San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2026 line-up announced

The line-up for the 2026 San Francisco Silent Film Festival has been announced. This year, the festival returns to its "ancestral home" at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. (The historic venue has been closed  for a couple of years due to renovations.) The festival was begun at the Castro in 1996 and has grown from a one-day event to the largest and most prestigious festival devoted to silent cinema in all of the   Americas.

This year's festival (which takes place May 6 - 10) includes 26 films from six different countries featuring 22 musicians from far and wide. Altogether, there will be 22 programs over five days, all with live musical accompaniment—including the free "Amazing Tales From the Archives" show! Many of the films are recent restorations, including two that SFSFF has had a direct hand in, William de Mille's Miss Lulu Bett (a terrific film deserving greater recognition) and Lewis Milestone's The Caveman. Both titles were the restoration handiwork of our friends at Artcraft Pictures, James Mockoski and Robert Harris, in collaboration with Paramount Archives. (Hmmm, I wonder if they are working on any of Louie Brooks' Paramount silents?)

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival Award for commitment to the preservation and presentation of silent cinema will be presented to Elżbieta Wysocka of the Filmoteka Narodowa at the screening of the Polish masterpiece Janko the Musician on Saturday, May 9.

Among this year's highlights is the new restoration of Queen Kelly (1929). The film's star, Gloria Swanson, was one of Louise Brooks' favorite actresses since the time Brooks was a teen. Additionally, its director, Eric von Stroheim, whom Brooks once met, was someone the actress was greatly interested in later in life. As a devotee of von Stroheim, I have had the pleasure of seeing an earlier restoration of Queen Kelly. It is an intriguing if not flawed (and unfinished) film. 

Queen Kelly opens the festival. Closing the festival is one of the greatest films of the silent era, King Vidor's The Crowd (1928). Of note to fans of Louise Brooks is the fact that a few scenes from this film were shot on Coney Island, at Luna Park, just as scenes from Just Another Blonde (1926) had been. (To give you a taste, be sure and check out this page about Just Another Blonde location shooting.)

On a personal note, I can report that I was asked to write the program essay for two films at this year's festival. Both are well worth checking out. The first is Sensation in Wintergarten (1929) -- which features the intriguing Erna Morena (who has the distinction of having starred in the title roles of earlier versions of two later Louise Brooks films, Lulu (1917) and Diary of a Lost Woman (1918), later filmed under the title The Diary of a Lost Girl). The other is The White Trail (1932) -- a surprisingly engaging indie film made by a non-filmmaker from Poland. 

 From the San Francisco Silent Film Festival website, here is the 2026 line-up:

Wednesday May 6 | 7:00 pm | $30 general / $25 member

QUEEN KELLY

Directed by Erich von Stroheim | US, 1929 |105 m

With Gloria Swanson, Walter Byron, Serena Owen, Tully Marshall

The late silent-era masterpiece that never was and the last major production entrusted to Erich von Stroheim has been reconstructed from surviving footage by Milestone Films. Bearing all the Stroheim hallmarks—lush visuals, meticulous attention to every detail, and rank corruption at every level of society—it’s also a showcase for Gloria Swanson who runs an emotional gamut from innocent convent girl to hardened brothel keeper. Musical accompaniment by composer Eli Denson conducting the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra

 

from Queen Kelly

Thursday May 7 | 11:00 am | Free

AMAZING TALES FROM THE ARCHIVES

Our Amazing Tales program began in 2006 as a way to highlight the importance of film preservation and to provide insight into the remarkable work done by film archives around the world. Since then it has become one of the most highly anticipated programs in the festival. And it's free! This year's presenters:

KYLE WESTPHAL of the Chicago Film Society presents the case of comedian Jimmy Aubrey and A Musical Mixup produced at Weiss Bros. studio in Los Angeles.

Danish Film Institute’s THOMAS CHRISTENSEN shares the marvels of silent cinema’s inventive on-screen gadgetry.

ANDREAS THEIN of Filmmuseum Düsseldorf stretches our notions of Weimar cinema with the “Sensationsfilm” genre starring Germany’s first action heroes.

CARLO CHATRIAN of the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin digs into the archeology of cinema and how it shaped the movies as we know them.

Thursday May 7 | 3:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

THE ABYSS

Original Language Title: AFGRUNDEN

Directed by Urban Gad | Denmark, 1910 | 38 m.

With Asta Nielsen, Poul Reumert, Robert Dinesen

THE CLOWN Original Language Title: KLOVNEN

Directed by A.W. Sandberg | Denmark, 1917 | 62 m. (100 m. total program)

With Valdemar Psilander, Peter Fjelstrup, Amanda Lund

Two Danish sensations, one at the beginning of her career, the other at his end. First, Asta Nielsen’s prim piano teacher in The Abyss is driven by lust to the circus stage faster than her gyrating Spider Dance from this film made her a star. Next, matinee idol Valdemar Psilander’s sad circus performer in The Clown hits the big time only for success to lead to his ruin in what turned out to be the actor’s last production before his sudden death at age 32. Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Mas Koga

 

Thursday May 7 | 5:30 pm | $20 general / $18 member

SENSATION IM WINTERGARTEN

Directed by Gennaro Righelli | Germany, 1929 | 102 m.

