Showing posts with label A Girl in Every Port. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Girl in Every Port. Show all posts

Friday, February 23, 2024

Victor McLaglen and Star Cast in "A Girl in Every Port" at the Fox Theater in Washington D.C.

Speaking of A Girl in Every Port, which I posted about a couple of days ago.... More than a few years ago, back in 2004, I acquired an unusual photo of a group of servicemen with the United States Coast Guard standing outside the lobby entrance to the Fox theater in Washington D.C. For the longest time, I never knew which Fox theater this was -- until the other day, when I was able to triangulate its location via a keyword newspaper search.

The theater was showing A Girl In Every Port (1928), which starred Victor McLaglen, Robert Armstrong and Louise Brooks. The marquee above the uniformed members of the Coast Guard reads:

                            Victor McLaglen and Star Cast in "A Girl in Every Port"

                     "Semper Paratus" with U.S. Coast Guard and Fox Ensemble of 125

                       Prologue - Richard Singer & Concert Orchestra - Charles Althoff

 

I was able to determine which Fox theater this was based on the supporting acts, which opened with the film in late March of 1928. Here is the newspaper clipping which solved the mystery.

I describe this photograph, a publicity image, as "unusual" because of its size. The vintage print which I own measures 29" wide by 10" tall. It is huge, and I had to scan it in two sections on my flatbed scanner. My apologies for the unseemly seam showing where I stitched the two sections together. The photograph  is in rough shape (and was when I purchased it), so I decided to scan it and do a little clean-up on it in order to preserve it digitally.

If you would like to view it close-up, you can download it and look at it in detail. An illustration of Louise Brooks appears in the photo, to the right of the man in a suit and tie wearing a hat in the middle right of the image. I only spotted Brooks' image when I was looking at this image full size on my computer.

I scanned this image at 300 dpi, and thus my scan measures a little more than 29 inches by 10 inches. Like I said. It is huge. I attempted to place this image on this blog horizontally at full size -- and thus created the widest web page in history -- but it didn't display well. I am posting an enlarged, though not full size version, vertically below. If you are looking at this image on a laptop, flip your device and scroll....

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2024. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Thursday, February 22, 2024

A Girl in Every Port, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928

A Girl in Every Port, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928. A Girl in Every Port is a classic early “buddy film,” On loan to Fox, Louise Brooks plays Marie (Mam’selle Godiva), the girl in Marseille, France. The film was directed by Howard Hawks, and stars Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong as the two sailors, and features Marie Casajuana, Sally Rand, Natalie Kingston, Leila Hyams, and Myrna Loy as the women they romance in various ports of call. More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society filmography page

The film was shot in November and December, 1927 at Fox’s studios in Hollywood. Location shooting was done on a boating trip to Santa Cruz Island, located along the California coast. The film debuted at the mammoth Roxy theater in New York City. Fox claimed, and Film Daily reported, that A Girl in Every Port had broke the “world’s record” for a single day’s box office receipts, when on February 22, 1928 it premiered at the Roxy in New York and grossed $29,463.00. A hit, the film was written up in just about every NYC publications, from the German-language New Yorker Volkszeitung to Women’s Wear Daily to the socialist Daily Worker.

The film received glowing reviews. TIME magazine stated, “A Girl in Every Port is really What Price Glory? translated from arid and terrestrial irony to marine gaiety of the most salty and miscellaneous nature. Nobody could be more charming than Louise Brooks, that clinging and tender little barnacle from the docks of Marseilles. Director Howard Hawks and his entire cast, especially Robert Armstrong, deserve bouquets and kudos.” Weekly Film Review noted that the audience “Cheered it – and loved it!”

What many critics focused on was the bond between the two male characters, sailors played by Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong. Bland Johaneson of the New York Daily Mirror wrote, “A Girl in Every Port at the Roxy is a man’s picture. It’s a good character comedy. But the love interest is the love of two men friends. The girls are all rats. And that limits the picture’s appeal to the romanticists. . . . Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong do fine acting, and the comedy is neatly handled.” Limitations aside, women also liked the picture, according to the Newark Star-Eagle. “Women laughed delightedly in the Fox Terminal yesterday at what was supposed to be exclusively a he-man picture. Victor McLaglen starred as a true adventurer in A Girl in Every Port, and although the film was mostly fast battling, feminine spectators found delightful entertainment in it. . . . He has a prize associate in Robert Armstrong, who was the fighter in the stage version of Is Zat So, and Louise Brooks, cast as a sideshow siren, does capitally as the crisis of McLaglen’s career as a seaport Don Juan. . . . This is a salty, virile picture, full of flying fists and colorful rows in strange climates and distinguished by the unmovie like and emphatic characterizations of the two leading males.” 

The salty nature of the picture did not go unnoticed. According to Irene Thirer of the New York Daily News, “Director Howard Hawks has injected several devilish touches in the piece, which surprisingly enough, got by the censors.” An exhibitor from Michigan wrote in the Exhibitor’s Herald, “the salesman said that this was a good picture when he sold it to me… time must have rotted it for it is one of the smuttiest pictures on the market. If you want to promote immorality, by all means play this one. I have to use care and precaution in the selection of pictures, and this one brought plenty of criticism”.

Aside from its popularity in the United States, the film had an even bigger impact in Europe, especially France. Writing in 1930 in his “Paris Cinema Chatter” column in the New York Times, Morris Gilbert noted “ . . . there are a number of others – mostly American – which have their place as ‘classics’ in the opinion of the French. . . . They love A Girl in Every Port, which has the added distinction of being practically the only American film which keeps its own English title here.” The film enjoyed a long run in Paris, where to this day it is still highly regarded.

Notably,  Jean-Paul Sartre hoped to take Simone de Beauvoir to see the film on one of their first dates. Later, the writer Blaise Cendrars stated the film “marked the first appearance of contemporary cinema”.


Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). In the United States, the film was also presented under the title Uma noiva em cada porto (Portuguese-language press).

Elsewhere, A Girl in Every Port was shown under the title Poings de fer, coeur d’or (Algeria); Una novia en cada puerto and Una chica en cada porto (Argentina); Das Verdammte Herz – Zwei lustige Matrosen (Austria); Une fille dans chaque port (Belgium, French) and Een liefje bij elke landing (Belgium, Dutch); Uma noiva em cada porto (Brazil); Una Novia en Cada Puerto (Cuba); Dívka v každém prístavu (Czechoslovakia) and Dievca v kazdom pristave and Vsade ine dievca (Slovakia); Blaue jungens, blonde Mädchen (Danzig); En Pige i hver Havn (Denmark); Una Novia en Cada Puerto (Dominican Republic); Een Liefje in iedere Haven and In iedere Stad een andere Schat! (Dutch East Indies - Indonesia); Poings de fer, coeur d’or and Une femme dans chaque port and Une fille dans chaque port (France); Blaue jungens, blonde Mädchen (Germany); Az ocean Don Juana (Hungary); Kærasta i hverri höfn! (Iceland); Capitano Barbableu and Il Capitano Barbableu and Capitan Barbablù (Italy); 港々に女あり or Minato Ni on'na ari (Japan); Ein zeitgemasser Don-Juan and Meitene katra osta (Latvia); Mergina kiekviename uoste (Lithuania); Poings de Fer – Coeur d’Or Blaue Jungen – Blonde Madchen (Luxembourg); Una novia in cada puerto (Mexico); In iedere Stad ... een andere Schat! and In elke stad een andere schat (Netherlands); En pike i hver havn (Norway); A kochanek miał sto and Dziewczyna w kaz.dym porcie and Era Pogoni Za Bogatym Memzem (Poland); Uma Rapariga em Cada Pôrto and Uma companheira em cada pôrto (Portugal); O fata in fiecare port (Romania); Una novia in cada puerto and Un Amor en Cada Puerto and Una xicota a cada port (Spain, including The Canary Islands); En flicka i varje hamn (Sweden); and Poings de fer et coeur dor (Switzerland).

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

Much was made over the “bevy of beautiful girls” appearing in the film. Writing in the Hollywood Daily Citizen, Elena Brinkley quipped, “It seems to me they’ll never finish signing girls for Victor McLaglen’s A Girl in Every Port.” Early on, among those she reports cast was Anna May Wong.

— Maria Casajuana, a Spanish-born dancer and one-time “Miss Spain,” made her screen debut in A Girl in Every Port. As a newcomer, her role was heavily promoted. Beginning with Road House (1928), Casajuana appeared in films as Maria Alba. She also appeared in Goldie, a 1931 remake of A Girl in Every Port.

— Casajuana was not the only actress working under another name. Gretel Yolz was actually Eileen Sedgwick, one of the Five Sedgwicks, a pioneering family in Hollywood.

— In 1931, Fox remade A Girl in Every Port as a sound film entitled Goldie. The remake was directed by Benjamin Stoloff and starred Spencer Tracy, Warren Hymer and Jean Harlow. The 1952 Marx Brothers’ film of the same name is unrelated.

Some day, I would like to see a proper DVD release of A Girl in Every Port. A few years back, there was talk of such a thing, but nothing ever materialized.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2024. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Friday, August 11, 2023

A Girl in Every Port Screens in Australia

A Girl in Every Port, the 1928 Howard Hawks silent starring Louise Brooks, will be shown in Australia on Saturday, August 12th. The film will be shown at the The Majestic Theatre, 3 Factory Street Pomona, QLD, 4568. More information about the event can be found HERE


I wonder what print they are using? The event description states:

"Spike (McLaglen) travels the world as the mate of a schooner He has a little address book full of sweethearts, but everywhere he goes, he finds that someone has been there before him, leaving behind with each girl a heart-shaped charm with an anchor inscribed on it. In Central America, he takes a dislike to another sailor, Salami (Armstrong), but before they can settle their differences, they brawl with the police and are thrown in jail.

Stars Victor McLagen, Louise Brooks & Robert Armstrong

Doors & Bar open 11am. Coffee tea drinks & snacks available. $15 adults & kids 13 and under free. No need to book. Get your tickets at the door."


THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

A Girl in Every Port, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928

A Girl in Every Port, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928. A Girl in Every Port is a classic early “buddy film,” On loan to Fox, Louise Brooks plays Marie (Mam’selle Godiva), the girl in Marseille, France. The film was directed by Howard Hawks, and stars Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong as the two sailors, and features Marie Casajuana, Sally Rand, Natalie Kingston, Leila Hyams, and Myrna Loy as the women they romance in various ports of call. More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society filmography page

The film was shot in November and December, 1927 at Fox’s studios in Hollywood. Location shooting was done on a boating trip to Santa Cruz Island, located along the California coast. The film debuted at the mammoth Roxy theater in New York City. Fox claimed, and Film Daily reported, that A Girl in Every Port had broke the “world’s record” for a single day’s box office receipts, when on February 22, 1928 it premiered at the Roxy in New York and grossed $29,463.00. A hit, the film was written up in just about every NYC publications, from the German-language New Yorker Volkszeitung to Women’s Wear Daily to the socialist Daily Worker.

The film received glowing reviews. TIME magazine stated, “A Girl in Every Port is really What Price Glory? translated from arid and terrestrial irony to marine gaiety of the most salty and miscellaneous nature. Nobody could be more charming than Louise Brooks, that clinging and tender little barnacle from the docks of Marseilles. Director Howard Hawks and his entire cast, especially Robert Armstrong, deserve bouquets and kudos.” Weekly Film Review noted that the audience “Cheered it – and loved it!”

