Kansas Silent Film Festival to Screen Louise Brooks film A Girl in Every Port on February 28

 

As it has a few times in the past, this year's Kansas Silent Film Festival will include a film featuring the Kansas-born silent film star, Louise Brooks. This year, the venerable event will screen the Howard Hawks directed film, A Girl in Every Port (1928), starring Victor McLaglen, Louise Brooks and Robert Armstrong. Brooks will light-up the screen on Friday, February 28. More about the Kansas Silent Film Festival can be found HERE. 

Here is the full line-up of films and related events, which included screenings of films starring Buster Keaton & Phyllis Haver.(both Kansas-born actors), Clara Bow (from Brooklyn), Harold Lloyd (from Nebraska), and the Canadian-born Nell Shipman, among others. HERE is a link to an article which just appeared in the Topeka Capital-Journal.

LIVE EVENT, with FREE ADMISSION for all showings
@ White Concert Hall, Washburn Univeristy, 1700 SW Jewell, Topeka, KS 66603

Friday Afternoon, Feb. 28, 2025: Begins @ 1:00 PM

Overture & Welcome
___________________________

The Curtain Pole 10 min.	(1909)	Mack Sennett, a D.W. Griffith film  —Music by Bill Beningfield
Valley of the Giants 51 min.	(1919)	Wallace Reid, directed by James Cruze  —Music by Ben Model

Guest Talk: Scott Eyman 20 min.

Scott talks about how he chooses subjects for his celebrity biographies and their roots in silent film

The Johnstown Flood 68 min.

(1926)

George O'Brien, directed by Irving Cummings —Music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

—BREAK, 15 min.—

A Girl in Every Port 78 min.

(1928)

Victor McLaglen & Louise Brooks, directed by Howard Hawks —Music by Marvin Faulwell & Bob Keckeisen

_________________________

—DINNER BREAK—
_________________________

Friday Evening, Feb. 28, 2025: Begins @ 7:30 PM
@ White Concert Hall, Washburn University

His New Mama 15 min.	(1924)	Harry Langdon, directed by Roy Del Ruth —Music by Jeff Rapsis
The Second Hundred Years 21 min.	(1927)	starring Laurel and Hardy, directed by Fred Guiol —Music by Ben Model
Lady Windermere's Fan 89 min.	(1925)	Ronald Colman, directed by Ernst Lubitsch —Music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

Sat. Mar. 1, 2025, 9:00 a.m.-Noon
@ White Concert Hall, Washburn University

Overture & Welcome

Film Documentary 60 min.

An opportunity to see a documentary on the history of silent film comedy.

—BREAK, 5 min.—

Max Linder Compilation 20 min.	(1907-1912)	Max Linder —Music by Ben Model
Ice Cold Cocos 20 min.	(1926)	Billy Bevan, directed by Del Lord —Music by Ben Model
Something New 57 min.	(1920)	Nell Shipman, directed by Bert Van Tuyle —Music by Jeff Rapsis

___________________________

Lunch Break (on your own), resuming at 1:30 p.m
___________________________

Sat. Mar. 1, 2025, 1:30-5:00 p.m.
@ White Concert Hall, Washburn University

Overture & Welcome
___________________________

An Eastern Westerner 27 min.	(1920)	Harold Lloyd, directed by Hal Roach —Music by Jeff Rapsis
The Enchanted Cottage 80 min.	(1924)	Richard Barthelmess, directed by John S. Robertson —Music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

—BREAK, with Scott Eyman Book Signing—

The Balloonatic 22 min.	(1923)	Buster Keaton, directed by Edward F. Cline —Music by Marvin Faulwell
Mantrap 71 min.	(1926)	Clara Bow, directed by Victor Fleming —Music by Ben Model

Dinner

Special Dinner Event, Our Sixteenth Annual CINEMA-DINNER, Seating begins @ 5:15 p.m. Dinner from 5:30 to 7:20 p.m. Special Guest Scott Eyman speaks about his work as writer of celebrity biographies of those with roots in silent filmmaking. — This event is by reservation only. Dinner is $40. Contact Bill Shaffer at bill.shaffer@washburn.edu to reserve your space —

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Sat. Mar. 1, 2025, 7:30-10:00 p.m.
@ White Concert Hall, Washburn University