With Paul Richter, Claire Rommer, Erna Morena, Gaston Jacquet

When celebrated trapeze artist Frattani returns home on his triumphant world tour, he must finally face his gold-digging stepfather who deprived him of his rightful title, his inheritance, and the love of his own mother years before. Dramatic set-pieces and colorful backstage atmosphere are partly filmed at Berlin’s storied Wintergarten. Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius

 

from Sensation in Wintergarten

 Thursday May 7 | 8:00 pm | $25 general / $23 member

MISS LULU BETT

Directed by William de Mille | US, 1921 | 80 m.

With Lois Wilson, Milton Sills, Theodore Roberts, Helen Ferguson

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by women’s rights champion Zona Gale about an acquiescent young woman callously exploited by her own family, Miss Lulu Bett was called “one of the finest adaptations in the history of the photoplay” by Motion Picture News. Restored from a nitrate print, this marks the first in a dedicated run of collaborations between director William de Mille and scriptwriter Clara Beranger. Musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

 

Friday May 8 | 11:00 am | $20 general / $18 member

HIGH TREASON

Directed by Maurice Elvey | UK, 1929 | 75 m.

With Benita Hume, Jameson Thomas, Basil Gill, Humberston Wright

The future brings aerocopters, videochat boxes, and apparently the same headgear across genders, but all the gadgetry in the world cannot save humankind from its destructive self as it teeters on the brink of war after a terrorist act. High Treason simultaneously looks back to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and forward to Michael Radford’s 1984 but what this prescient piece of science fiction grasps on its own is that the fate of nations can pivot on the act of a single person. Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius

 

Friday May 8 |1:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

THE WHITE TRAIL

Original Language Title: BIAŁY ŚLAD

Directed by Adam Krzeptowski | Poland, 1932 | 74 m. 

With Andrzej Krzeptowski, Janina Fischer, Stanislaw Gasienica-Sieczka

A handheld camera puts you breathtakingly close to the action on the snowy slopes of the Polish Tatras in this feature film debut from photographer and native highlander Adam Krzeptowski. Real-life ski champions populate the cast and its script was contributed by local artist Rafał Malczewski, who was well-acquainted with the beauty and hazards of these landscapes having served as part of the Tatra Volunteer Search and Rescue during World War I. The film represented Poland at the first Venice Film Festival. Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald

 

from The White Trail

Friday May 8 | 3:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

HULA

Directed by Victor Fleming| US, 1927 | 65 m.

With Clara Bow, Clive Brook, Arlette Marchal

Growing up tomboy on her family’s Hawaiian ranch, wild child Hula Calhoun is as comfortable eating with her hands as she is on horseback. Then she falls head over heels—with a married man. In her second collaboration with director Victor Fleming Clara Bow lights up every frame she’s in, demonstrating again that, yes, she’s a natural but also a real pro. Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne

 

from Hula

Friday May 8 | 5:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

JAPANESE PAPER FILM PROJECT

Japan, 1930s | 65 m.

Animal Olympics, a train excursion through the countryside, a brawl with an octopus, and belly-drumming raccoon-dogs are just a few of the delights of these recently preserved kami firumu. Faced with the influx of ever slicker imported animation in the 1930s Japan went low-tech, printing films on paper strips then gluing them together by hand. The Japanese Paper Film Project worked with Japanese museums, film archives, and individual collectors to digitize and preserve more than 200 surviving films from which this selection was taken.Musical accompaniment by Duo Yumeno

 

Friday May 8 | 7:00 pm | $25 general / $23 member

THE CAVEMAN

Directed by Lewis Milestone | US, 1926 | 76 m.

With Marie Prevost, Matt Moore, Phyllis Haver, Myrna Loy, Hedda Hopper

Myra the heiress is bored. What else to do but grab a he-man from the tenements and pass him off as a professor? This gender-reversed Pygmalion is one of three comedies made by Marie Prevost with director Lewis Milestone who knew that sometimes all you need to get a laugh is the right camera position—and the devil’s favorite coquette in a starring role. With Matt Moore as a hilarious fish-out-of-water coalheaver and Myrna Loy as the wary maid. Musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

 

Friday May 8 | 8:45 pm | $20 general / $18 member

TABU: A STORY OF THE SOUTH SEAS

Directed by F.W. Murnau | US, 1931 | 85 m.