What many critics focused on was the bond between the two male characters, sailors played by Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong. Bland Johaneson of the New York Daily Mirror wrote, “A Girl in Every Port at the Roxy is a man’s picture. It’s a good character comedy. But the love interest is the love of two men friends. The girls are all rats. And that limits the picture’s appeal to the romanticists. . . . Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong do fine acting, and the comedy is neatly handled.” Limitations aside, women also liked the picture, according to the Newark Star-Eagle. “Women laughed delightedly in the Fox Terminal yesterday at what was supposed to be exclusively a he-man picture. Victor McLaglen starred as a true adventurer in A Girl in Every Port, and although the film was mostly fast battling, feminine spectators found delightful entertainment in it. . . . He has a prize associate in Robert Armstrong, who was the fighter in the stage version of Is Zat So, and Louise Brooks, cast as a sideshow siren, does capitally as the crisis of McLaglen’s career as a seaport Don Juan. . . . This is a salty, virile picture, full of flying fists and colorful rows in strange climates and distinguished by the unmovie like and emphatic characterizations of the two leading males.” 

The salty nature of the picture did not go unnoticed. According to Irene Thirer of the New York Daily News, “Director Howard Hawks has injected several devilish touches in the piece, which surprisingly enough, got by the censors.” An exhibitor from Michigan wrote in the Exhibitor’s Herald, “the salesman said that this was a good picture when he sold it to me… time must have rotted it for it is one of the smuttiest pictures on the market. If you want to promote immorality, by all means play this one. I have to use care and precaution in the selection of pictures, and this one brought plenty of criticism”.

Aside from its popularity in the United States, the film had an even bigger impact in Europe, especially France. Writing in 1930 in his “Paris Cinema Chatter” column in the New York Times, Morris Gilbert noted “ . . . there are a number of others – mostly American – which have their place as ‘classics’ in the opinion of the French. . . . They love A Girl in Every Port, which has the added distinction of being practically the only American film which keeps its own English title here.” The film enjoyed a long run in Paris, where to this day it is still highly regarded.

Notably,  Jean-Paul Sartre hoped to take Simone de Beauvoir to see the film on one of their first dates. Later, the writer Blaise Cendrars stated the film “marked the first appearance of contemporary cinema”.


Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). In the United States, the film was also presented under the title Uma noiva em cada porto (Portuguese-language press).

Elsewhere, A Girl in Every Port was shown under the title Poings de fer, coeur d’or (Algeria); Una novia en cada puerto and Una chica en cada porto (Argentina); Das Verdammte Herz – Zwei lustige Matrosen (Austria); Une fille dans chaque port (Belgium, French) and Een liefje bij elke landing (Belgium, Dutch); Uma noiva em cada porto (Brazil); Una Novia en Cada Puerto (Cuba); Dívka v každém prístavu (Czechoslovakia) and Dievca v kazdom pristave and Vsade ine dievca (Slovakia); Blaue jungens, blonde Mädchen (Danzig); En Pige i hver Havn (Denmark); Una Novia en Cada Puerto (Dominican Republic); Een Liefje in iedere Haven and In iedere Stad een andere Schat! (Dutch East Indies - Indonesia); Poings de fer, coeur d’or and Une femme dans chaque port and Une fille dans chaque port (France); Blaue jungens, blonde Mädchen (Germany); Az ocean Don Juana (Hungary); Kærasta i hverri höfn! (Iceland); Capitano Barbableu and Il Capitano Barbableu and Capitan Barbablù (Italy); 港々に女あり or Minato Ni on'na ari (Japan); Ein zeitgemasser Don-Juan and Meitene katra osta (Latvia); Mergina kiekviename uoste (Lithuania); Poings de Fer – Coeur d’Or Blaue Jungen – Blonde Madchen (Luxembourg); Una novia in cada puerto (Mexico); In iedere Stad ... een andere Schat! and In elke stad een andere schat (Netherlands); En pike i hver havn (Norway); A kochanek miał sto and Dziewczyna w kaz.dym porcie and Era Pogoni Za Bogatym Memzem (Poland); Uma Rapariga em Cada Pôrto and Uma companheira em cada pôrto (Portugal); O fata in fiecare port (Romania); Una novia in cada puerto and Un Amor en Cada Puerto and Una xicota a cada port (Spain, including The Canary Islands); En flicka i varje hamn (Sweden); and Poings de fer et coeur dor (Switzerland).

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

Much was made over the “bevy of beautiful girls” appearing in the film. Writing in the Hollywood Daily Citizen, Elena Brinkley quipped, “It seems to me they’ll never finish signing girls for Victor McLaglen’s A Girl in Every Port.” Early on, among those she reports cast was Anna May Wong.

— Maria Casajuana, a Spanish-born dancer and one-time “Miss Spain,” made her screen debut in A Girl in Every Port. As a newcomer, her role was heavily promoted. Beginning with Road House (1928), Casajuana appeared in films as Maria Alba. She also appeared in Goldie, a 1931 remake of A Girl in Every Port.

— Casajuana was not the only actress working under another name. Gretel Yolz was actually Eileen Sedgwick, one of the Five Sedgwicks, a pioneering family in Hollywood.

— In 1931, Fox remade A Girl in Every Port as a sound film entitled Goldie. The remake was directed by Benjamin Stoloff and starred Spencer Tracy, Warren Hymer and Jean Harlow. The 1952 Marx Brothers’ film of the same name is unrelated.

Some day, I would like to see a proper DVD release of A Girl in Every Port. A few years back, there was talk of such a thing, but nothing ever materialized.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited.