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Overture & Welcome

Ambrose's First Falsehood 11 min.	(1914)	Mack Swain, directed by F. Richard Jones —Music by Bill Beningfield
A Night in the Show 24 min.	(1915)	Charlie Chaplin, directed by Charles Chaplin —Music by Ben Model
Don Q: Son of Zorro 111 min.	(1925)	Douglas Fairbanks, directed by Donald Crisp —Music by Marvin Faulwell & Bob Keckeisen

 

 

More about A Girl in Every Port can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its A Girl in Every Port (filmography page). 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Diary of a Lost Girl, starring Louise Brooks, screens in Kent, England

Diary of a Lost Girl, starring Louise Brooks, will be shown later today (February 23) at the Palace Theater in Kent, England. This screening will feature a live musical accompaniment by Lilian Henley on the piano. More information about this event can be found HERE.

According to the venue website: "Join us for a deep dive into night and the city, the characters and cabaret of Berlin in the late 1920s, including a young woman (played by the iconic bob-haired Louise Brooks) who we accompany as she finds her way through the dark and dangerous world.

Diary of a Lost Girl begins with the 16-year-old Thymian, daughter of a pharmacist, being given a diary as a first communion present, in which she will go on to record her life of shame and humiliation, betrayed by a succession of men and women. Her innocence ended after she is made pregnant, when she first records her experiences in a repressive reform school and then, having escaped, at a high-class brothel where she’s transformed from dowdy inmate into the stunning woman we know as Louise Brooks the film star.

Throughout it all, Brooks is an incredible, natural, modern presence. Her Thymian transcends her story, retaining her moral decency in a corrupt world. Director GW Pabst had already directed her in Pandora’s Box which outraged correct middle-class audiences in Germany (and everywhere!) on its release, and this film, set in Berlin towards the end of a period of social freedoms and cultural permissiveness (think Liza Minnelli in Cabaret) delivered much the same!"

 In 2010,  the Louise Brooks Society published a corrected and annotated edition of the original 1907 English language translation -- notably, this edition, the first in English in 100 years -- brought this important work of feminist literature back into print in English. 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.  (Purchase on amazon.)

More about Diary of a Lost Girl can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its Diary of a Lost Girl (filmography page).

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

A Girl in Every Port, featuring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928

A Girl in Every Port, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928. A Girl in Every Port is a classic early “buddy film,” On loan to Fox, Louise Brooks plays Marie (Mam’selle Godiva), the girl in Marseille, France. The film was directed by Howard Hawks, and stars Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong as the two sailors, and features Marie Casajuana, Sally Rand, Natalie Kingston, Leila Hyams, and Myrna Loy as the women they romance in various ports of call. 

More about the film can be found on the recently revised Louise Brooks Society filmography page. 

The film was shot in November and December, 1927 at Fox’s studios in Hollywood. Location shooting was done on a boating trip to Santa Cruz Island, located along the California coast. The film debuted at the mammoth Roxy theater in New York City. Fox claimed, and Film Daily reported, that A Girl in Every Port had broke the “world’s record” for a single day’s box office receipts, when on February 22, 1928 it premiered at the Roxy in New York and grossed $29,463.00. A hit, the film was written up in just about every NYC publications, from the German-language New Yorker Volkszeitung to Women’s Wear Daily to the socialist Daily Worker.

The film received glowing reviews. TIME magazine stated, “A Girl in Every Port is really What Price Glory? translated from arid and terrestrial irony to marine gaiety of the most salty and miscellaneous nature. Nobody could be more charming than Louise Brooks, that clinging and tender little barnacle from the docks of Marseilles. Director Howard Hawks and his entire cast, especially Robert Armstrong, deserve bouquets and kudos.” Weekly Film Review noted that the audience “Cheered it – and loved it!”