With Matahi, Reri, Hitu, Jean, Jules, Kong Ah 

At the top of his artistic game, the director who had perfected the artifice of cinematic atmospheres abandoned the studio and its harrying producers to make a movie en plein air. Working with nonprofessional actors and a skeleton crew that included documentarian Robert Flaherty, F.W. Murnau spent more than a year and all his money in the South Sea islands for what turned out to be his last film.

Musical accompaniment by Wayne Barker and Mas Koga

 

Saturday May 9 | 10:00 am | $20 general / $18 member

LAUREL AND HARDY: THEIR SILENT BEST

US, 1927–1929

Whether it’s a truckful of pies, a suburban home, a motorcar, or their pants, there’s only one possible outcome when these two virtuosos focus their powers of destruction on a prop: audiences destroyed by laughter. With The Battle of the Century, The Finishing Touch, Liberty, and Big Business. Musical accompaniment by Wayne Barker and Frank Bockius

 

Saturday May 9 | 12:00 noon | $20 general / $18 member

THE HUMMING BIRD

Directed by Sidney Olcott | US, 1924 | 60 m.

With Gloria Swanson, Edmund Burns, William Ricciardi, Cesare Gravina, 

(Mostly) shedding her clotheshorse image, Gloria Swanson is convincing as the head of a gang of Parisian toughs who sets out to stymie an American reporter’s investigation into a spate of neighborhood robberies. First love, then duty intervenes. Veteran director Sidney Olcott leads a team that kits out Paramount’s Astoria studio into a convincing Montmartre. Musical accompaniment by Wayne Barker

 

Saturday May 9 | 2:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

JANKO THE MUSICIAN

Original Language Title: JANKO MUZYKANT

Directed by Ryszard Ordynski | Poland, 1930 | 105 m

With Stefan Rogulski, Witold Conti, Maria Malika, Aleksander Zabczynski

In the original story, a classic of Polish literature, a musical prodigy born into poverty meets only tragedy. In this screen adaptation from the late silent era, he’s allowed to thrive. Beautifully photographed by Zbigniew Gniazdowski, the film’s resulting lyricism spurred one critic to write: “The visual symphony Janko the Musician resonates with poetry.” Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald, Mas Koga, and Frank Bockius

 

from Janko the Musician

Saturday May 9 | 4:45 pm | $20 general / $18 member

BED AND SOFA

Original Language Title: TRETYA MESCHANSKAYA

Directed by Abram Room | USSR | 91 m

With Nikolai Batalov, Lyudmila Semyonova, Vladimir Fogel

The housing shortages plaguing the ten-year-old Communist government instigate the plot in this thoroughly modern Soviet silent classic about a married couple who must find a new design for living after the husband’s former Red Army buddy comes to stay. Among the Bolsheviks’ early promises of land, peace, and bread was also the promise of a new social order that would make comrades of all Russians, including its women. Musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

 

Saturday May 9 | 7:00 pm | $25 general / $23 member

HIS GREATEST BLUFF

Original Language Title: SEIN GRÖßTER BLUFF

Directed by Harry Piel | Germany, 1927 | 108 m

With Harry Piel, Albert Paulig, Marlene Dietrich, Fritz Greiner

More than seventy movies later and Harry Piel knew well how to entertain an audience without the chiaroscuro lighting and skewed perspectives we expect of Weimar cinema. Jewels worth a million, a shady dame (and her very sus child), a pair of maharajahs, slick-haired crooks with colorful names, and a self-assured action hero do the trick. That Marlene Dietrich is the dame is just icing for this heist picture from one of Germany’s most consistent box-office draws. Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius

 

Saturday May 9 | 9:30 pm | $20 general / $18 member

Á PROPOS DE NICE

Directed by Jean Vigo and Boris Kaufman | France, 1930 | 25 m

RIEN QUE LES HEURES

Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti | France, 1926 | 46 m (Total program; 71 m)

Two debuts announce the arrival of two fresh voices of the motion picture avant-garde. While dazzling with daring compositions and inventive editing, first-time directors Jean Vigo (working with Dziga Vertov’s brother Boris Kaufman) and Alberto Cavalcanti reveal what can get obscured behind polished photographic surfaces in these city symphony films from Nice and Paris. Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius

 

Sunday May10 | 11:00 am | $20 general / $18 member

BLAZING DAYS

Directed by William Wyler | US, 1927 | 60 m

With Fred Humes, Ena Gregory, Churchill Ross, Bruce Gordon, Eva Thatcher

This William Wyler-directed western displays the young director’s burgeoning talent, with camera flourishes and character touches that elevate an otherwise familiar story about a payroll box gone missing in the hinterlands. Cowboy star Fred Humes’s beaming smile and humbleswagger on horseback only add to its pleasures. Musical accompaniment by Wayne Barker

 

