sumptuous as well as – sometimes – highly improbable costumes.

Giuliana Muscio, “Girls, Ladies, Stars”, Cinegrafie, n. 13, 2000