Monday, July 29, 2019

Update on the Update to The Chaperone, the Louise Brooks inspired bio-pic

While there is still no word on when The Chaperone will be shown on television, the Louise Brooks Society has learned that recently, within the last month or two, numerous props and other items used in the PBS Masterpiece film were put up for auction. These items include clothing worn by some of the principal actors, as well as jewelry and other objects like Louise Brooks' (Haley Lu Richardson) luggage, Joseph's (Geza Rohrig) radio and tool box, and more. These items, each of which are described as "screen worn" or "screen used" were being sold by Premiere Props in El Segundo, California. Some items sold after being put up for auction. Some did not. Here are some of the more interesting objects.

(Left) Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson) screen worn, white chiffon [Denishawn] dance costume with extra fabric and ties, outfit is sheer with a pink bra top to cover that is sewn into dress. (Right) Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson) screen worn green sequin flapper dress with extra slip.


Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson) screen used, hero, tan and yellow very worn luggage, the inside is very ripped and tattered, third class ticket attached to the handle. (14x9)

Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson), Norma (Elizabeth McGovern) screen used, hero, toiletries, hair brushes, tooth brushes and tooth powder, perfume bottle, mirror, and face powder.
 
Joseph (Geza Rohrig) screen used vintage "Thompson Radio Neutrodyne" radio. The radio has 3 large dials and two off switches. The top switch comes off completely exposing the inside of the radio. Production distressed. (21x10x10)

Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson) screen used programs for "The Selwyn Theater".

Ted Shawn (Robert Fairchild) screen worn White "Townsend" poet shirt, black "Body Wrappers" dance pants.

I wonder what happened to some of the other objects from the film, like the book Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson) was reading on the train. Or the framed pictures, magazine covers and posters
on the staircase in Brooks' Wichita home?

All in all, I thought The Chaperone looked great. The costumes, interiors, street scenes and props all seemed to look authentic and were effective in conveying a sense of the times -- the early 1920s.  Haley Lu Richardson deserves to be nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress. Earlier posts about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society blog. Otherwise, read my article on the film, "Never the Victim: Louise Brooks and The Chaperone," on Film International.

Saturday, July 27, 2019

Update on The Chaperone, the Louise Brooks inspired bio-pic

There is still no word on when The Chaperone will be shown on television. The Louise Brooks-inspired bio-pic played in theaters earlier this year in limited release. And to the book's and Brooks' many fans, the film came and went all too quickly. The expectation is that the PBS Masterpiece produced film will be shown on PBS in the United States this Fall.

The film is based on the book by Laura Moriarty: "Amid the backdrop of the tumultuous times of the early 1920's, the life of a Kansas woman (Elizabeth McGovern) is forever changed when she chaperones a beautiful and talented 15-year-old dancer named Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson) to New York for the summer. One of them is eager to fulfill her destiny of dance and movie stardom; the other hopes to unearth the mysteries of her past."

This update is being posted because today I noticed the film is being released on DVD in Australia. This region 4 release hit store shelves on August 14th on the Universal Sony Pictures Entertainment label. Curiously, The Chaperone and Australia seem to have a special relationship. Star Elizabeth McGovern made a special appearance in Sydney to debut the film at the city's historic art deco theater, The Ritz. Why Australia debuted the film before other countries like England, and why Australia has the film's first DVD release is something of a mystery.


Earlier this year, back in March, the film's official soundtrack was released in the United States. This Sony Classical release features music by Marcelo Zarvos, The Sundown Stompers, The Hot Pennies, and others, including the great Vince Giordano And The Nighthawks. Those interested can stream, download, or purchase copies on amazon.

Friday, July 26, 2019

Music ~ La Poupée Qui Fait Non by The Birds >>> Film ~ Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks

Posted on YouTube in 2017

Music ~ "La Poupée Qui Fait Non" by The Birds Film ~ Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks

Thursday, July 25, 2019

Kate Zambreno Screen Tests Louise Brooks

“Kate Zambreno writes with a winning, gleeful transparency about days and nights spent entranced by literature, film, and her own densely populated imagination. Zambreno pays attention to her own desire’s fluctuations—to attachments, moods, self-constructions, and self-abasements, reconfigured in a series of shadow-box homages to writing as an asymptotic specter. In rhythm-conscious bulletins, streaked with passionate candor, she confirms her vocation as haunter and as haunted.” -- Wayne Koestenbaum
 