What many critics focused on was the bond between the two male characters, sailors played by Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong. Bland Johaneson of the New York Daily Mirror wrote, “A Girl in Every Port at the Roxy is a man’s picture. It’s a good character comedy. But the love interest is the love of two men friends. The girls are all rats. And that limits the picture’s appeal to the romanticists. . . . Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong do fine acting, and the comedy is neatly handled.” Limitations aside, women also liked the picture, according to the Newark Star-Eagle. “Women laughed delightedly in the Fox Terminal yesterday at what was supposed to be exclusively a he-man picture. Victor McLaglen starred as a true adventurer in A Girl in Every Port, and although the film was mostly fast battling, feminine spectators found delightful entertainment in it. . . . He has a prize associate in Robert Armstrong, who was the fighter in the stage version of Is Zat So, and Louise Brooks, cast as a sideshow siren, does capitally as the crisis of McLaglen’s career as a seaport Don Juan. . . . This is a salty, virile picture, full of flying fists and colorful rows in strange climates and distinguished by the unmovie like and emphatic characterizations of the two leading males.” 

The salty nature of the picture did not go unnoticed. According to Irene Thirer of the New York Daily News, “Director Howard Hawks has injected several devilish touches in the piece, which surprisingly enough, got by the censors.” An exhibitor from Michigan wrote in the Exhibitor’s Herald, “the salesman said that this was a good picture when he sold it to me… time must have rotted it for it is one of the smuttiest pictures on the market. If you want to promote immorality, by all means play this one. I have to use care and precaution in the selection of pictures, and this one brought plenty of criticism”.

Aside from its popularity in the United States, the film had an even bigger impact in Europe, especially France. Writing in 1930 in his “Paris Cinema Chatter” column in the New York Times, Morris Gilbert noted “ . . . there are a number of others – mostly American – which have their place as ‘classics’ in the opinion of the French. . . . They love A Girl in Every Port, which has the added distinction of being practically the only American film which keeps its own English title here.” The film enjoyed a long run in Paris, where to this day it is still highly regarded.

Notably,  Jean-Paul Sartre hoped to take Simone de Beauvoir to see the film on one of their first dates. Later, the writer Blaise Cendrars stated the film “marked the first appearance of contemporary cinema”.

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). In the United States, the film was also presented under the title Uma noiva em cada porto (Portuguese-language press).

Elsewhere, A Girl in Every Port was shown under the title Poings de fer, coeur d’or (Algeria); Una novia en cada puerto and Una chica en cada porto (Argentina); Das Verdammte Herz – Zwei lustige Matrosen (Austria); Une fille dans chaque port (Belgium, French) and Een liefje bij elke landing (Belgium, Dutch); Uma noiva em cada porto (Brazil); Una Novia en Cada Puerto (Cuba); Dívka v každém prístavu (Czechoslovakia) and Dievca v kazdom pristave and Vsade ine dievca (Slovakia); Blaue jungens, blonde Mädchen (Danzig); En Pige i hver Havn (Denmark); Una Novia en Cada Puerto (Dominican Republic); Een Liefje in iedere Haven and In iedere Stad een andere Schat! (Dutch East Indies - Indonesia); Poings de fer, coeur d’or and Une femme dans chaque port and Une fille dans chaque port (France); Blaue jungens, blonde Mädchen (Germany); Az ocean Don Juana (Hungary); Kærasta i hverri höfn! (Iceland); Capitano Barbableu and Il Capitano Barbableu and Capitan Barbablù (Italy); 港々に女あり or Minato Ni on'na ari (Japan); Ein zeitgemasser Don-Juan and Meitene katra osta (Latvia); Mergina kiekviename uoste (Lithuania); Poings de Fer – Coeur d’Or Blaue Jungen – Blonde Madchen (Luxembourg); Una novia in cada puerto (Mexico); In iedere Stad ... een andere Schat! and In elke stad een andere schat (Netherlands); En pike i hver havn (Norway); A kochanek miał sto and Dziewczyna w kaz.dym porcie and Era Pogoni Za Bogatym Memzem (Poland); Uma Rapariga em Cada Pôrto and Uma companheira em cada pôrto (Portugal); O fata in fiecare port (Romania); Una novia in cada puerto and Un Amor en Cada Puerto and Una xicota a cada port (Spain, including The Canary Islands); En flicka i varje hamn (Sweden); and Poings de fer et coeur dor (Switzerland).

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— Much was made over the “bevy of beautiful girls” appearing in the film. Writing in the Hollywood Daily Citizen, Elena Brinkley quipped, “It seems to me they’ll never finish signing girls for Victor McLaglen’s A Girl in Every Port.” Early on, among those she reports cast was Anna May Wong.