Thursday, June 2, 2022

Louise Brooks - Getting it wrong again and again

There is all kinds of  misinformation about Louise Brooks and her films. Some of it goes way back, to the 1920s, and some of it is only a few days old. There are factual errors, like getting a date wrong or misidentifying a character in a film, and there is "fake news" - like the photoshopped nudes in which some idiot has placed Brooks' head on someone else's body. Despite it being kinda pathetic and rather obvious, those images still circulate on eBay and Facebook. . . . Just last week I noticed a picture postcard of Clara Bow on eBay which was identified as Louise Brooks, despite the postcard being labelled as Clara Bow! 

For as long as I have been reading about / researching / collecting material about Louise Brooks, I have come across instances of mistaken information about the actress. Perhaps the most famous example is her being credited with a role in The Public Enemy (1931). That belief lingered for decades, and at one time was repeated in the New York Times.

Recently, while looking at some newly digitized vintage newspapers, I came across an instance where the same newspaper got it wrong again and again and again - at least three times and over a period of a few years. I am referring to the Banner-Herald from Athens, Georgia. This first example dates from March 23, 1927, at the time Love Em and Leave Em was showing at the local Palace theater. The captioned picture on the left identified as being Evelyn Brent ain't; and who know who is the women in the advertisement for the film on the right. Perhaps the same beret-wearing actress?

This next example from the Banner-Herald dates from just a few month's later, specifically August 2, 1927. Rolled Stockings was showing at the Palace, and the local newspaper managed to find a flapper-looking type and identify her as Louise Brooks. Which it ain't.

I can't figure out why this happened. Didn't the Banner-Herald have a picture of Louise Brooks on hand which they could use? Or did all youthful, flapper-type actresses look alike to the layout department? Or was the image substituted deliberately? This last example dates from May 17, 1928, at the time A Girl in Every Port was showing at the Palace. And again, an incorrect image is used.

If anyone knows who the incorrectly attributed actresses are, I would appreciate hearing about it. They do seem familiar. . . . Please post a comment.

This blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2022. Further use prohibited.

Friday, December 31, 2021

Happy New Year from the Louise Brooks Society

Happy New Year from the Louise Brooks Society. Lets hope 2022 will be a good year for all. If you are wondering who the exhausted woman is to the left of baby 1927, it is one of the of the women from the various ports-of-call who appeared in the 1928 film, A Girl in Every Port. It is 1930s film star Myrna Loy!

Myrna Loy was just one of the many emerging stars who appeared in A Girl in Every Port. Here is a still from that film featuring Loy and Victor McLaglen.


And finally, to end the year right / or to begin the new year also right, here is a lovely portrait of Louise Brooks from A Girl in Every Port. It is a somewhat different look for the actress. Don't you think?

Friday, November 19, 2021

Louise Brooks and the Surrealists


"Louise Brooks is the only woman who had the ability to transfigure no matter what film into a masterpiece. The poetry of Louise is the great poetry of rare loves, of magnetism, of tension, of feminine beauty as blinding as ten galaxial suns. She is much more than a myth, she is a magical presence, a real phantom, the magnetism of the cinema." -- Ado Kyrou, author of  Le Surréalisme Au Cinéma (1963)

 It is known that the Surrealists took notice of Louise Brooks. She had the look - a bit transgressive (though they didn't use that word back then), and strikingly beautiful, but in an iconic, modern sense. It's known that Philipe Soupault, the French Surrealist poet, mentioned the actress in his journalism and even reviewed Diary of a Lost Girl. (A couple of images of the actress adorn the poet's collected writings on the cinema, Ecrits de cinema 1918-1931.) 

Kiki of Montparnasse

It's also known that Man Ray was smitten by the actress. His paramour in the 1920s, Kiki of Montparnasse, resembled Brooks. Man Ray first noticed Brooks in Paris in 1929 and 1930, when she was all the rage and her films, Prix de Beaute, Loulou, Diary of a Lost Girl, and Beggars of Life dominated Parisian screens. The photographer and the film star met in Paris in late 1958, when Brooks was being celebrated at the Cinematheque Francaise; at the time, Man Ray recounted how he had seen her image in Paris years before. The artist was fond enough of Brooks that he sent her a small painting in memory of their meeting and in memory of his memory.

The Louise Brooks film that might well have introduced the actress to the Surrealist was likely A Girl in Every Port, which writer Blaise Cendrars called "the first appearance of contemporary cinema". The film debuted in Paris at the Ursulines. The Ursulines theatre opened in 1926 with films by André Breton, Man Ray, Fernand Léger, René Clair and Robert Desnos, and over the years, showed both mainstream and experimental cinema. At one point, the theatre also showed G.W. Pabst's Diary of a Lost Girl, which starred Brooks and also enjoyed a successful run in Paris.

Perhaps Man Ray also saw A Girl in Every Port at the Ursulines when it shared the bill with a short Man Ray film, L'Etoile de Mer, during the months of October, November, and December of 1928. L'Etoile de Mer (The Starfish) was scripted by the surrealist poet Robert Desnos and stars Desnos and Alice Prin. Better known as Kiki de Montparnasse, Prin famously sported Louise Brooks-like bobbed hair and bangs.  

The pairing in Paris of A Girl in Every Port with a Surrealist film was not a one-time thing. Something similar also took place in Barcelona, Spain -- as seen in the advertisement below when A Girl in Every Port (under the Catalonian title Una xicota a cada port) was paired with the Salvador Dali - Luis Bunuel film, Le Chein Ansalou (An Andalusian Dog). Notably, A Girl in Every Port is described as an avant-garde film.