Sunday May10 | 1:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

BOOKKEEPER KREMKE

Original Language Title: LOHNBUCHHALTER KREMKE

Directed by Marie M. Harder | Germany, 1930 | 60 m

With Hermann Vallentin, Anna Sten, Ivan Koval-Samborski

“Problems of our time come alive shaking us to our core,” wrote the reviewer for Lichtbild-Bühne who was deeply impressed with the only fiction feature completed by director Marie Harder, head of the Social Democrat Party’s film service. Ukrainian-born Anna Sten makes her German cinema debut as a daughter coming into her own despite the fury of her tradition-bound father suddenly downsized from middle-class respectability. Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius

 

Sunday May10 | 3:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

SO THIS IS PARIS

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch | US, 1926 | 68 m

With Monte Blue, Patsy Ruth Miller, André Beranger, Lilyan Tashman

Paris and its Jazz Age temptations provide the saucy backdrop of this confection about the near infidelities of two married couples. A tonic for any age Lubitsch’s last film for the Warners bears no visible marks of the contentious behind-the-scenes relationship the director had with the Bros. who were apparently immune to his charms. We guarantee you won’t be. “Lubitsch,” raved the New York American, “has done it again.” Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius

 

Sunday May10 | 5:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

Original Language Title: DIE GEZEICHNETEN

Directed by Carl Th. Dreyer | Germany, 1922 | 99 m

With Vladimir Gajdarov, Polina Piekowskaja, Richard Boleslawski

A cynical tsarist agent sews suspicion among peasants about Jews trying to replace them in order to weaken the revolutionary fervor gaining strength in the cities. Meanwhile one young woman from the shtetl just wants a say in her fate. Carl Dreyer’s moving depiction of anti-Semitism’s sinister harms, both macro and micro, is a silent-era rarity, yet typical in the care the director takes to attain a harrowing authenticity. Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald, Mas Koga, and Sascha Jacobsen

 

Sunday May10 | 7:30 pm | $25 general / $23 member

THE CROWD

Directed by King Vidor | US, 1928 | 102 m

With James Murray, Eleanor Boardman, Bert Roach

In the film that influenced everyone from Orson Welles and Vittorio de Sica to Yasujiro Ozu and the makers of Mad Men, John Sims struggles to reconcile the greatness he expects from his life with the pedestrian way it turns out. Deftly combining documentary style shooting with the kind of artifice only possible with the latest studio technology, King Vidor dissects the American dream in this incontestable masterpiece of silent cinema. Musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

 

from The Crowd

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

A Social Celebrity, featuring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1926

A Social Celebrity, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1926. The film is a romantic comedy about a small town barber who follows his heart and heads to the big city where he hopes to join high society. Louise Brooks plays the barber’s love interest, a small town manicurist who also heads to the big city to become a dancer. The film is the third in which Brooks appeared, the second for which she received a screen credit, and the first in which she had a starring role. 

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

The film was originally set to star Greta Nissen, a Norwegian-born dancer. When she quit the film early in its production, Brooks’ part was rewritten and she took on the role of the female lead. It was a huge break for the 19 year old Brooks and a turning point in her career, as the barber, played by Adolphe Menjou, was one of the biggest stars of the time. In reviewing the film, many critics took special note of Brooks, and thereafter she was regarded as a rising star and someone to watch.

The critic for Exhibitor’s Herald noticed the actress. “Louise Brooks is the third person in the cast. This odd young person who worked with Ford Sterling in that screaming interlude of The American Venus is a positive quantity. She may become a sensational success or a sensational flop, but she is not the kind of player who simply goes along. She’s a manicure girl in this one, later a night club dancer, and she’s unfailingly colorful. I have a personal wager with another member of the staff that she goes up instead of down, both of us agreeing that she’s a moving personality but differing as to direction.” Mae Tinee of the Chicago Tribune also noticed the actress, “Louise Brooks, who plays the small town sweetheart who want to make a peacock out of her razor-bill, is a delightful young person with a lovely, direct gaze, an engaging seriousness, and a sudden, flashing smile that is disarming and winsome. A slim and lissome child, with personality and talent.”

The critic for the Boston Evening Transcript echoed those comments. “In this instance the manicure is no less provocative a morsel than Miss Louise Brooks, remembered for her bit in that specious puff-pastry, The American Venus. Miss Brooks has anything but a rewarding task in A Social Celebrity. Yet it would be ungracious not to comment on the fetching qualities of her screen presence. She affects a straight-line bang across the forehead with distressingly piquant cow-licks over either ear. Her eyes are quick, dark, lustrous. Her nose and mouth share a suspicion of gaminerie. Her gestures are deft and alert — perhaps still a shade self-conscious. In body she is more supple than facial play and her genuflectory exertions in the Charleston might well repay the careful study of amateurs in that delicate exercise.”