— Maria Casajuana, a Spanish-born dancer and one-time “Miss Spain,” made her screen debut in A Girl in Every Port. As a newcomer, her role was heavily promoted. Beginning with Road House (1928), Casajuana appeared in films as Maria Alba. She also appeared in Goldie, a 1931 remake of A Girl in Every Port.

— Casajuana was not the only actress working under another name. Gretel Yolz was actually Eileen Sedgwick, one of the Five Sedgwicks, a pioneering family in Hollywood.

— In 1931, Fox remade A Girl in Every Port as a sound film entitled Goldie. The remake was directed by Benjamin Stoloff and starred Spencer Tracy, Warren Hymer and Jean Harlow. The 1952 Marx Brothers’ film of the same name is unrelated.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

Surrealist Painting artist Man Ray sent to silent film icon Louise Brooks goes to auction

If you've read the outstanding Barry Paris biography of Louise Brooks, then you likely know that the famed surrealist Man Ray once sent Louise Brooks a small painting. That painting has just gone to auction at Sothebys in New York City. (While the paining is on display at Sothebys gallery in NYC, the auction itself is also being held online. The link to the auction can be found HERE.)

According to the Sothebys' auction page, "Andrew Strauss and Timothy Baum of the Man Ray Expertise Committee have confirmed the authenticity of this work under reference 00468-P-2025 and that it will be included in the Catalogue of Paintings of Man Ray, currently in preparation."

Man Ray was something of a fan of Louise Brooks. According to the Paris biography, the artist "was struck by Brooks's face" when he saw it in magazines during the filming of  Prix de Beaute." And, he never forgot her. [To imagine one of the covers Man Ray might have seen, be sure and check out this gallery page of French magazine covers featuring Louise Brooks circa 1929 / 1930 on the Louise Brooks Society website.]

Louise Brooks' image on display in Paris in 1930

The artist and the actress met for the first time in late 1958, when Brooks was in Paris for a retrospective of her films. According to the Paris biography, "On one occasion, she met Man Ray, the surrealist artist-photographer, who had long admired her and soon sent her, upon her return to the States, one of his small abstractions." That painting hung on the wall of Brooks' bedroom apartment in Rochester, New York until the time of her death in 1985, when it was willed to her heirs. The Estate has had the painting in their possession these 40 years, and have now decided to sell it.

I've long wondered... why would a then very famous artist send a then somewhat forgotten silent film star one of his newest paintings? I think the answer is nostalgia, that he once was and may still have been somewhat smitten with Brooks - especially her look, and what she represented to the artist, not to mention her resemblance to his one-time paramour Alice Prin (aka Kiki de Montparnasse), who Man Ray described in his autobiography as "beautiful" and having "the hairdo then in fashion among the smart women, short cut with bangs low on the forehead." (Coincidentally, Man Ray and Kiki had one of their first dates in a movie theater, when they held hands. I wonder what film they saw?) As Robert Benayoun, a surrealist historian and the one-time editor of the French film magazine Positif  told Barry Paris, "The surrealists were always in love with her... Man Ray loved that kind of face and image."

(Left) A 1928 newspaper ad featuring a Man Ray flm and a Louise Brooks film,
and (Right) the lovely Kiki de Montparnasse

Here is a picture of the reverse of the painting, which is inscribed in the artist's hand, "for Louise Brooks a souvenir of Man Ray Paris 1958". To me, it is a somewhat curious inscription. This small but extravagant gift is described not as a souvenir of an occasion, or of a place, or of their meeting -- but as a souvenir of a person - the artist.

For more about "Louise Brooks and the Surrealists", be sure and check out a this page on the subject on the Louise Brooks Society website. 

Also, check out this earlier Louise Brooks Society blog, "The Indestructible Lee Miller and the Destructible Louise Brooks," from December 13th of last year. It details the time that a Man Ray film and a Louise Brooks film shared the same bill at the Ursulines theater (shown above) in Paris in 1928!

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Gary Conklin, Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 92

Variety is reporting that Gary Conklin, the noted documentary filmmaker, died on December 26 at the age of 92. For fans and devotees of Louise Brooks, Conklin may be best known for Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture, which featured Louise Brooks in one of her few appearances in any documentary. The Variety obit for Conklin can be found HERE.

Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture, which was released in 1976, tells the cultural story of Berlin during the Weimar Republic through interviews with persons who were involved in the literature, film, art, and music of the period. Besides Brooks, this groundbreaking documentary included interviews with Francis Lederer (Brooks co-star in Pandora's Box), as well as Christopher Isherwood, Lotte Eisner, Elisabeth Bergner, Carl Zuckmayer, Gregor Piatigorsky, Claudio Arrau, Rudolf Kolisch, Mischa Spoliansky, Herbert Bayer, Mrs. Walter Gropius, and Arthur Koestler. 

Notably, Brooks knew Eisner, a well known film critic and historian, and was acquainted with Isherwood, author of The Berlin Stories (the basis for Cabaret), whom she met later in life. And, as well, there is a connection with the Bauhaus artist Herbert Bayer, who included an image of Brooks in one of his collages from the period.

Herbert Bayer's "Profil en face" (1929)

For more about this must see film, check out this page on Conklin's website. It includes a link to a clip from the film as well as a clip of Louise Brooks. Kenneth Tynan (the author of the famous Louise Brooks profile "The Girl in the Black Helmet"), described this film as “A magnificent documentary on a fascinating period of history.”

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

The Canary Murder Case, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1929

The Canary Murder Case, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1929. The Canary Murder Case is a detective story involving an amateur sleuth, a blackmailing showgirl, and the “swells” that surround her. The film was initially shot as a silent, and shortly thereafter reworked for sound. Louise Brooks, who plays the canary, would not dub her lines for the sound version. Her refusal and perceived “difficulty” harmed her career, effectively ending her stardom in the United States. 

More about the film can be found on the newly revised Louise Brooks Society filmography page.

Production of the film took place between September 11 and October 12, 1928 at Paramount’s studio in Hollywood. Sound retakes took place on and around December 19, 1928. Malcolm St. Clair directed The Canary Murder Case, with Frank Tuttle taking over the sound retakes. The film was released as an 80 minute talkie in most markets, and as a shorter silent in theater’s not yet “wired for sound.” A few publications, such as The Film Daily, reviewed both formats.

Based on a bestselling book of the same name, The Canary Murder Case was released to great anticipation. In February, 1929 Motion Picture named the film one of the best for the month, declaring “William Powell is superb. The rest of the players, including Louise Brooks, Jean Arthur, James Hall, Charles Lane, Gustav Von Seyffertitz and many others, win credit.” That opinion, however, was not shared by most. More typical of the reviews the film received was that of the New York World, who declared the film “an example of a good movie plot gone wrong as the result of spoken dialogue.”

Mordaunt Hall, writing in the New York Times, was more generous, “It is on the whole the best talking-mystery production that has been seen, which does not imply that it is without failings. It is quite obvious that Louise Brooks, who impersonates Margaret Odell, alias the Canary, does not speak her lines. Why the producers should have permitted them to be uttered as they are is a mystery far deeper than the story of this picture.” Billboard added “Louise Brooks is mediocre as the Canary, but this does not detract from the production, as she appears in but a few scenes.”

Louella Parsons, writing in the Los Angeles Examiner, stated St. Clair “was handicapped by no less a person than Louise Brooks, who plays the Canary. You are conscious that the words spoken do not actually emanate from the mouth of Miss Brooks and you feel that as much of her part as possible has been cut. She is unbelievably bad in a role that should have been well suited to her. Only long shots are permitted of her and even these are far from convincing when she speaks.” Parson’s comments were echoed by Margaret L. Coyne of the Syracuse Post-Standard, who observed, “The only flaw is the substitution of another voice for that of Louise Brooks — the Canary — making necessary a number of subterfuges to disguise the fact.”

All were not fooled. The Oakland Post-Enquirer and other publications eventually caught on. “It is generally known by this time that Margaret Livingston doubled for Louise Brooks in the dialogue sequences. Hence the not quite perfect synchronization in close-ups and the variety of back views and dimly photographed profiles of the Canary.”

The Cincinnati Enquirer quipped “The role of the murdered girl is played by Louise Brooks, who is much more satisfying optically than auditorily.” Writing in Life magazine, Harry Evans went further, suggesting Brooks’ didn’t speak well. “Louise Brooks, who furnishes the sex-appeal, is evidently a poorer conversationalist than Miss Arthur, because all of her articulation is obviously supplied by a voice double.” It was an assertion that would haunt Brooks for years.