I have written about the Surrealists and Brooks before, but mention it again because I have just today come across another connection - this time to Salvador Dali. If I understand it correctly, the Spanish book, Por qué se ataca a la gioconda? (Ediciones Siruela, 1994), collects Salvador Dali's miscellaneous writings. (The book was reissued by Ediciones Siruela in 2003.) According to the publisher: "From the early years, and especially in the moments of greatest creativity - between 1924 and 1945 -, Dalí worked in parallel in the fields of literature and painting, which together contribute to the creation of a universe of shapes and symbols that he will not leave until the end of his days. The texts collected in this anthology correspond to different times that go from 1927 to 1978; they were published in the French magazine Oui and this edition rescues them in their entirety. The chronological order of the articles makes it easier to follow the evolution of the artist's ideas. His obsessions are his main thematic source: eroticism, death and rot, which articulate a very peculiar universe appearing recurrently throughout his life. . . . In his writings he mixes philosophical ideas with seemingly irrelevant anecdotes and is also concerned with surrealism and some of its problems, such as object, automatism or dream, without neglecting other topics such as photography and cinema." 

Por qué se ataca a la gioconda? contains a piece written in Paris in 1929. It is a surreal piece, touching on factual and the dreamlike. Dali's piece reads in part, "Transcurren dos minutos de intervalo. Sobre la hoja cae un granito de arena que permanece inmovil en el centro di la hoja. Los cinco minutos expiran sin otra modificacion. Rene Clair, el realizador del popular film de vanguardia Entr'acte, ha comenzado a filmar Prix de beaute, con Louise Brooks. Sera una peli cula documental sobre el desnudo de Louise Brooks. Rene Magrite acaba de terminnar un lienzo donde "hay" un personaje que se encuentra a punto de perder la memoria, un grito de pajaro, un armario y un paisaje."

In translation, it reads, "Two minutes apart. A grain of sand falls on the leaf and remains motionless in the center of the leaf. The five minutes expire without further modification. Rene Clair, the director of the popular avant-garde film Entr'acte, has begun filming Prix de beaute, starring Louise Brooks. It will be a documentary film about Louise Brooks' nude. Rene Magrite has just finished a canvas where "there is" a character who is about to lose his memory, a bird's cry, a closet and a landscape."

I will end this post with a chance discovery from a while back of an article about Beggars of Life (as Captaires de Vida) which by chance rests next to an article about Dali (pictured center of page). It comes from a Catalonian newspaper.


I wonder if any of the Surrealists wrote any poems about Louise Brooks? Does anyone know? I know they wrote about Charlie Chaplin.

Thursday, June 3, 2021

Three Louise Brooks films among best of all time, according to 1932 French magazine

Today, lists of the best films are commonplace. There are lists of the all-time best movies (usually headed by Orson Welles' Citizen Kane), the best comedies, the best dramas, best film noir, best pre-code, and also best silent films. Louise Brooks' films rarely figure on any of these lists, except for Pandora's Box, which occasionally makes the top ten or twenty best films of the silent era. 

Back in 1932, just a couple-three years after the end of the silent era, the popular French film magazine Pour Vous attempted to establish a listing of the best films up until that time. It was a kind of curated "reader's poll" which seemingly calls for the preservation of "repertory films," or what were even then seen as classic films from the past. The results are surprising, especially for fans of Louise Brooks, as three of her films, A Girl in Every Port, Beggars of Life, and Diary of a Lost Girl, all made the list. Each were very popular in France, with the first mentioned film, Howard Hawks' buddy bromance, spending nearly a year in various Parisian theaters. Left off the list was Pandora's Box, today Brooks' most celebrated film. (The list of films ends with those released in 1929, and thus it doesn't include Prix de beaute, which was released in 1930 and was as celebrated in France as the four previously mentioned films.)


This article, with illustration from a handful of the many films mentioned, is titled "Sauvons les films de repetoire," and subtitled "Pour Vous "Établit une liste ideale en s'inspirant des suggestions de ses lecteurs" (which translates as "Pour Vous establishes an ideal list based on the suggestions of its readers"). The introductory paragraphs by Lucienne Escoube (a critic and author) translate thus: 

"The question of a film directory remains on the agenda; our colleagues have, in their turn, taken up the cause of this undertaking of an importance and a seriousness that true cinephiles have not failed to underline. But, before we meet and consult together on the essential decisions to be taken, it would be important to know how this cinematographic repertoire should be put together.

First of all, let's not forget two important points: the repertoire must be put together for the public, of course, but also for specialists, for all those 'in the house'; what we think should be included on the list are not only works which have been proven successes on the screen (provided that they are beautiful and significant), but also works which have not had the reputation they deserve but which, by their intrinsic value, their technique, their tendencies, brought to the screen new directives, a particular style, an atmosphere not yet put forth. This repertoire, a true museum, must be of high quality, let us not forget. It must retrace, in a way, the entire history of cinema, its ages, styles, eras and various trends: early cinema, cinema theater, pre-war cinema (French, Russian, Italian, German), American cinema, war cinema, Swedish era, German era, American era, French post-war cinema, everything that was significant on the screen must find its place in a well-understood repertoire.

Also in this choice of films, the main works of the great directors, of those who brought to the screen the novelty of their genius, works of those who were innovators, must find a place; (Gance, Stiller. Griffith, and how many others! Finally, the works of artists who, by their personality, have created a genre, a character who. animated by them, has become a living entity: including William Hart, Hayakawa. Nazimova, so many names that I cannot name here!

And all the work of the perfect genius: Chaplin.

The list that we publish here. and which we have established from our personal recollections, the documentation offered to us by old journals, and on the basis of suggestions from our readers who responded to our referendum, is only a first attempt at selection that we propose to develop and complete as our research progresses."

Following the lists of films, there is a brief concluding paragraph which states: "Finally, let us mention a few other films suggested by our readers: Senorita, The Image Hunters, The Lily of Life, Towards Happiness (Stiller), The Earth, The Arsenal (Dovjenko), and by almost unanimous request Monsieur Beaucaire (Rudolph Valentino)."