A Social Celebrity received many positive reviews, though a few critics thought it too similar to Menjou’s earlier efforts. At it’s New York City premiere, the film proved popular at the 2000 seat Rivoli theater, where it brought it nearly $30,000 during its one week run. (This was at a time when most tickets would have been priced at less than a dollar.) The film critic for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported the line for tickets “began at the ticket office and extended to a spot somewhere in the middle of 7th Ave. and 49th St.”

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— Early on, Paramount promised the up-and-coming Nissen equal billing with Menjou in A Social Celebrity. However, “The temperamental Greta insisted on arriving at the studio one hour late every day,” according to the Brooklyn Norgesposten. Menjou, a major star, was forced to wait for the young actress and complained to director St. Clair. Soon enough, Nissen quit and returned to Broadway to resume her career as a dancer. (The friction caused by Nissen’s departure didn’t seem to spoil a budding romance between the dancer and director — at least not in the short-term. The Brooklyn Norgesposten reported that the couple were frequenting New York’s artists’ clubs. And in early May a Broadway gossip columnist hinted that Nissen might wed the Paramount director.)

— Early scenes set in were actually shot on Long Island in the village of Huntington. The exterior of Spontowiz’s Barber Shop on Main Street, the local trolley line — the Delphi, Indiana, and other aspects of the historic Long Island community were featured in the film. (According to press reports from the time, the film’s director and star spent the better part of two weeks touring Long Island looking for a stand-in for Delphi.)

— To lend verisimilitude, Fred Graff, hairdresser and barber-in-chief at the Paramount Long Island studios, was cast in the film. He can be seen “manipulating the sheers” in scenes shot at the Terminal Barber Shop (located at Broadway and Forty-second Street) in Manhattan.

— Also appearing in a bit part was Agnes Griffith, who won a contest sponsored by Famous Players Lasky and the New York Daily News. This was the first film role for Griffith, a diminutive brunette with a short bob. She later appeared in New York (1927).

— While A Social Celebrity was playing at the Rivoli, Menjou appeared on WGBS, the Gimbel Brothers radio station in NYC. According to newspaper reports, Menjou spoke about the film and the scenes shot locally on Long Island. (If he were to have mentioned his co-star, this broadcast would likely mark the first time Brooks name was mentioned on the radio.)

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

Dixie Dugan: From Showgirl to Comics Icon

Here is something to look forward to..... Classic Comics Press have announced the forthcoming release of Dixie Dugan: From Showgirl to Comics Icon. No author is give except for the comic strips original authors, J. P. McEvoy and John H. Striebel. No date is given for the book's release date, though the book is listed as "currently in production." 

In fact, little else is known about this title. For example, what span of time will this volume cover: will it include the Sunday comics, or just the daily's, or both? Nevertheless, the book's release is something to look forward to. I have emailed the publisher, but have yet to hear back.

 

As is well known, Louise Brooks was the inspiration for the long-running "Show Girl" (later renamed "Dixie Dugan") comic strip. (The strip ran from the late 1920s to the early 1960s.) A related property from the time, the Show Girl novels by J. P. McEvoy, were recently republished via a successful kickstarter project. I was a supporter of that project, and hope to support this one as well in whatever way I can. 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

Evening Clothes, with a different looking Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1927

Evening Clothes, featuring a different looking Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1927. The film is a romantic comedy about a gentleman farmer who — spurned by his bride, goes to the big city to loose his rustic ways and win back his new wife. A stanza printed in advertisements for the film put it this way, “He was a French hick / Who didn’t please her / So he went to Paris and / Became a Boulevardier.” 

Louise Brooks plays a character called Fox Trot, a hot-to-trot Parisian who some described as a lady of the evening. The making of the film coincided with Paramount’s transition from its East Coast facilities to the West Coast. Evening Clothes was the first film Brooks made in Hollywood, and at Paramount’s suggestion, the first in which she did not wear her signature bob hairstyle. 

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

Evening Clothes was made to order for its star, Adolphe Menjou. And as with his similarly-themed prior films A Social Celebrity, Ace of Cads, The Sorrows of Satan, and Blonde or Brunette — Evening Clothes proved popular with moviegoers, though less so with critics. The New York Daily News stated “There are a couple of really subtle spots, however, which brighten up the film tremendously, raising it right out of the mediocre class,” while adding “Louise Brooks is a perfect knockout as a good-natured lady of the evening.” The New York Morning Telegraph quipped, ” . . . as it stands, this latest Menjou vehicle offers entertainment value equivalent to the Paramount admission charge.” Other New York papers were more positive. The New York Telegram called the film “a delightful little comedy,” while the New York Journal described it as “an entertaining comedy, with some good situations.” All-in-all, the film received a cool critical response, though it performed very well at the box office.

Thin story-line aside, many reviewers focused on the actors as well as Brooks’ new hairstyle. Among them was Regina Cannon of the New York American, “Louise Brooks is again cast as a ‘lady of the evening’ and makes her role pert and amusing. You won’t recognize Miss Brooks at first, for she is wearing her hair curled over her head. This is too bad, for it makes her look just like a thousand other attractive girls. Louise achieved distinction with her straight-banged bob.”

