Clara Bow’s legacy as Hollywood’s original “It Girl” is receiving renewed attention as her 1927 silent film It leads a new distribution partnership between French classic-film distributor Carlotta Films and US film restoration company Artcraft Pictures. The agreement will bring a collection of restored Hollywood classics from the silent and early sound eras to French cinemas and home entertainment platforms, introducing these films to new audiences.
The collaboration will launch at Lyon’s Lumière Film Festival with a newly restored version of It, directed by Clarence G. Badger. The film is scheduled to screen on October 17 at Lyon’s Auditorium, accompanied on the organ by Italian musician Gabriele Agrimonti. The screening will bring Bow’s best-known film back to the big screen while marking the beginning of a wider effort to make restored American cinema accessible to French audiences.
Released in 1927, It played a significant role in establishing Bow as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and cementing her reputation as the original “It Girl.” The romantic comedy follows Betty Lou Spence, a shopgirl who attempts to win the attention of her wealthy employer. Bow’s performance helped establish the screen persona that made her a defining figure of the silent-film era, while the film’s success contributed to the popularity of the term “It Girl” as a description of a woman whose charm and appeal command attention.
Nearly a century after the film’s release, Bow has found a new generation of admirers through contemporary popular culture. Taylor Swift’s song “Clara Bow,” featured on her 2024 album The Tortured Poets Department, references the silent-film star as part of a broader reflection on fame, celebrity and the entertainment industry’s tendency to move from one generation of women to the next. The song has brought Bow’s name to audiences who may be less familiar with her work or the history of early Hollywood.
Bow’s influence has also extended into contemporary cinema. She inspired Margot Robbie’s character Nellie LaRoy in Damien Chazelle’s 2022 film Babylon, which explored the excesses, ambitions and transformations of early Hollywood. Together, these references in music and film have helped maintain interest in Bow’s legacy beyond the audiences who regularly engage with silent cinema.
Under the new agreement, Carlotta Films will represent Artcraft Pictures’ catalogue across all rights in France. The partnership will focus on bringing restored American films to French audiences through theatrical screenings and home entertainment releases, including Blu-ray editions. Individual release dates for the titles in the collection have not yet been announced.
The catalogue extends beyond It and includes several notable works from Hollywood’s silent and early sound periods. Among them is Herbert Brenon’s Beau Geste (1926), starring Ronald Colman, alongside Cecil B. DeMille’s The Affairs of Anatol (1921), featuring Gloria Swanson. The collection also includes William C. deMille’s Miss Lulu Bett, adapted from Zona Gale’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and His Glorious Night (1929), an early sound film directed by Lionel Barrymore and starring John Gilbert.
Artcraft Pictures was founded by film preservation specialists James Mockoski and Robert A. Harris. Mockoski has worked as an archivist and restoration expert with Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope. Harris, meanwhile, is known for restoration work on major films including Lawrence of Arabia, My Fair Lady and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Their experience in film preservation forms a central part of Artcraft’s work to restore and circulate classic cinema.
Artcraft has also collaborated with the San Francisco Silent Film Festival on restorations from Paramount’s silent-era library. Its restored version of Beau Geste was presented at the Telluride Film Festival earlier this year, providing another example of the company’s efforts to return older films to contemporary audiences through restoration and festival screenings.
For Carlotta Films, the agreement adds to a catalogue developed over nearly three decades of distributing classic cinema in France. Its existing collection includes silent-era works such as F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise, films by Frank Borzage and Erich von Stroheim, and G. W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box, starring Louise Brooks. The addition of Artcraft’s restored titles will further expand the range of American cinema available through the French distributor.
The partnership reflects a shared effort to make both celebrated and lesser-known American films accessible to new audiences. While the restored screening of It provides a timely opportunity to revisit Clara Bow’s legacy, the wider agreement will bring together a collection spanning different stages of Hollywood’s transition from silent cinema to sound.
With Bow’s name appearing in contemporary music and films, the renewed presentation of It also offers an opportunity to reconnect that cultural recognition with the original work that helped establish her place in Hollywood history. The Lumière Film Festival screening will mark the start of the collaboration, with further theatrical and home entertainment releases expected to introduce the restored collection to French viewers.