There are, of course, a handful of films by the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Rene Clair, Mauritz Stiller, Ernst Lubitsch, and Fritz Lang. Other films are credited to Nazimova, Garbo, and Gloria Swanson. There are a number of French films, along with German, Swedish and Russian productions. G.W. Pabst's Joyless Street makes the list, as does Erich von Stroheim's Wedding March and King Vidor's The Big Parade. And so does Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc and F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu the Vampire. Some of the surprise entries (in that they are little remembered today) include The Miracle Man, starring Thomas Meighan, and a William Wyler directed film here titled Far-West. Off-hand, I am not sure which film the latter that might be. 

The three Brooks' films include Les Mendiants de la vie (Beggars of Life, released in the United States in 1928, the film is mistakenly listed under 1927, though it played in France in 1929 and 1930); A Girl in Every Port (which kept it's English-language title in France, though is mistakenly credited here to Josef von Sternberg); and under 1929 Trois pages d'un journal (Diary of a Lost Girl). Curiously, Loulou is left off the list!

Here is a close-up of the film lists, for those who might to look for their favorite, and to see who was included, and who was left off.




Sunday, February 14, 2021

On this day in 1930, Louise Brooks' 1920s films were still showing here and there in the USA

Like the actress herself, Louise Brooks' films had legs. Even in the United States, and even into the sound era, Brooks' late 1920's films like A Girl in Every Port (1928), Beggars of Life (1928), and The Canary Murder Case (1929) continued to be shown in theaters.

As a matter of fact, on this day in 1930 (that is February 14th) one of the very last recorded theatrical screenings of A Girl in Every Port (following its initial release) took place at the Memorial Opera House in Valparaiso, Indiana. The film was shown again on the 15th, and then it disappeared from American screens for nearly 30 years! What is remarkable is that this screening took place two years after this SILENT film was first released, and well into the sound era.

 
A Girl In Every Port had premiered on February 18, 1928 at the Roxy Theater in New York City, where it proved to be a huge hit. As they did back then, the film slowly opened across the United States, and eventually made its way to Valparaiso, Indiana, where it debuted locally on May 13, 1928 following a short run of another Louise Brooks' film, The City Gone Wild (1927).
 

Speaking of one Brooks' film following another -- and speaking of Brooks' earlier films still showing in 1930. . . . The Canary Murder Case (1929) had its moment in the sun in Bradford, Vermont on February 15th of that year at a venue called Bradford Colonial Events. I am going to guess and say that this small town venue was a hall, rather than a regular or dedicated movie theater, as it also held concerts and a nearby small town, White River Junction, had a dedicated movie theater called the Lyric. What is notable in this ad is that another Brooks film, Beggars of Life (1928), is scheduled to be shown a week later, marking it another instance of this William Wellman directed film showing nearly two years after it was first released. Admittedly, I don't know which version -- the silent of the hybrid sound version of this film was being shown, but still, there it is. Happy Valentine's Day from the Louise Brooks Society.


Thursday, June 6, 2019

A few biblio-curiosities: unrelated vintage books with the titles of Louise Brooks' films

As most fans know, a handful of Louise Brooks' films, like Beggars of Life and The Canary Murder Case, were based on once well known books of the same name. Other films were based on well known stage plays, like The Show Off and It Pays to Advertise, each of which were also published in book form.

Researching Brooks and her films can turn up some rather unusual items.... And over the years, I have come across a few examples of vintage books which also share the title of a Brooks' film - but otherwise have no real connection to the film itself. They are, to say the least, biblio-curiosities.

The Street of Forgotten Men (1925) is the title of Brooks' first film. Directed by Herbert Brenon, it was based on a short story, "The Street of the Forgotten Men" by George Kibbe Turner, which appeared in Liberty magazine earlier in 1925. [Remarkably, thirteen of Turner's stories or novels were turned into films between the years 1920 and 1932.]  

The Street of Forgotten Men was also the title of a book by John Vande Water. The book's full title, The Street of Forgotten Men : ten years of missionary experience in Chicago, pretty much explains what it's about. This "other" book was published by Eerdmans, a publisher of religious books based in Grand Rapids, Michigan; the copies I've seen have no date of issue - but to my eye, look to postdate the 1925 film. (I've emailed the publisher, which is still in business, asking for a date of issue.) Besides it's title, skid-row / Bowery setting, and theme of redemption, the book and film are unrelated. Anyone interested in reading or just checking out Vande Water's book can do so HERE.


A "street of forgotten men" is a catchphrase, and the name sometimes given to those parts of a town where the homeless would congregate. Street of Forgotten Men was, as well, the name given to a 1930's short film which "toured" the Bowery and it's unfortunate denizens. It is not listed on ImDb, but can be viewed below.


Another catchphrase or idiom which became the title of a Louise Brooks film and a later book is "a girl in every port." The 1928 Brooks' film by that name was directed by Howard Hawks, and was based on a story by Hawks and James K. McGuinness, with a scenario by Seton I. Miller.

So far, I've come across three works titled A Girl in Every Port. The earliest seems to be Forrest Additon's book of poems and drawings, which is subtitled "The Odyssey of a Deep-Sea Sailor." As you might expect, this 1938 vanity press publication is a collection of slightly saucy sing-songy poems which recount various encounters with women around the world. Many of the poems are accompanied by one of Additon's sometimes saucy drawings. In a foreword, the author takes pains to assure his readers these are not his stories, oh no, but just those he has heard from sailors the author has encountered during his travels.

It is difficult to choose the "best" piece in this volume, but here at least is a representative one. It is called "Wolly Golly."



