Showing posts with label advertisement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advertisement. Show all posts

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Louise Brooks asks just how short is a short skirt?

From the Louise Brooks Society archive, a rare newspaper advertisement: "How short is a short skirt? says Louise Brooks, movie darling. Let it be short enough to take advantage of all good points -- if any."


Sunday, April 10, 2016

Louise Brooks for Lux Toilet Soap

Louise Brooks appeared in many advertisements for Lux Toilet Soap, including this one from 1929. She was in good company, which suggests to me both her beauty and her popularity was seen to rank with the others stars pictured in this advertisement.


Tuesday, January 14, 2014

English advertisement features Louise Brooks

Nick Wrigley sent word that this newspaper advertisement from Bolton, Lancashire, England has long featured Louise Brooks.


Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Rosetta Stone: Celebrate Paramount Week advertisement

Below, I've posted a large scan of a "Celebrate Paramount Week" advertisement which I recently came across in a San Francisco newspaper. It dates from 1926. This ad is not unique to San Francisco. In the past, I've dug up these kind of advertisements in other newspapers located across California and the United States.

A close reading of the advertisement reveals that the Louise Brooks - W.C. Fields film, It's the Old Army Game, play at two theatres in San Francisco on September 4th and 5th. As I am currently engaged in a project documenting the exhibition of Brooks' films in the City by the Bay, that's useful information. (The New Mission Theatre and the New Fillmore Theatre were sister theatres which almost always shared programming.)

However, what makes this large advertisement especially revealing is the extensive listing of San Francisco, Bay Area, and Northern California theatres. All of the venues listed here - including the various "irregular exhibition spaces" like hospitals, retirement homes and army base theatres - participated in Paramount Week. And by inference, these were theatres where Brooks' other Paramount features might have been shown. That's also useful information.

This advertisement - and the names and locales of the theatres contained within it - acts as a kind of Rosetta Stone in helping to document the exhibition of Brooks' films. It also reveals which theatres were allied with Paramount (this being the days of block booking) - and in some instances, the very existence of a theatre.

I was especially pleased to spot a listing for the Empress Theatre, located at 28th and Church street in San Francisco. That venue, which was torn down a few weeks ago, is located just a couple of block from where I live in San Francisco. I had written about its demise for my regular column on examiner.com.



If you live in Northern California, you will likely enjoy scouring this advertisement for a theatre near you. Because of its fine print, I have posted a rather large scan. Double-clicking on the image will reveal its full size. Isn't it impressive how many movie theatres there were back in the 1920's? They seemed to located just about everywhere!

Monday, May 9, 2005

An early movie ad

I was digging around the website of the Lansing State Journal, the major daily in Lansing, Michigan. (I went to school at Michigan State University in nearby East Lansing. . . and still have a lingering interest in that part of the world.) And I noticed an historical feature on the website entitled "Looking Back 150 Years: A decade-by-decade look at the history of Lansing." The feature is broken down into decades, with a timeline and photo gallery for each decade. In the decade devoted to the Jazz Age - "1920s - A time for 'wonderful nonsense' " - I found this nifty image of an advertisement on the side of a street car (today's equivalent of ads on the sides of buses). Notice that the screen attraction is Norma Shearer in The Demi-Bride.
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