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), India, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, Trinidad, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales).

Elsewhere, The Canary Murder Case was shown under the title Die Stimme aus dem Jenseits (Austria); O drama de uma noite (Brazil); El Crimen de la Canaria (Cuba); Die Stimme aus dem Jenseits and Kanárkový vražedný prípad (Czechoslovakia) and Hlas Ze Záhrobí (Slovakia); Die Stimme Aus Dem Jensits (Danzig); Hvem dræbte Margaret O’Dell? (Denmark); De Kanarie Moordzaak (Dutch East Indies – Indonesia); Hääl teisest maailmast and Hääl teisest ilmast (Estonia); Salaperainen Rikos and Ett hemlighetsfullt brott and Det hemlighetsfulla brottet (Finland); Le meurtre du Canari (France); Die Stimme Aus Dem Jensits (Germany); Kandari Gyilkosság and Gyilkossag a szailoban (Hungary); La canarina assassinata and Il caso della canarina assassinata (Italy); カナリヤ殺人事件 (Japan); 카나리아 머더 케이스 (Korea); De Kanarie Moordzaak (The Netherlands); I Kanarifuglens Garn and I fristerinnens garn (Norway); Kryyk z za Swlatow (Poland); Die stimme aus dem Jenseits (Poland, German language publication); O Drama duma Noite (Portugal); Kdo je morilec? (Slovenia); ¿Quién la mató? (Spain, including The Canary Islands); Midnattsmysteriet (Sweden); and Дело об убийстве канарейки (U.S.S.R.).

 

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW: 

 — S. S. van Dine is the pseudonym used by art critic Willard Huntington Wright (1888 – 1939) when he wrote detective novels. Wright was an important figure in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-WWI New York, and under the pseudonym (which he originally used to conceal his identity) he created the once immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio in the following decades.

— Wright was one of the best-selling authors in the United States. The Canary Murder Case was the second book in a popular series featuring Vance — though the film made from it was the first in the series to feature the character. William Powell revived his role as Vance in four additional films, including The Greene Murder Case, released later in 1929. Other actors who played Vance include Basil Rathbone and Edmund Lowe.

— S.S. van Dine’s novel was loosely based on the real-life murder of showgirl Dot King, which was never solved. King was among those nicknamed “Broadway Butterflies.”

— Glenn Wilson, a Federal investigator attached to the bureau of criminal investigation for Los Angeles county, reportedly served as an adviser on the film.

— In a 1931 article on the cinema in Singapore, the New York Times notes that “Asiatics love the gangster film, but very few are shown, owing to the censorship regulations which bar gun battles and will not tolerate an actual ‘kill’ on the screen. The first cuts made before they decide to ban all films of this type were very clumsy and made a mystery story a bigger mystery than ever. For instance, in the Canary Murder Case.”

Recently, I wrote up the recent new Kino Lorber release -- the "first proper release" of the film, for Film International. Be sure and check out my article, "Two Early Genre Gems: The Bat (1926) and The Canary Murder Case (1929)". 

Purchase a copy of the new three-film Kino Blu-ray disc HERE.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

Louise Brooks and Black entertainers of the 1920s

To celebrate Black History Month, I've put together this piece noting some of the African American entertainers Louise Brooks encountered in the 1920s and 1930s, or those whose careers intersected with Brooks' career in some way. These celebrated Black actors, singers, and musicians include such notables as Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Alberta Hunter and others.

Josephine Baker

One of the most famous African American entertainers of the inter-war period was Josephine Baker (1906 - 1975). She was a remarkable singer, recording artist, dancer, and actress. In Lulu in Hollywood, Brooks reminiscences about her time in Berlin and her role as Lulu in Pandora's Box, writing, "Collective lust roared unashamed at the theatre. In the revue Chocolate Kiddies, when Josephine Baker appeared naked except for a girdle of bananas, it was precisely as Lulu’s stage entrance was described by Wedekind: 'They rage there as in a menagerie when the meat appears at the cage'." 