The author, in case you are wondering, was a self-published writer and amateur artist who worked for many years in the furniture manufacturing business in Flowery Branch, Georgia. He is also credited with authoring the Illinois state song. When Additon died in 1958, Florida's Fort Lauderdale News considered him enough of a local celebrity (he had retired to Florida) that it ran an obituary on the front page.


I am lucky enough to own an autographed first edition copy of this Additon's self-published book. (The publisher is Henry Harrison, a poetry publisher based in New York City. The New Yorker described Harry Harrison as a vanity publisher who charged authors to publish their work, a la the Vantage Press.) I am not sure why I own a copy of this title, but I do. I guess it's because I am a book collector of sorts. My hardcover copy (pictured below) is in it's original dustjacket, and is in very good condition. Laid in are a couple of pieces of author related ephemera, including a reproduction of a 1937 drawing of Joseph C. Grew, the one-time ambassador to Japan. "T.M.I." you may say. Ok, I'll move on.


I also own an ephemeral booklet titled A Girl in Every Port. Published in 1942 by the Dramatic Publishing Company of Chicago, this 30 page, one act comedy by James Fuller continues the theme of randy sailors and their romantic adventures in various ports of call. The playlet calls for one man, named Jim "who loves them all," and seven women named Marilyn, Mary, Mimi, Mandy Lou, Maude, Tina (a maid), and Miss Margrave. Mmmmmm..... My copy is pictured below.

 

One other vintage book I've come across titled A Girl in Every Port is a 1942 work of fiction by William McClellan published by the Phoenix Press (a renowned publisher of mysteries, westerns, and genre fiction during the 1930s and 1940s). McClellan also author Waterfront Waitress (1937), Lady Interne (1939), Midnight in Morocco (1943) and other works, each of which was published by the Phoenix Press. I don't know anything else about A Girl in Every Port except that it seems to continue the same cliched trope of sailors on the loose around the world. As did, no doubt, Donald R Morris' 1956 paperback subtitled "Sailors & Sex in the Orient" published by Berkley (not pictured).


Lastly, here is a rare French book titled Prix de beaute. Published in Paris by Editions du Petit Echo de la Mode sometime in the 1920s (possibly in 1929), this 158 page work by C. N. Williamson shares its title with the 1930 French film starring Louise Brooks. I don't know much else about it, as I am awaiting the arrival of the copy I have ordered from France.


I will end this rambling post with the yet unrelated work of fiction, except that this one depicts Louise Brooks on it's cover! The book is Loot by Rob Eden, published by Grosset and Dunlap in 1932. Rob Eden was the pseudonym of Robert Ferdinand Burkhardt, a genre author whose works include Honeymoon Delayed as well as other pulp plots like The Girl with the Red Hair, Blond Trouble, Short Skirts, and In Love with a T-Man. The copy on the front of the dustjacket reads "Torn between loyalty to her newly found brother and love for his enemy, Robin Moore makes her choice!" Sounds like a great read, doesn't it!!

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Louise Brooks, Modernism, the Surrealists, and the Paris of 1930

Louise Brooks has long been popular in France, and in Paris in 1930, she must have seemed to have been everywhere. The actress was widely written about and pictured in the French capital's many  newspapers and magazines. I have collected dozens of clippings. Her image, as well, was also seemingly everywhere. There is even a picture, shown below, of Brooks' portrait on display in the window of a Paris photographer's studio. If anyone has a time machine handy, I would like to travel back to Paris and purchase a few prints.


Indeed, Brooks was the toast of Paris while she was in France making Prix de beauté. The press recorded her arrival, and profiled her in numerous pieces.


Prix de beauté was in production between August 29 through September 27, 1929, and debuted at the famous Max-Linder Pathe on May 9, 1930. A major American film star in an important French production was BIG NEWS, not at least due to the fact that Prix de beauté was also one of the earliest French talkies. (Sound and music are important visual motifs in the film, which was shot as both a silent and sound film.)

Prix de beauté was a huge success, and it went on to enjoy three month run in various theaters. After two months at the Max-Linder (and for part of that time also at the historic Lutetia-Pathe to accommodate the crowds), the film moved to the Folies Dramatiques, where it was advertised as an "immense success" and played nearly a month. This extended run was at a time when most films played only a few days or a week before moving on.

Remarkably, the successful run of Prix de beauté took place at a time when another of Brooks' films, the German production Diary of a Lost Girl (Trois Pages D'un Journal), was also playing in the French capital, at the Au Colisee. (It also was shown at the Rialto and Splendide theatres in Paris in 1930.) As was Beggars of Life (Les mendiants de la vie), at the Clichy-Palace in March of the same year. Like today, films being shown were advertised in the newspaper, and on one occasion, the two film's respective  advertisements sat side-by-side.



Diary of a Lost Girl continued to be shown on and off in Paris in 1930. It was even shown at the famous Ursulines theater in November as part of a trippple bill. As shown below, the evening's program begins with G.W. Pabst's Joyless Street, followed by Howard Hawk's A Girl in Every Port, starring Brooks, followed by G.W. Pabst's Diary of a Lost Girl, also starring Brooks.


A Girl in Every Port (which Blaise Cendrars called "the first appearance of contemporary cinema") debuted in France at the Ursulines, "one of the oldest cinemas in Paris to have kept its facade and founder's vision" as a "venue for art and experimental cinema." The Ursulines opened in 1926 with films by André Breton, Man Ray, Fernand Léger, René Clair and Robert Desnos. And in 1928, it premiered the first film of Germaine Dulac, The Seashell and the Clergyman, from a story by Antonin Artaud. The latter film was heckled by the surrealists, leading to a fight that stopped the screening.

