Showing posts with label Turner Classic Movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turner Classic Movies. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Some snapshots from Saturday's Louise Brooks TCM talk (part two)

I want to post a couple more pictures and a few more thoughts from Saturday's talk about Louise Brooks, which I gave over lunch to the Sacramento TCM Club. The event was organized by Sacramento TCM chapter head Beth Gallagher, a longtime friend. In Facebook posts prior to the event, Beth aptly described Brooks as "mesmerizing and modern onscreen" and a "fabulous and frustrating cinema icon." That's Beth, the redhead, pictured below.
 

As I mentioned in my previous post, I gave some prepared remarks before beginning a free form talk on Brooks, which also involved questions from those in attendance. What follows are my prepared remarks, with which I hoped to set the stage regarding Brooks and her career.

In her day, Louise Brooks was never considered a major star. And her career, relatively speaking, was brief. The actress appeared in only 24 films between 1925 and 1938 — a period spanning 13 years, four of which she was absent from the screen. By comparison, her celebrated contemporary Clara Bow (the “It” girl) appeared in 57 films over 11 years, while another contemporary, silent era star Colleen Moore, appeared in 48 films over 18 years. Of Brooks’ 24 films, she received top billing in only three productions. Notably, these were the three films she made in Europe. In the United States, Brooks was usually given second or third billing. In only one of them, Rolled Stockings - a film shot in Berkeley, was she considered the lead.

Brooks worked with film legends W.C. Fields, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Howard Hawks, William Wellman, Michael Curtiz, and John Wayne. And while still young — then just 32 years old, she gave it all up and turned her back on Hollywood. Once the toast of two continents, Brooks went from the heights of world wide celebrity to a down-and-out existence, barely getting by and all but forgotten by her peers.

As film historians have pointed out, few actors have attained such a large reputation through so few films. Today, Brooks’ remarkable popularity rests on her iconic look — while her cinematic renown comes largely from her role as Lulu in the once derided, now acclaimed German silent, Pandora’s Box. That film, often ranked among the greatest of its time, was largely forgotten until its rediscovery in the 1950s. Since then, and especially in the last few decades, Brooks’ other surviving films have been reevaluated, and her reputation as an actress has grown significantly.

Though she left her mark on her time and accomplished a great deal, Brooks always thought of herself as a failure. Late in life she wrote “I have been taking stock of my 50 years since I left Wichita in 1922 at the age of 15 to become a dancer with Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. How I have existed fills me with horror. For I have failed in everything — spelling, arithmetic, riding, swimming, tennis, golf, dancing, singing, acting, wife, mistress, whore, friend. Even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of ‘not trying.’ I tried with all my heart”.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, with whom she was acquainted, wrote “there are no second acts in American lives.” Brooks proves the exception.


Quite nearly everyone at the table sighed after I read the Brooks paragraph about taking stock of her life. I believe Brooks has found a few more fans.

Monday, October 21, 2019

Some snapshots from Saturday's Louise Brooks TCM talk

I had a great time Saturday talking about Louise Brooks to the Sacramento TCM Club. The event was organized by Sacramento TCM chapter head Beth Gallagher, a longtime friend and longtime admirer of Brooks. (Beth and I first became acquainted in the late 1990s, when Beth, then living in  Massachusetts, organized a chat board on the old Tribe.net web forum.) My informal talk, held over lunch, took place at La Trattoria Bohemia, a restaurant serving traditional Italian and Czech fare in mid-town Sacramento. Check it out sometime!
 

Uncertain as to what everyone knew or didn't know about Louise Brooks, I gave a general introduction, and then spoke about my history with the actress - how I first came across Pandora's Box and first read the Barry Paris biography, how I started the Louise Brooks Society, what I have found out through endlessly researching the actress, the films I have seen, the DVD audio commentaries I have done for KINO Lorber, the four books I have published on the actress, the forthcoming PBS debut of The Chaperone, my recent talk about Brooks and Rudolph Valentino at the annual Valentino Memorial in Hollywood, and a few threads which connect Brooks with Turner Classic Movies (TCM), namely through the Mankiewicz family, as Herman was Brooks's friend from her Follies' days and Ben, Herman's grandson, is one the station's current on-air hosts, plus the fact that the appellation "Louise Brooks Society" came from something Herman Mankiewicz once said. As you can tell from the prior sentence, my talked was something rambling - but seemed to be appreciated by all. Three of those in attendance purchased copies of my books, and each asked me to sign them. And in a first, another asked me to autographed her copy of the University of Minnesota edition of Brooks' Lulu in Hollywood, which I helped bring back into print and in which my name appears as an acknowledgement. I bit embarrassed, I signed near my name.
 