Josephine Baker

Here, seemingly, Brooks implies she saw Baker perform in Chocolate Kiddies. But did she? She doesn't actually say so. Brooks only makes a comparison.  It is known that Baker and the Chocolate Kiddies revue performed in Berlin in 1925, and Baker herself returned there without the revue in 1928 or 1929. (I haven't been able to pin down the exact dates to see if they overlap with the time Brooks was living and working in Berlin.) And of course, Baker performed, most famously, in Paris, another city where Brooks lived for a short time. But still, we don't know for sure whether Brooks actually saw Baker perform and conflated that performance with Baker's best known stage show, or whether Brooks was simply making a comparison based on something she had read about or been told about. 

I think it likely that Brooks saw Baker perform as some time, perhaps even in her banana girdle. In his biography of his step-mother, Jean-Claude Baker writes about Baker's time in Berlin in 1928, and even references Brooks and the quotation above. However, he does not state that Brooks and Baker encountered one another. 

A few years ago,  I was looking through a database of African American newspapers when I came across a unlikely mention of Brooks! The mention occurred in the Inter-State Tattler, an African American newspaper based in Harlem. In the June 14, 1929 issue, columnist Lady Nicotine penned a piece titled "Alberta Hunter Returns" in which she states that the famed African-American jazz and blues singer Alberta Hunter (1895 - 1984) had met a number of celebrities while in Europe, including Alice Terry, Ramon Novarro, Cole Porter, and Louise Brooks. Beyond this fleeting reference, we know nothing else. 

If I were to guess, I would guess that their meeting took place in Paris, where Brooks spent most of the month of May, 1929. Are there any Alberta Hunter experts who could weigh in on this question?

A bobbed Alberta Hunter

Brooks' name has popped up in other African American newspapers in the 1920s, though usually in relation to one of her films showing in a particular city or town. For instance, in Baltimore in February of 1927, the Royal Theater was screening Love Em and Leave Em, and performing at that same theater was the great Clara Smith (c. 1894 – 1935), an African America blues singer billed as the "Queen of the Moaners."

The Royal Theater was one of Baltimore's finest theaters, and one of a circuit of five such theaters which featured Black entertainment. (Its sister theaters were the Apollo in Harlem, the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C., the Regal Theatre in Chicago, and the Earl Theater in Philadelphia.) Over the years, the biggest stars in jazz and blues performed at the Royal. 

Another instance of a Brooks film showing along with a performance by a significant African American singer was when Valaida Snow (1904 - 1956) was on the bill along with A Social Celebrity. (Snow's name is misspelled in the advertisement.) The occasion was a showing at the famed Carlton Theatre in Shanghai, China in September, 1928. In what was billed as an "extraordinary attraction," Snow and "5 Red Hot Masters of Syncopation" performed live on stage, followed by A Social Celebrity on the screen. Snow, a female jazz trumpeter, became so famous that she was nicknamed "Little Louis" after Louis Armstrong, who called her the world's second best jazz trumpet player. Snow, who was performed with Josephine Baker, played concerts throughout the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia. From 1926 to 1929, she toured with Jack Carter's Serenaders, performing not only in Shanghai but also in Singapore, Calcutta, and Jakarta.

Another personal encounter between Louise Brooks and a famous Black entertainer was when Brooks met the acclaimed concert artist and stage and film actor Paul Robeson (1898 - 1976).  

Brooks and Robeson encountered one another sometime on or about April 21, 1925, when the two met at a party at the home of Walter White, the longtime head of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). At the time, Brooks was just a Ziegfeld showgirl drawn to the intelligentsia of the Jazz Age (including the various members of the Algonquin Round Table), while Robeson was an emerging star who had famously appeared in a revival of The Emperor Jones, by play-write Eugene O'Neil. Brooks never mentioned meeting Robeson, though the famed African American actor mentioned having met Brooks. Robeson's wife Essie kept a diary, and in it she noted incidents in both her and her husband's life. 