Louella Parsons of the Los Angeles Examiner added, “When you see the show girl, Louise Brooks, cavorting about with a frizzled top you will see why Famous Players Lasky is grooming her for bigger and better things. She fares much better than either Miss Tashman or Mr. Beery, who only appear at long intervals.” Welford Beaton of Film Spectator echoed Parson’s remarks, “There are three girls who do very well in Evening Clothes — Virginia Valli, Louise Brooks and Lilyan Tashman. . . . I was glad to see further evidence of Paramount’s dawning consciousness that Louise Brooks is not composed solely of legs. They work her from the knees up in this picture and it begins to look as if she were headed for a high place.”

Herbert Cruikshank, who wasn’t enthused about the film, nevertheless liked Brooks. He wrote in the New York Morning Telegraph, “It seems to me that Louise Brooks deserves first place. She is charmingly piquant as a chic little gold-digger who turns out to be a pretty good fellow after all — as many of the maligned sisterhood do. While her part is merely a filler, she seems to have built it up materially, and holds center stage in whatever scenes she has.”

And front-and-center is where Brooks’ next film placed her. Rolled Stockings — which featured Brooks in the lead — went into production just as Evening Clothes was opening around the United States.

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

—  Evening Clothes is based on a French play L’homme en habit by Andre Picard and Yves Mirande which debuted in Paris on March 25, 1920. The Man in Evening Clothes, an English-language version of the play translated by the noted actress Ruth Chatterton, had a brief Broadway run at the Henry Miller Theatre beginning on December 5, 1924.

—  Evening Clothes had its world premiere at the Metropolitan theater in Los Angeles, California on March 4, 1927. Adolphe Menjou was in attendance at the special event, as was the noted poet and then current French ambassador to the United States, . Each were introduced from the stage. It’s now known if Brooks was in attendance at the premiere.

— Arnold Kent (billed as Lido Manetti) had a small role in the film. He began his film career in Italy after having started as a stage actor. (Among his Italian credits were Quo Vadis and a few diva films directed by Augusto Genini.) In the mid-1920s, he moved to Hollywood and worked as a contract player at Universal and later at Paramount. He died in Hollywood in 1928 from injuries sustained in an automobile accident.

 
THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

Louise Brooks mural debuts in Wichita, Kansas

A new outdoor mural depicting the Kansas-born silent film star Louise Brooks has debuted in Wichita, Kansas -- the actress' one-time hometown. The mural is the work of an artist known as Deber614. And what's more, the mural (shown below) was painted on the north side of the Dockum building (Douglas and Hillside), the very building whee Louise Brooks opened a dance studio in the 1940's.

A fan of the actress, Danzel Bond, sent me a couple of snapshots of the mural. They are great pics. Thank you Danzel !

 

Earlier this month, I contacted the artist and asked about the mural. He told me "This mural is part of a personal / public art project called “The Gaze of History”. I have been painting public spaces for close to 20 years, and last year I decided to focus my practice into paying homage and remembrance to historical figures. So far I have completed large scale murals of Sarah Lloyd Green, John Brown, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Dr.William Polite, and now Louise Brooks. This mural is my first piece in College Hill, so I decided to bring all I have to offer in terms of artistry and painting skills. I want to break away from purely decorative murals, and build a collection of public artwork that allows me to highlight these figures that I feel deserve their flowers and to not be abandoned/vanished from our historical memory."

The artist added, "Talking more specifically to Louise Brooks. As a muralist / public artist, after doing research into relevant figures in the area, it was an obvious choice to pay tribute to her, not just because she was local. After learning about her experiences in Wichita, I could not help but to feel the same disappointment she often expressed at the attitudes of the city towards her. The misogyny, and social shaming. Everything. After reading about it, I decided that it would be an honor to be the artist that could give Louise her so well deserved flowers, to pay homage to her memory and to do a tiny bit to correct the wrongs of history."

The artist's Facebook page has a few short videos of the painting of the mural. Check 'em out.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.    

It Pays to Advertise, with Louise Brooks in a cameo, was released on this day in 1931

It Pays to Advertise, with Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1931. The film is a farce about rival soap companies, an advertising agency, and a ne’er do-well playboy who attempts to make good. Louise Brooks plays Thelma Temple, a dancer appearing in a musical entitled Girlies Don’t Tell. Brooks’ part in the film, done to fulfill her contract with Paramount, amounted to little more than a cameo. The Hollywood Reporter wrote “Louise Brooks flashes in and out of the opening scenes and looks like a good bet for bigger roles.” Due to tepid reviews and negative publicity, It Pays to Advertise did poorly at the box office. At best, most exhibitors reported only fair business. In Los Angeles, according to one report, the film “set a new low.” The film failed to do much for Brooks’ sputtering career.