Kate Zambreno photo credit Tom Hines - Screen Tests by Kate Zambreno - Louise Brooks photo credit Eugene Richee
Admittedly, I didn't know anything about Kate Zambreno until I received a key word alert telling me her new book, Screen Tests, contained a section on Louise Brooks. I know you are not supposed to admit to ignorance, but we all start somewhere, don't we, specifically in that place of not knowing until we find ourselves somewhere else, if only a few inches to the left or right of some new or altered awareness. Ignorance is not necessarily a bad thing, if it is a point of departure. That key word alert was a loose thread, which I pulled at -- another thing you are not supposed to do, but how could I resist? I track such things. Homage to Lulu is an ongoing project of mine. “In Screen Tests, a voice who both is and is not the author picks up a thread and follows it wherever it leads, leaping from one thread to another without quite letting go, creating a delicate and ephemeral and wonderful portrait of how a particular mind functions. Call them stories (after Lydia Davis), reports (after Gerald Murnane), or screen tests (inventing a new genre altogether like Antoine Volodine). These are marvelously fugitive pieces, carefully composed while giving the impression of being effortless, with a quite lovely Calvino-esque lightness, that are a joy to try to keep up with,” said writer Brian Evenson. He put it well. I pull at the threads of Louise Brooks, her appearance in books not about cinema, the way non-filmmakers like Borges friend Adolfo Bioy Casares adored the actress and wrote The Invention of Morel, considered the first great work of Latin American magical realism, inspired by our Miss Brooks. It was published in 1941. If you wondered why Brooks appears on the cover of the book's most recent edition, it is because a thread was pulled. Angela Carter was also a Brooks' obsessed thread puller. The same for contemporary novelist Kathy Acker, who wrote Lulu Unchained, a play inspired by Brooks while riffing off Wedekind. That's what Kathy told me. Kate Zambreno's key word alert was her coming across a copy of Lulu in Hollywood some 15 years ago in a used bookshop. She emailed me, writing "I became enthralled to her writing. I think of that book as in some ways an inspiration for Screen Tests. Then I watched the movies... it was her words before the movies" that fascinated Zambreno. Adding that she became fascinated with Brooks' life in Rochester, and her her attempts at memoir, Incinerator One and Incinerator Two." The text alert that I received was not yesterday's Interview interview, where Zambreno said "Louise Brooks, who I write about in her old age and as a hermit, she’s only seen mournfully through her previous image. One of the things I was most shocked by when I moved to New York—but again, like everything else, I’m less shocked by now—was this concept that to be a writer here, you were expected to be an image. You were expected to be good at getting your photograph taken." Brooks rejected that, didn't she, the reliance on image, the all too often superficial. The impression I came away with after reading Brooks' Rochester journals was of a mind striving to understand what had happened to her, of how she fell, scratch at texts beneath the surface of gloss and publicity. Zambreno's book is described this way, "A new work equal parts observational micro-fiction and cultural criticism reflecting on the dailiness of life as a woman and writer, on fame and failure, aging and art, from the acclaimed author of Heroines, Green Girl, and O Fallen Angel." I like the old-school collage cover of Heroines, which depicts various women like Zelda Fitzgerald and Josephine Baker. Brooks met both of them, observed both of them. Heroines is described as "A manifesto for 'toxic girls' that reclaims the wives and mistresses of modernism for literature and feminism." In it, Zambreno writes about Louise Brooks and mentions some of the other Jazz Age flappers as well, Clara Bow. "Enthralled" is not a word people, let alone writers, use much anymore. It has all manner of connotations. Screen Tests contains fragments of Zambreno's beguilement, her enthrallment, specifically "Louise Brooks in a Mint-Green Housecoat," and the section-chapter before it, "Heiress." There is also captivation with Kathy Acker. And Susan Sontag, another thread.

Lulu in Rochester

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Louise Brooks presentation at the 92nd annual Rudolph Valentino Memorial

One month from today, on Friday August 23, I will be speaking about Louise Brooks and Rudolph Valentino at the 92nd annual Rudolph Valentino Memorial service at the historic Hollywood Forever Cemetery (6000 Santa Monica Blvd) in Hollywood, California. I hope those in Southern California can make it to this event. If you can't make it, or live outside the greater Los Angeles area, please note that this event will be broadcast live over Facebook.