Between 1926 and 1957, a number of now-classic films premiered at the theater, such as René Clair's Le Voyage Imaginaire and Erich Von Stroheim’s Greed. According to the wonderful Cinema Treasures website, "This little theatre with a balcony has a very charming facade looking like a romantic country house. At the beginning of talking movies, the premiere of Sternberg’s Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich took place here, and ran 14 months." In December 1930, Diary of a Lost Girl and Blue Angel even shared the bill.


The Ursulines theatre was a kind of cinematic home to the Surrealists.... Which got me thinking about the affection some of the surrealists had for Brooks. It's known that Philipe Soupault, the great French Surrealist poet, mentioned the actress in his journalism and reviewed Diary of a Lost Girl. (A couple of images of the actress adorn the poet's collected writings on the cinema, Ecrits de cinema 1918-1931.) And it's also known that Man Ray was smitten by the actress. The great photographer and the film star met in Paris in late 1958, and Man Ray recounted how he had seen her image in Paris years before. Man Ray was fond enough of Brooks that he sent her a small painting in memory of their meeting and in memory of his memory.


Perhaps Man Ray also saw one or two of her films. Earlier, in 1928, A Girl in Every Port shared the bill with a short Man Ray film, L'Etoile de Mer, at the Ursulines during the months of October, November, and December. L'Etoile de Mer (The Starfish) was scripted by the surrealist poet Robert Desnos and "stars" Desnos and Alice Prin. Better known as Kiki de Montparnasse, Prin (Man Ray's one-time paramour) famously sported Louise Brooks-like bobbed hair and bangs.


Prix de beauté proved especially popular, and even influential. (A novelization of Prix de beauté was published in 1932. And in 1933, a short story by the French writer Leon Bopp was published which describes a character in love with Louise Brooks.) Similarly, A Girl in Every Port (which was one of the few American films to retain its American title in France) proved popular and was revived time and again in Paris in the 1920's and 1930's. [I wonder which of those showings was the one Jean-Paul Sartre took Simone de Beauvoir to on one of their first dates.] 

Of course, one could also Lee Miller to this piece. Miller, a sometime Surrealist photographer and one-time paramour of Man Ray, is known to have seen Louise Brooks dance on stage in Poughkeepsie, New York long before Brooks became a film star and Miller a Surrealist.... If any scholars of Surrealism can add to the information found on this page, please contact me.

I will close this blog with two collages from 1929, both of which include Brooks. The first is Herbert Bayer's "Facing Profiles." Bayer was associated with the Bauhaus. The second is Edward Burra's "Composition Collage." Burra was a English modernist. Obviously, something was in the air circa 1930.


Tuesday, April 19, 2016

The United States Coast Guard visits A Girl in Every Port

From the Louise Brooks Society archive, this rare image depicting the the United States Coast Guard visiting a screening of A Girl in Every Port (1928), starring Victor McLaglen and an All Star cast (including Richard Armstrong, Louise Brooks, Sally Rand, Myrna Loy, Maria Casajuana and others). My vintage print of this images measures over 29 inches wide and 10 inches tall.




Wednesday, January 20, 2016

What a trippple bill of classic silent films!

Over the years, I have found hundreds if not thousands of newspaper advertisements for Louise Brooks' films. Many of them are of little interest beyond the record of a Brooks' film having shown in a particular place on a particular date. But some stand out, especially if they note a premiere, an usual opening live act (like dancer George Raft, or pianist Art Tatum), or include unusual graphics.

Others stand out if they promote a Brooks' double bill - a somewhat rare occurance. Over the years, I have found a few vintage advertisements promoting Love Em and Leave Em with Just Another Blonde, or Now We're in the Air together with The City Gone Wild. In both instances, these paired films were likely shown together because they were released around the same time (not because Brooks was in both films).

Another double bill I once came across, dating from 1931, featured the Brooks' talkie It Pays to Advertise (1931) with G.W. Pabst's The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929), starring Leni Reifenstahl. What did the movie patrons think of that odd pairing?

Here is one of the most distinguished advertisements I have ever found, a rather brilliant trippple bill.

From the Louise Brooks Society archive, a November 1930 newspaper advertisement for the Ursulines theater in Paris. The evening's program begins with G.W. Pabst's Joyless Street (1925), followed by Howard Hawk's A Girl in Every Port (1928) starring Louise Brooks, followed by G.W. Pabst's Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) starring Louise Brooks. Wow, what a line-up!


I wish I could have been there. . . . and, through the magic of the internet, I can, at least in my imagination. Here is an exterior and an interior view of what turns out to be a rather famous venue.






If I am not mistaken, this Ursulines theater survives, and thrives. In fact, it has an illustrious history as well as it's own Wikipedia page.

According to Wikipedia, Hawk's A Girl in Every Port premiered in Paris at the Ursulines. Also, "It is one of the oldest cinemas in Paris to have kept its facade and founder's vision" as a "venue for art and experimental cinema. The cinema opened January 21, 1926. Films by André Breton, Man Ray, Fernand Léger, René Clair and Robert Desnos were shown. In 1928, it premiered the first film of Germaine Dulac, taken from a story by Antonin Artaud, The Seashell and the Clergyman. The film was heckled by the surrealists, leading to a fight that stopped the screening."

Between 1926 and 1957, a range of now-classic films premiered at the theater, such as René Clair's Le Voyage Imaginaire and Erich Von Stroheim’s Greed." According to the wonderful Cinema Treasures website, "This little theatre with a balcony has a very charming facade looking like a romantic country house. At the beginning of talking movies, the premiere of Sternberg’s Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich took place here, and ran 14 months."

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Louise Brooks in China, part 2

Here are a few more items I found while scouring a couple of English-language newspapers from China for any and all Louise Brooks material. As mentioned in the prior post, the actress and her films received a good deal of coverage. Witness these couple of clippings, the first for The City Gone Wild (1927), and the second and third for A Girl in Every Port (1928).




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