Louise Brooks is on Twitter, follow her now!

The Louise Brooks Society is on Twitter @LB_Society.

 As of today, the LBS is followed by more than 3500 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 4,100 LBS tweets! For those who like to follow the flow, the LBS twitter stream can also be found
in the right hand column of this blog.

 

Who follows the LBS on Twitter? Fans, film historians, theaters, cine clubs and film institutes, art deco collectors, librarians, classic film buffs as well as Garbo, Keaton, Chaplin, Clara Bow and Douglas Fairbanks. Are you one of them? Don't miss a tweet!

And that's not all. 

RadioLulu ♪♫♬♪

also has a Twitter account at @Radio_Lulu. 

As of now, RadioLulu is followed by more than 425 individuals - including many silent film and vintage music enthuisiasts, and has posted more than 250 tweets! This more recently established 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/radiolulu
Check em out! 

And for those who want, check out the Twitter account of Thomas Gladysz, founding director of the Louise Brooks Society, at @thomas_gladysz 

New Louise Brooks Society website in the works

To celebrate 20 years online as the leading source for all things Lulu, a new Louise Brooks Society website is in the works! Great progress is being made. But in the meantime, the domain www.pandorasbox.com is under construction. Please check back as a new and improved website is made ready. Contact info is pictured here.

Why Be Good?

I recently has the opportunity to see the stellar 1929 Colleen Moore film, Why Be Good?, on the big screen at the recent San Francisco Silent Film Festival. And let me tell you, it was stellar. Did I already say that? If so, let me tell you it was really terrific. If you like Louise Brooks, you'll like Colleen Moore. She is just as much of a dish!

Happily, Why Be Good? is available on DVD. And what's more, this recent DVD release stars actor Neil Hamilton (who was featured in Brooks' first film, The Street of Forgotten Men) as well as the film's original Vitaphone soundtrack.

"'Why be good when it’s so much more thrilling to be bad?' asked the ad campaign for this slightly naughty and oh-so-knowing silent-movie celebration of the flapper era. The star of Flaming Youth - vivacious Colleen Moore - again captures the rebellious flamboyance of the Twenties in Why Be Good? She plays Pert Kelly, a shopgirl who wins the heart of the boss’ son (Neil Hamilton, The Dawn Patrol). The boss, however, doubts that Pert is virtuous. His love-struck son wonders if Dad could be right. So he sets up a little test for his sweetie: He takes Pert to a raucous roadhouse, rents a private room and makes a most ungentlemanly suggestion. Will Pert be good? Or, with Prince Charming in her grasp, will she decide it’s better to be bad? The lively direction is the work of William A. Seiter, whose 45-year career included the Golden Age musicals Roberta, Dimples and You Were Never Lovelier."

For more about Colleen Moore, be sure and check out the Colleen Moore Project website.

First ever Louise Brooks Society blog on this day in 2002

The first ever Louise Brooks Society blog appeared on LiveJournal on this day in 2002. To mark the occasion, here is that first post:

In search of the perfect bob, in the Philippines

The Philippine Daily Inquirer, from Manila, recently ran a story titled "In search of the perfect bob." In it, the reporter discusses her own quest for the haircut, as well as a bit of it's history.

It has been a long debate on who actually started the classic bob. But American Hairdresser magazine, in an article on March 1, 2007, “The Way We Were,” credited dancer Irene Castle for the bob, which used to be called “Castle Bob” in 1915.

There was also the tale of an unpopular girl whose life changed after she got her new bob, as told in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” published in the Saturday Evening Post in May 1920.

Others credit the bob to Coco Chanel or the American dancer and actress Louise Brooks, with her ebony black, blunt bob with bangs.

Anna Wintour has been sporting the page-boy bob since she was 14.

Why is the ’do still popping up to this day?

The popularity of the bob knows no bounds. Neither does its identification with Louise Brooks. Both are a worldwide phenomena!

Something about RadioLulu you'll want to read

Here's the latest on RadioLulu....

RadioLulu is a Louise Brooks-inspired, silent film-themed station streaming music of the 1920s, 1930s, and today. Located on the web at www.live365.com/stations/radiolulu — RadioLulu features music from the films of the silent and early sound era, as well as recordings by early stars, show tunes, a little sweet jazz, cabaret artists, contemporary tracks and more. In addition, there are theme songs, novelty numbers, torch singers and crooners — as well as a numerous tracks with “Lulu” or “LouLou” in the title. And of course, there’s Maurice Chevalier’s much-loved “Louise”. All together, RadioLulu features more than 430 tracks totaling almost 23 hours!

Music has played a significant role in the life and films of Louise Brooks. (Remember, “Silent films were never silent.”) And that’s why RadioLulu was started, as a means of sharing some of the many rare related recordings collected by the Louise Brooks Society.