During my brief (five plus minute) presentation, I plan to share some extremely rare material on the subject of Brooks and Valentino - including audio material few if anyone alive has heard. If you are a fan of Brooks, you won't want to miss it. I have attended this event in the past, and look forward to doing so next month.


At this annual event, fans from all corners of the globe come together to mark the passing of a true talent and film legend. The Valentino Memorial, held each year on August 23rd (beginning at 12:10 p.m., the time of Valentino's death), is the longest running annual event in Hollywood, pre-dating the Academy Awards. The event is free and open to the public. Arrive early as seats go quickly. For more on this historic event, check out these articles by Allen Ellenberger. And here is a LINK to a Facebook page previewing the memorial from two years ago.


I wish to thank the event's current organizer and master of ceremonies, Tracy Terhune, for inviting me to speak at the event. Not only is Tracy an authority on the life and films of Valentino, but he is also the author of a book on the remarkable history of the memorial, Valentino Forever: The History of the Valentino Memorial Services. It is a fascinating read. I should also add that Tracy is the grandson of Max Terhune, one of the stars of the Three Mesquiteers series of Westerns which included Overland Stage Raiders (1938), Louise Brooks' last film!


Monday, July 22, 2019

Louise Brooks and Horror

One doesn't think of Louise Brooks in relation to the horror genre, and linking the actress to anything spooky or frightening is something of a stretch. How ever, there are a tenuous connections. It's known, for example, that director James Whale briefly considered Brooks for the title role in Bride of Frankenstein (1935). That role rightly went to Elsa Lanchester, who is terrific. And, there were supposed ghosts which spooked Buck Jones and company in Empty Saddles (1936), Brooks' first Western. Both Bride of Frankenstein and Empty Saddles were released by Universal, the leading studio when it came to horror films in the 1930s.

Though bangless, it is all about the stare and the hair

Recently, I was watching Mark Gattis's three part history of horror on YouTube, which I would recommend as quirky and inciteful. It begins here, A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss (Part 1 of 3) Frankenstein Goes to Hollywood. For those who don't know Gattis, he is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter and novelist. His work includes writing for and acting in the TV series Doctor Who and Sherlock, where in the latter he played Sherlock's older brother, Mycroft Holmes. Gattis is also a reel geek, and horror buff. If you watch the series, you will know what I mean.

Contemplating Dante and the circles of Hell
Well, anyways, there is a sort of part four to the series which covers European horror films. It's a BBC production, and it's called Horror Europa with Mark Gatiss. I watched it as well, and much to my surprise, Louise Brooks got a shout out! Considering Brooks' influence on European cinema in the 1960s (Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina, etc...), it's not surprising that her influence trickled down in the genre film. If you want to find out more, watch these documentaries.


Friday, July 19, 2019

One month left to get My Afternoon With Louise Brooks

This worthwhile Kickstarter campaign only has one month left, thus... I encourage everyone to check out My Afternoon With Louise Brooks - a limited edition, signed and number hardback book by Tom Graves. This Kickstarter campaign has already run one month, so check it out NOW! More information about this very special project can be found HERE.


Pledging today guarantees you one of the 100 signed and numbered copies of My Afternoon With Louise Brooks, Tom Graves' critically-acclaimed long-form journalism article about his visit to the apartment of silent film recluse Louise Brooks.  As a bonus, this special edition book contains the childhood chapter of the aborted Louise Brooks biography that Tom Graves wrote prior to being de-authorized by Miss Brooks.  The book is approximately 80 pages in length. This will be entirely a Kickstarter funded special edition geared for the fans of Louise Brooks who wish to know precisely what it was like meeting the famed cult figure in her declining years.  When the Kickstarter goal is met production will immediately begin and funders will receive a copy of the hardcover collectible book shipped to their home.  The book is limited to 100 copies and will NOT be available after this press run.  So pledge now to secure your copy or copies. I HAVE, AND YOU SHOULD TOO!


Tom Graves is best known as a writer of gritty fiction and nonfiction including his biography of bluesman Robert Johnson, Crossroads. His most recent book is the critically-acclaimed White Boy: A Memoir, the story of how Graves overcame the racism of his family and city. He was also a writer and producer of the Emmy-winning film Best of Enemies about the acrimonious 1968 debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. He owns the publishing company Devault Graves Books.

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