Tuesday, September 9, 2014

The Art of Time Travel Act I Louise in the Late Afternoon Pt. 1

The Art of Time Travel Act I Louise in the Late Afternoon Pt. 1. I think you will recognize the song.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Any Way the Wind Blows - The Green Pajamas - tribute to Louise Brooks

The Green Pajamas performing "Any Way the Wind Blows" in this tribute to the film, PANDORA'S BOX, and it's star, Louise Brooks. I love it.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Louise Brooks - Digital painting by Jeff Stahl

Time lapse digital speed painting of Louise Brooks by Jeff Stahl done in Photoshop CS5 with Wacom tablets Cintiq 12wx and Intuos 4L. Real time: 1h16min. Music: "The Russian Princess" by Jeff Stahl, track available here: http://on.fb.me/1fnzNSH

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Intrigue and Comedy Abound (in case of mistaken identity)

One of the curious items I've run across over the years is this incorrectly captioned pair of photographs. This one - pictured below - confuses Louise Brooks and Colleen Moore and their respective co-stars. As it happened, films starring each actress were playing at the same time in Tacoma, Washington.

This is not the first time I have come across a Louise Brooks-Colleen Moore mix-up: I think, because the two actresses wore their hair in a similar fashion (and perhaps resembled one another slightly), and because at times they played the same sorts of roles, newspapers editors and the public sometimes mistook one actress for the other. Or was it that they thought of them in similar terms?


Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Silent film star Colleen Moore

Colleen Moore (1899-1988) was one of the most popular and beloved stars of the American silent screen. Remembered primarily as a comedienne in such films as Ella Cinders (1926) and Orchids and Ermine (1927), Moore's career was also filled with dramatic roles that often reflected societal trends. A trailblazing performer, her legacy was somewhat overshadowed by the female stars that followed.

 

Jeff Codori - author and Colleen Moore researcher extraordinaire - maintains an impressive website devoted to the actress. Jeff's site can be found at http://www.colleenmoore.org/  He has put a lot of work into the site, and it contains lots of pictures and lots of interesting text. I would encourage everyone to check it out.

Also, well worth checking out is Jeff's biography of the actress, Colleen Moore: A Biography of the Silent Film Star (McFarland). The book is available in soft-bound and Kindle editions.

Ten years of research went into the creation of this book, giving the most complete account of her childhood and film career to date, including a look behind the scenes of many of her films, as well as a look at the evolution of her studio First National, and how it's fortunes were affected by the actress'. Many never-before seen photos, including family photographs and candids, are included. It is a must-have for silent film and Colleen Moore enthusiasts.

I have seen only a few of Colleen Moore's films, and they are delightful! I think they compare favorably to those of Marion Davies, another undervalued performer. I wish more Colleen Moore films were in circulation. Like Louise Brooks, she is something extra special.


Speaking of Colleen Moore films, on Saturday September 6th at 7:30 pm, Why Be Good? (1929) will be screened in Los Angeles. In this, her final silent film, Colleen Moore plays a wild flapper with a dubious reputation, who, after a vivacious night of dancing, finds herself romantically linked to her boss’s son. Why Be Good? contains a Vitaphone soundtrack with sound effects and synchronized music, chiefly hot jazz and Twenties dance music played by such period greats as Jimmy Dorsey, Phil Napoleon, Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang. The big-budgeted film, filled with beautiful art deco sets, features a young Jean Harlow as a prominent dress extra.

Long believed to be a lost film, it was rediscovered though the perseverance of film historian Joseph Yranski and Ron Hutchinson, the founder of the Vitaphone Project. The search began when Yranski interviewed Moore, who told him that a copy of the film survived in an Italian film archive. Hutchinson was able to find the 16” Vitaphone discs containing the soundtrack, and the task of locating the missing picture began. Gian Luca Farinelli of Cineteca di Bologna contacted Matteo Pavesi of Cineteca Italiana di Milano, who graciously allowed access to the 35mm nitrate dupe negative for the restoration at L’Immagine Ritrovata in conjunction with Warner Bros.

Be sure and check back tomorrow for another Colleen Moore related blog . . .  about how Moore and Louise Brooks were sometimes confused.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Follow Louise Brooks on Twitter

The Louise Brooks Society is on Twitter @LB_Society. As of today, the LBS is followed by more than 2,700 individuals. Are you one of them? Why not join the conversation? Be sure and visit the official LBS Twitter profile, and check out the more than 3,465 LBS tweets so far!
The LBS twitter stream can also be found in the right hand column of this blog.
And that's not all.

RadioLulu ♪♫♬♪

also has a Twitter account at @Radio_Lulu.
This account tweets about Louise Brooks and music as well as additions to
RadioLulu - the long running online radio station of the Louise Brooks Society
at live365.com/stations/298896 Check it out today!

Monday, September 1, 2014

John Philip Sousa and Louise Brooks

A while back, I purchased a CD of John Philip Sousa's music for wind bands. The disc contains a track of some interest, The Atlantic City Pageant March (1927). According to the linear notes, "During Sousa's final years, beginning in 1926, the band often played summer engagements at Atlantic City's Steel Pier. The Atlantic City Pageant March was written at the request of the city's mayor, and honoured the famous Atlantic City Beauty Pageant." That's a little less then two years after Louise Brooks and Famous Players-Lasky were in Atlantic City (during the first week of September in 1925) filming The American Venus, whose story centered on the pageant.



Curiously, this is not the first time I have come across an instance of Sousa "shadowing" Brooks . . . . I noticed 
- while looking in the Independence Daily Reporter - that Sousa and his band performed in Independence, Kansas just a week or so after Brooks and Denishawn had danced there in January, 1924. (The paper reported that the band concert was the next big happening in town after the dance recital.) Another time, I came across a screening of Evening Clothes in Chicago. At that 1927 event, Sousa's band performed onstage prior to the film being shown!
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