Paul Robeson portrait by Carl van Vechten

According to Martin B. Duberman's 1988 biography of Robeson, "Essie carefully noted in her diary the star-studded lists of guests she and Paul now met regularly on their round of parties. At the Van Vechtens’, Theodore Dreiser told Paul he had seen The Emperor Jones six times, and took him aside for a long talk. At the Whites’, the panoply of glamour included Sherwood Anderson, Ruth Hale and Heywood Broun, Prince Kojo Touvalou Houenou of Dahomey (nephew of the deposed King and a graduate in law and medicine from the Sorbonne, active in publicizing French colonial injustices — Essie found him “a typical African in appearance, but charming and cultured and interesting”), Roland Hayes, the novelist Jessie Fauset, Rene Maran (the French West Indian author of Batouala who had won the Goncourt Prize in 1921), the poet Witter Bynner (“tall and clumsy and very friendly. I never saw anything quite so funny and froglike as he attempts to do the tango with Gladys [White], and his attempts at the ‘Charleston’ “), Louise Brooks she “was very late and I couldn’t wait for her, but . . . Paul said she was very conceited and impossible”), and the red-haired singer Nora Holt (Ray), half Scottish, half Negro, known for her dalliances."

I find it interesting that Brooks was invited to a party at the home of the head of the NAACP. And, I find it fascinating that Essie Robeson mentioned Louise Brooks by name. She really wasn't famous in the Spring of 1925, though she had gotten her name in various New York City newspaper papers more than a few times. And, to be mentioned in the same company as luminaries such as Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Ruth Hale and Heywood Broun, etc.... is noteworthy. 

On occasion, Brooks name showed up in African American newspapers -- usually in reference to the showing of one of her American films at a theater patronized by Black Americans. However, on one occasion, she was mentioned in the nationally syndicated column, "Harlem Night by Night," which ran in African American newspapers.

According to a March, 1932 column, Brooks and Robeson may have encountered one another again. On the 19th of the month, syndicated columnist Maurice Dancer noted Brooks was among the celebrities who visited the Yeah Man club in Harlem. (The Yeah Man was a jazz venue at 2350 Seventh Avenue, between 137th and 137th Street in Harlem.) Besides Brooks, Libby Holman, and Lilyan Tashman, some of other celebrities mentioned by Dancer were famed jazz musicians Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines, as well as Paul Robeson.

THE LEGAL STUFF: Thie Louise Brooks Society™ substack is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

The J. Peterman Louise Brooks Flapper Winter Coat

The J. Peterman Company is an American retail company that sells clothing, fashion accessories, and other stuff (including furniture) through catalogs and the internet. It was founded by John Peterman in 1987, and has its headquarters in Ohio. It may be best known for its distinctive merchandise, including reproductions of retro clothing as well as clothing and fashion accessories seen in films. 

In 1997, for example, the company made a deal with 20th Century Fox to sell both original and authorized replica costumes and props from its then upcoming film, Titanic. That proved to be a windfall. Another of their movie related items is the "Louise Brooks" or Flapper winter coat. I am not sure how long they have been making this particular coat, but it has been more than 20 years. Back in 2005, the Louise Brooks Society blog carried a brief post on this distinctive winter coat design. 

Back in 2005, I wrote "I remember seeing these 'Louise Brooks' winter coats (so-named) in the J. Peterman catalogs a number of years ago. Now, one of them has turned up on eBay. I think they were a popular item, as the company carried them for a few years running. "Composed of softest wool and cashmere and accented with sumptuous shearling on a huge collar and decadent cuffs, secured with a single outer and inner button and lined in coppered bronze satin . . . ." Just in time for the cold winter months." 

These coats came to my attention once again when I received a Google key-word alert which directed me to the J. Peterman website, where the Louise Brooks coat is currently on sale, marked down from $798.00 to $398.00.

The production description story reads this way:

"Silent Star.

It’s been 65 years since Louise Brooks made her last movie, but she still has an active fan club.

Men still emerge from theaters stunned after seeing her in Pandora’s Box (1929), muttering things like, “That face…those eyes…that smile.”

Miss Brooks was not unaware of her effect.

She had her trademark haircut, a sleek cropped black helmet that implied she could move rather fast. And in cool weather, she invariably reached for a dramatic coat like this.

She wore the large, furry collar up so it framed her face memorably; sometimes she showed her profile. Sometimes she would let the collar graze her cheek, or nestle her chin in it a bit and look up slightly… that gave the audience something extra to think about.

She didn’t have to say a word.

Neither will you."

Though the J. Peterman "Louise Brooks" winter coat is attractive, it doesn't quite resemble any coats worn by Louise Brooks which I've seen modeled by the actress. Nevertheless, perhaps, someday, I will get one for my wife.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.