Launched in 2002, this unique station features music from five of Brooks’ films — the haunting themes from Beggars of Life (1928) and Prix de Beauté (1930), as well as musical passages from The Canary Murder Case (1929), Empty Saddles (1936), and Overland Stage Raiders (1938). On RadioLulu, you’ll also hear the familiar “Sidewalks of New York” (played on the set of The Street of Forgotten Men), as well as John Philip Sousa’s “Atlantic City Beauty Pageant” (written for the Miss America contest seen in The American Venus). There are also vintage recordings by Brooks’ screen co-stars, Adolphe Menjou, Noah Beery, Blanche Ring (aunt of husband Eddie Sutherland), Esther Ralston, Dorothy Mackaill, James Hall, Lawrence Gray,  Frank Fay, Joan Blondell, and Buck Jones. Similarly, Brooks’ European co-stars are represented by recordings from Siegfried Arno (Pandora’s Box), Kurt Gerron (Diary of a Lost Girl), and Andre Roanne (Prix de Beauté). Each recording is a rarity.

There are vintage tracks associated with Brooks’ brief time with the Ziegfeld Follies, including a handful of recordings by performers who shared the stage with the actress, such as Ethel Shutta, Leon Erroll, and the great W.C. Fields.

RadioLulu also features songs by Brooks’ friends and acquaintances, as well as individuals she worked with over the years. Actress Tallulah Bankhead, torch singer Libby Holman, chanteuse Lucienne Boyer, bandleader Emil Coleman, and nightclub owner Bruz Fletcher are all included. Other tracks associated with the actress heard on RadioLulu include George Gershwin’s “Somebody Loves Me” (her favorite Gershwin song), Xavier Cugat’s “Siboney” (recommended by Brooks in her book, Fundamentals of Ballroom Dancing), and two numbers by Sid Kay’s Fellows (the jazz band seen playing at the wedding reception in Pandora’s Box). Also, there’s Ross Berkal’s latter day tribute, “MLB (for Louise Brooks)”. Berkal, who is mentioned in the Barry Paris biography and is a longtime member of the Louise Brooks Society, was friendly with Brooks later in her life.

Some of the many tributes to the actress by contemporary recording artists are also played on RadioLulu. They include Natalie Merchant, Rufus Wainwright, Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark (OMD), John Zorn, Sarah Azzara, and Soul Coughing. Even famed cartoonist Robert Crumb is heard on “Chanson pour Louise Brooks”.

Recordings by early Hollywood figures such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Lupe Velez, Bebe Daniels, Clara Bow, Norma Talmadge, Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson and Joan Crawford are also streamed. So are recordings by later stars Buddy Rogers, Claudette Colbert, David Manners, Jean Harlow, Paulette Goddard, Barbara Stanwyck, and Dorothy Lamour. A few of the European actors and actresses heard on the station are Brigitte Helm, Camilla Horn, Anny Ondra, Conrad Veidt, Pola Negri, and Marlene Dietrich (notably her early German-language recordings).

Gloria Swanson is one of the many silent and early film stars featured on RadioLulu.

Among others, Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell are heard singing the classic “If I Had A Talking Picture Of You,” one of a number of movie-related songs heard on RadioLulu. There’s also “Take Your Girlie to the Movies,” “At the Moving Picture Ball,” “Hollywood Stomp” and “Hooray for Hollywood,” as well as rare vintage songs about Chaplin, Garbo, Keaton, and Zasu Pitts. And don’t miss H. Robinson Cleaver’s “Grace Moore Medley”, Fred Bird & Luigi Bernauer’s “Hallo Hallo Hier Radio”, and Jack Hylton and His Orchestra’s “My brother makes the noises for the talkies”.

What else is heard on RadioLulu? Tune in to hear Constance Bennett sing “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, or Alice White & Blanche Sweet sing “There’s A Tear For Every Smile in Hollywood” (from the soundtrack to Showgirl in Hollywood). The Waldorf-Astoria Dance Orchestra perform “The Vamp”, Nate Shilkret plays “Flapperette”, and Marion Harris sings “I’m a Jazz Vampire”. Regulations regarding radio station identification are given by none other than Cary Grant, co-star of the 1937 Brooks’ film, When You’re in Love.

And that’s not all…. You’ll hear James P. Johnson’s “You’ve Got to be Modernistic”, the Coon-Sanders Nighthawks’ recording of “Louise, You Tease”, as well as a handful of different recordings of both “Don’t Bring Lulu” and “Lulu’s Back in Town”. All will delight. RadioLulu plays Ragtime, dance bands, Big Bands, hotel orchestras, standards, swing, and some real hot jazz, including such popular hits as the “Charleston”, “Black Bottom”, and “Varsity Rag”. There are also sentimental favorites like “Stardust” and “As Time Goes By”.

Among the unusual European tracks streamed on RadioLulu are little heard gems from the 1930s Polish chanteuse Hanka Ordonówna as well as the Gershwin of Czechoslovakia, Jaroslav Jezek, a stirring number by the great British cinema organist Sidney Torch, and a 1929 recording of the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht singing “Mack the Knife”. Also heard are one-time models Suzy Solidor and Kiki of Montparnasse. Both posed for the surrealist photographer Man Ray, an  admirer of Louise Brooks.