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

Production on the film took place in and around Los Angeles in late 1930. It Pays to Advertise was based on a popular stage play from 1914. In 1931, reviewers commented that the story was old-fashioned – despite the fact that Paramount attempted to update its scenario through the use of new scenes, art deco sets, snappy dialogue, and a fast-moving script.

The film received few positive reviews. Photoplay wrote that it has “plenty of speed and lots of laughs”, while praising the “perfect cast”. Variety wrote “Subject to the limitation of all screen farces, this revamped stage frolic makes good enough program material with only moderate prospects at the box office.” New York’s The World, however, called it “pretty dreary.” The New Yorker stated “Among the dull pictures of the week we might list that old relic, It Pays to Advertise, which is full of smart-aleck cracks and is altogether a bore.”

The film starred Norman Foster, then husband of Claudette Colbert, and Carol Lombard, who was at the beginning of her film career. The gravel-voiced Eugene Pallette played the soap king; he had also played a supporting role in Brooks’ previous American film, The Canary Murder Case. The fast talking Skeets Gallagher played the wisecracking publicist – then called press agents. Brooks received fifth billing, and was largely left off promotional materials supplied by the studio.

Few publications mentioned Brooks, except to mention her brief appearance. Some publications noted that the role represented a comeback. The Kansas City Star commented, “Carole Lombard is pretty as the Mary Grayson in the cast, but Louise Brooks, who used to be quite a name in the photoplay world, is more attractive as the actress who does the airplane fall and is not seen thereafter.” Harry Evans, writing in Life magazine, stated “Louise Brooks, whom we have not seen on the screen since her momentary appearance in The Canary Murder Case (in which a voice double was used to speak her lines), seems to have been studying, as she gets away with her bit in this one creditably. Her real purpose in the film, however, is to show her legs, and in this phase of stage-craft she certainly needs no double.”

Set in the advertising and business world, It Pays to Advertise referenced a number of actual products and their slogans. As a result, one trade journal took exception to the practice. Harrison’s Reports, which billed itself “a reviewing service free from the influence of film advertising,” objected to product placement in film — be it verbal or visual. Over the course of four months (in articles titled “The Facts About Concealed Advertisements in Paramount Pictures,” “This Paper’s Further Efforts Against ‘Sponsored’ Screen Advertisements,” and “Other Papers That Have Joined the Harrison Crusade Against Unlabelled Screen Advertising”) editor P. S. Harrison railed against the business world farce in particular and product placement in films in general. “The Paramount picture, It Pays to Advertise, is nothing but a billboard of immense size. I have not been able to count all of the nationally advertised articles that are spoken of by the characters.” In the next issue, Harrison stated “In last week’s issue the disclosure was made that in It Pays to Advertise there are more than fifteen advertisements in addition to the main advertisement, ’13 Soap Unlucky for Dirt,’ which Paramount is accused of having created as a brand for the purpose of selling it.”

Taking the high moral ground, Harrison’s Reports spurred a campaign against “sponsored moving pictures – meaning pictures which contain concealed or open advertising of some one’s product.” Harrison wrote to the studios – and Harrison’s Reports noted that a handful responded with pledges to not include verbal or visual product placement. The crusading editor also wrote to more than 2,000 newspapers, and a number published articles and editorials decrying the practice. Among those papers that joined Harrison’s cause were four of the New York dailies, the Gannett chain, and scores of small town papers, as well as the Denver Post, Detroit Free Press, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and Tulsa Tribune. The Christian Science Monitor added to the chorus of complaint when it remarked, “Paramount should have been well paid for the large slices of publicity for trade-marked products that are spread all through this artificial story.”

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— It Pays to Advertise was based on the play of the same name by Roi Cooper Megrue and Walter C. Hackett. It was first presented on the Broadway stage on September 8, 1914 at the Cohan Theatre, and ran for nearly a year. Thelma Temple, the character played by Louise Brooks, does not appear in the original play.

— A novelized version of the play, adapted by Samuel Field, was published in 1915. The book was also serialized in newspapers across the United States. 

— The play has been made into a film on four occasions: there was a silent film in 1919, directed by Donald Crisp; the talkie in 1931, directed by Frank Tuttle; and a Swedish adaptation in 1936, directed by Anders Henrikson. In 1932, Paramount produced French language version of the 1931 film: Paramount remade the film at their studio at Joinville, France under the title Criez-le sur les toits, directed by Karl Anton and starring Saint-Granier and Robert Burnier.

More about the film can be found on the newly revised Louise Brooks Society 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 content copyright © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.   

When You’re in Love, with Louise Brooks in a bit part, was released on this day in 1937

When You’re in Love, with Louise Brooks in a bit part, was released on this day in 1937. The film is a romantic musical scripted and directed by long-time Frank Capra writer Robert Riskin and starring Grace Moore and Cary Grant. The enjoyable and fast-moving plot turns on high-spirits and high-notes. Louise Brooks makes an uncredited appearance as one of a number of dancers in a musical sequence near the end of the film. 