This being a special occasion, I even wore my Eugene Richee pearls portrait Louise Brooks t-shirt. My thanks to Beth Gallagher for organizing the event, and to the dozen film buffs who showed up and listened and even took notes! Thanks also to Antoinette C. for the letting me post her pictures of the event. Beth recorded the event and may turn it into a podcast.


Sunday, July 14, 2019

Diary of a Lost Girl, #MeToo classic of the silent era starring Louise Brooks, airs on TCM

Diary of a Lost Girl, a #MeToo classic of the silent era starring Louise Brooks, airs on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) tonight. Here is the LINK to today's schedule; check your local listing for the time this must-see film will be shown where you live.


Louise Brooks plays the title role — the “lost girl” — in Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, or Diary of a Lost Girl. The film tells the story of a young woman who is seduced and conceives a child, only to be sent to a home for wayward women before escaping to a brothel. Beneath its melodramatic surface, the film is a pointed social critique aimed at German society.


Here is the film's synopsis on the TCM website, "Thymiane is a beautiful young girl who is not having a storybook life. Her governess, Elizabeth, is thrown out of her home when she is pregnant, only to be later found drown. That same day, her father already has a new governess named Meta. Meinert, downstairs druggist, takes advance of her and gets Thymiane pregnant. When she refuses to marry, her baby is taken from her and she is put into a strict girls reform school. When Count Osdorff is unable to get the family to take her back, he waits for her to escape. She escapes with a friend and the friend goes with the Count while she goes to see her baby. Thymiane finds that her baby is dead, and the Count has put both girls up at a brothel. When her father dies, Thymiane marries the Count and becomes a Countess, but her past and her hatred of Meta will come back to her."

Diary of a Lost Girl is the second film Brooks made under the direction of G.W. Pabst. The first, Pandora’s Box, was also released in 1929. Like Pandora’s Box, this second collaboration was also based on a famous work of literature. Diary of a Lost Girl was based on the bestselling book of the same name by Margarete Böhme. At the time of its publication, one critic called it “the poignant story of a great-hearted girl who kept her soul alive amidst all the mire that surrounded her poor body.” That summation applies to the film as well.

If you can't watch Diary of a Lost Girl on TV, consider getting the DVD and book. In 2010, the Louise Brooks Society published a corrected and annotated edition of the original English language translation, bringing this important book back into print in the United States after more than 100 years. It includes an introduction by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society, detailing the book's remarkable history and relationship to the 1929 silent film. This special "Louise Brooks Edition" also includes more than three dozen vintage illustrations and is available through amazon.com



In 2015, Kino Lorber released the best available print of the film on DVD and Blu-ray. This recommended release features an audio commentary by Thomas Gladysz. Like the book, the film is also available through amazon.com

Sunday, June 2, 2019

Pandora's Box, starring Louise Brooks, airs June 3rd on TCM (Turner Classic Movies)

The sensational 1929 Louise Brooks film, Pandora's Box, will be shown on June 3rd on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in the United States and Canada. The German silent, directed by G.W. Pabst, will air at 5 pm Pacific and 8 pm Eastern. For Monday's complete schedule of films, please visit HERE.


This is Louise Brooks' best known film. And for good reason. Brooks lights up the screen as Lulu,a lovely, amoral, and somewhat petulant showgirl whose behavior leads to tragic consequences. As Brooks biographer Barry Paris put it, her “sinless sexuality hypnotizes and destroys the weak, lustful men around her.” And not just men. . . Lulu’s sexual magnetism had few bounds, and this once controversial film features what may be the screen’s first lesbian character.

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