RadioLulu features many of the leading stars of the 1920s and 1930s — Rudy Vallee, Russ Colombo, Ben Selvin, Fred Waring, Ted Weems, Paul Whiteman, Annette Hanshaw, Helen Kane, Mildred Bailey, Lee Wiley, Ruth Etting, Kay Thompson, and Frankie Trumbauer, as well as Josephine Baker, Django Rheinhart, and Mistinguett. There are also rarely heard artists like the Eskimo Pie Orchestra and the Brox Sisters, as well as Scrappy Lambert, Fred Elizalde, and Dorothy Dickson. You never know what will turn up on this eclectic, always entertaining station.

There is nothing else quite like RadioLulu. Over the years, it has gained many fans and listeners. Famed film critic Leonard Maltin rated it a “Wow.” Louise Brooks devotee and celebrated Dr. Who actor Paul McGann called it “incredible.” The Pulitzer-Prize winning graphic novelist Art Spiegelman (author of Maus) said he has tuned-in on a number of occasions. As has the award-winning science fiction writer Richard Kadrey. And would you believe the retro Spanish pop/swing/rock group Radio Lulu named themselves after the station?

Listen today by clicking on the widget above. Be sure to follow RadioLulu on Twitter and Facebook. And check out the RadioLulu wish list on Amazon.com

There is a lot of great music on RadioLulu. Along with George Jessel’s narrative history of “The Roaring Twenties 1920-1929″ and such famous names as Duke Ellington, Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby and Benny Goodman, here are ten tracks you won’t want to miss: “Makin’ Whoopee” by B.A. Rolfe & His Lucky Strike Orchestra, “Runnin’ Wild” by Isabella Patricola, “The Sheik of Araby” by Fats Waller, and “Puttin on the Ritz” by Harry Richman, as well as “You Oughta be In Pictures” by Little Jack Little & His Orchestra, “Singin’ In The Rain” by Cliff Edwards (Ukulele Ike), “Slumming On Park Avenue” by Alice Faye, “Ramona” by Dolores Del Rio, and on a more contemporary note, “Lulu” by Twiggy (the 1960’s supermodel), and “I’m In Love With A German Film Star” by The Passions.

RadioLulu needs your help. Consider becoming an underwriter: the Louise Brooks Society pays $120.00 annually to stream this unique online station. That amount includes licensing fees associated with broadcasting music over the web through LIve365. Show your support by paying for part or a full year’s broadcast. Individuals who make a donation will be acknowledged on this page and on the RadioLulu homepage.  (Full or partial underwriting for the current year is available.) To help underwrite RadioLulu send an email or join the LBS as a contributing member. // Or, consider purchasing a CD for RadioLulu from its Amazon.com wish list. It will be used in adding additional tracks to the station. Thank you for your interest in Louise Brooks, RadioLulu and the Louise Brooks Society.

Was Louise Brooks first film appearance in 1923, not 1925?

I am trying to follow up on a lead.... there is a small chance that Louise Brooks may have had an uncredited bit part in Cause for Divorce. The film, an independent production produced and directed by Hugh Dierker, was released in late 1923 by Hugh Dierker Productions and distributed by the Selznick Distribution Corporation. The film was shown around the country in the first half of 1924. If true, Brooks appearance in this film would pre-date her uncredited role in the 1925 film, The Street of Forgotten Men.

Cause for Divorce was shot in 1923, while Brooks was still a member of the Denishawn Dance Company. I have run across a clipping from the time Brooks was on tour with Denishawn mentioning that the company took part in the making of a local film. The title was not given. What I need to find out is where Cause for Divorce was made. If it was shot in Hollywood, then Brooks does not appear in it. If Cause for Divorce was made in the South, then there is a chance she did. Does anyone know anything about Cause for Divorce or Hugh Dierker Productions? Does this film still exist? Here is the IMDb entry for the film.

And here is the AFI catalogue entry, which may provide a clue. I have tried tracing the career of the film lead, Fritzi Brunette, but she is pretty obscure. The only cast member I was familiar with was Junior Coughlan. Did he ever work in the South? Director Hugh Dierker is also obscure. He only produced three films. The first was When Dawn Came (1920), which featured Colleen Moore.

Here is a tantalizing clue, a clipping from 1924, which mentions that Ted Shawn and the female Denishawn dancers participated in some way in Cause for Divorce. If the film was shot in Hollywood, then the participants were likely members of the Los Angeles branch of Denishawn (which did not include Brooks). If the film was shot in the South, then the participants may have been members of Denishawn's touring company, which then included the future actress.

I realize this is all a bit speculative, but any help is greatly appreciated.

New article on Louise Brooks in Jocks&Nerds magazine

There is a new, 6 page illustrated article in Jocks&Nerds magazine (issue 14, Spring 2015). The piece was penned by Chris Sullivan and starts on page 84. Jocks&Nerds is published in London, but can be read online.