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

Louise Brooks, third from the left, is obscured by Grace Moore's hand.
This is likely the only known still to depict Brooks.

Production of the film took place at Columbia Pictures studios in Southern California between October 5 and December 20, 1936 . The musical pageant at the end of the film, which likely includes Louise Brooks, was likely shot in part at the Hollywood Bowl.

For When You’re in Love, Brooks accepted work as an extra (its almost impossible to spot her) with the promise of the feminine lead in another Columbia film. To exploit the situation, the studio put out the word that Brooks was willing to do anything to get back into pictures. “Louise Brooks is certainly starting her come-back from the lowest rung of the ladder,” wrote Wood Soanes of the Oakland Tribune. “She is one of a hundred dancers in the ballet chorus of Grace Moore’s When You’re in Love.” Brooks kept her part of the bargain, but the studio did not. Brooks’ lead in a Columbia film never materialized.

The film proved especially popular, and was seen as a worthy successor to Moore’s triumph in the 1934 film One Night of Love, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The Hollywood Reporter stated, “With a more substantial story than the last two Grace Moore vehicles, When You’re in Love is a signal triumph for the foremost diva of the screen, for Cary Grant who should soar to stardom as result of his performance in this, and for Robert Riskin, here notably handling his first directorial assignment.” The Hollywood Spectator added “It is unquestionably her best to-date and never has she appeared to better photographic advantage.” Rob Wagner, writing in Rob Wagner’s Script (a trade journal), was especially enthusiastic. “Here is the perfect combination – the director who writes his own script and delivers perfectly . . . Yes, I’m raving, … but because I’m a priest of beauty; and this picture thrilled me.”

The film was held over in New York City, as well as in Baltimore, Seattle, Detroit, New Orleans, Trenton, Tacoma, and Springfield (Massachusetts and Illinois). The same was true in Atlanta, Georgia. The Atlanta Constitution wrote that the film, the “best picture made by Grace Moore” was “now in its third week at the Rialto Theater, with the demand for seats showing no signs of easing.” The same was true in Hartford, Connecticut. The Hartford Courant wrote “Don’t look now, but Loew’s Theater appears to be starting another one of those record-breaking picture engagements with When You’re in Love.”

The great British novelist Graham Greene, writing in Night and Day, was tempered in his assessment. “Miss Moore, even in trousers singing Minnie the Moocher, can make the craziest comedy sensible and hygienic. In For You Alone, the story of an Australian singer who buys an American husband in Mexico so that she may re-enter the States where her permit has expired, Mr. Riskin, the author of Mr. Deeds and (let’s not forget) Lost Horizon, has tried his best to write crazily, but he comes up all the time against Miss Moore.”

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— Grace Moore (1898–1947) was an American operatic soprano and actress in musical theater and film. She was nicknamed the “Tennessee Nightingale.” During her sixteen seasons with the Metropolitan Opera, she sang in several Italian and French operas as well as the title roles in Tosca, Manon, and Louise. The latter was her favorite opera and is widely considered to have been her greatest role. Moore is credited with helping bring opera to a larger audience through her popular films. Moore died in a plane crash near Copenhagen’s airport on January 26, 1947, at the age of 48. Moore’s life story was made into a movie, So This Is Love, in 1953.

— Attracted to Hollywood in the early years of talking pictures, Moore’s first screen role was as Jenny Lind in the 1930 MGM film A Lady’s Morals. Later that same year she starred with the Metropolitan Opera singer Lawrence Tibbett in New Moon, also for MGM. After a hiatus of several years, Moore returned to Hollywood under contract to Columbia Pictures, for whom she made six films. In the 1934 film One Night of Love, she portrayed a small-town girl who aspires to sing opera. For that role she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The last film that Moore made was Louise (1939), an abridged version of Gustave Charpentier’s opera of the same name, with spoken dialog in place of some of the original opera’s music. The composer participated in the production, authorizing the cuts and changes to the libretto, coaching Moore, and advising director Abel Gance.

— In the film, Moore sings “Siboney“. Xavier Cugat’s version of “Siboney” was recommended by Brooks in her self-published booklet, The Fundamentals of Good Ballroom Dancing.

— The New York Times noted that the lyrics of Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher” had been censored, writing “we did notice that the censors took out the reference to the King of Sweden who gave Minnie whatever she was needin’. Now it’s the King of Rythmania, who filled her full of vintage champagnia.” Although Daily Variety noted that preview audiences enjoyed Moore’s swing rendition of the classic song, it was not included in the general release print. 

—  Back in 2016, I wrote an article for the Huffington Post on When You're in Love when it debuted on the cable station, getTV. Check it out.

More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society 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 content copyright © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.