RadioLulu is on the air

Began work on RadioLulu, a Louise Brooks-themed internet radio station. The station is hosted by live365.com  I opened an account at the host website, am converting songs to the mp3 format, and am creating a playlist. I need to come up with about three hours of programming, so I will need to scour my cd collection for appropriate material. I hope others will tune-in, as this station is going to cost me about ten dolars a month....

.... The Louise Brooks Society is proud to announce the launch of RadioLulu. This streaming internet radio station features music of the 1920's through the present day. (The majority of the music dates from the 1920's and 1930's.) A number of the songs featured on the station bear some connection to Louise Brooks, such as the Beggars of Life theme song, Brooks' favorite Gershwin tune, Somebody Loves Me, and later day tributes like OMD's Pandora's Box (It's a long, long way) and Soul Coughing's St. Louise Is Listening. Other music on the station includes recordings by Brooks' contemporaries and co-stars, such as actors Adolphe Menjou and Noah Berry, and torch singer Libby Holman. The station is hosted by Live 365.com. Additional music will be added in the future.

The entire contents from two issues of the Illustrierter Film-Kurier have been added to the LBS website. This German film periodical devoted each issue to a single film. Issue number 1020 was devoted to A Girl in Every Port, while issue number 1314 was devoted to The Canary Murder Case. Also, two pages (about Beggars of Life) from a vintage Paramount campaign book from France have also been added. And as well, a handful of citations from California newspapers have been added to the various film bibliographies. These citations - garnered from visits to regional libraries - include articles and reviews from the Pasadena Star-News, Fresno Bee, and two papers from San Diego - the San Diego Sun and San Diego Union. 

LBS get together in cyberspace

Happy Holidays from the Louise Brooks Society. A Louise Brooks Society virtual get together (in cyber space) is set for Sunday, December 29th at 5 pm (Pacific Standard Time). Please calculate your time zone accordingly. This get together / live chat session may last for an hour or so, depending on what happens. This meeting is an experiment of sorts with the technology.

The meeting will take place at the News of Lulu web site (an adjunct site to the LBS) which is located at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newsoflulu/     Individuals and LBS members will need to sign in to Yahoo. Once there and signed in, click on the chat function on the left hand side of the page. Please bring comments, questions, etc..... If you have a web cam or mic, bring those as well and lets have fun.

35 mm print needed

A film festival which contacted me had hoped to screen Beggars of Life but have been unable to come up with a 35mm print of the film. Their sources - which are very good and worldwide - have suggested that a 35mm print may not exist. Does anyone out there in cyber space have specific knowledge of the existence of a 35mm print of this film. (A 16mm print won't do the trick.) If so, please email the Louise Brooks Society . . . .

Detroit trip

I recently got back from Detroit, where I was visiting family. I took the time to visit the Detroit Public Library where I spent 6 hours looking through microfilm of the three major Detroit papers. I found newspaper reviews and / or articles for each of Louise Brooks' American films - The Street of Forgotten Men through The Canary Murder Case. (Didn't have time to get into the 1930's). Also found a review of the 1924 Denishawn appearance in Detroit, a bunch of movie ads, a few captioned photos, and an advertisement by a local jewelry store which pictured Brooks (a tie-in for Canary Murder Case). All together, a good haul.

Wanted to get over to the nearby Wayne State University library, but just didn't have the time. They have a Berlin newspaper from the 1920's, as well as the paper from Ann Arbor, Michigan. (Denishawn performed in Ann Arbor.) If any Louise Brooks Society member lives in the Detroit area and would consider a trip downtown, please contact me for details.

Webpage updates

A handful of pages on the LBS website have been added or updated. Recently added to the site are scans of a vintage issue of the Illustrierter Film-Kurier and a French Campaign Book, as well as a page from the 1930 Census Document. Also recently revised are pages devoted to Life & Times and Cuban Matchboxes.

Happy Birthday, Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks was born on this day in 1906. Happy Birthday, Louise.

Cherryvale News and other new citations

Numerous citations from various American newspapers have been added to the bibliographies. These citations - garnered from inter-library loan material - include articles and reviews from the Cherryvale News, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Rochester Times-Union, Philadelphia Inquirer, Milwaukee Journal, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Denver Post, New Orleans Times-Picayuane and three different papers from Washington D.C. - the Washington Herald, Washington Star, and Washington Times. The hope in gathering such material is to present as wide a spectrum of critical response to Brooks' films. Along the way, a handful of previously undocumented articles about Brooks have also been uncovered!

Two pages on the LBS website were recently updated - Vintage Magazine Covers and Vintage French Postcards.

Sally of the Sawdust

Recently signed up with Netflix. One of the first films I rented was Sally of the Sawdust (1925), starring W.C. Fields and Carol Dempster. Alfred Lunt also had a part. It was directed by D.W. Griffith. This film wasn't bad, and there are some memorable moments. Interestingly, there is a reference to the "old army game."

On imdb, there is a long write up about the film. The reviewer notes that "Sally of the Sawdust  was first introduced to television as part of the 13-week series on public television's 1971 presentation of THE SILENT YEARS, hosted by Orson Welles, which was, by this time, the only known surviving silent movie to feature Fields." What about the following year's It's the Old Army Game, with Louise Brooks? Was that film thought lost then?

New citations and new material

A handful of citations from the New York Daily Graphic and the Film Spectator (each dating from the 1920's) were added to the various film bibliographies. Also added is a scan of my latest e-Bay purchase - a copy of Loew's Weekly which contains an article on Now We're in the Air.

LBS updates

Considerable time this weekend was spent updating the Site Tools page; additional translation utilities were added as a service to the website's many international, non-English speaking visitors. I have tried to integrate these utilities into some of the key text pages. Also updated and improved was the Site Map page, as well as Newsgroups and Listserves and the links page, Lulu in Cyberspace.

Some additional citations from the Baltimore Sun and Boston Globe have also been added to various bibliographies. In the coming weeks, I expect to add other citations from other American newspapers.

Mention in NY Times, new message board, new stuff

On August 29, the New York Times ran an article in which the LBS was mentioned! An article by Pamela Licalzi O'Connell stated "The Louise Brooks Society is an excellent homage to the art of the silent film as well as one of its most luminous stars."

A new message board has been installed. The free service which provided the old board has shut down - so a new message board has been set up. It works pretty much the same as the old board. The new message board can be found at www.voy.com/104307/. Also, as a result of the change in boards, the site architecture (namely the headers and footers found on every page) had to be reworked. Hopefully, everything is functioning as it should. Also, please be sure and scroll to the bottom of this webpage where you can vote for the Louise Brooks Society.

The entire contents of the "Illustrierter Film-Kurier issue devoted to The Canary Murder Case have been posted to the website. Check it out. Also, a few pages were added to the filmography section. The remaining basic textual parts of the filmography will be put in place this Fall. Afterwords, images (scene stills, film art, lobby cards, advertisements, etc...) will be added. That is a big project which will take some time.

Additional citations were added to various bibliographies; these entries were gathered from a handful of California newspapers including the San Diego Union, Santa Barbara Morning Press and Stockton Daily Record - as well as from a few European publications including Cinemagazine (France), Berliner Tageblatt (Germany), El Sol (Spain) and Kino i Zhizn (U.S.S.R.). All of these citations resulted from recent weekly all-day trips to the UC-Berkeley library and their outstanding microfilm collection.

I think I have found pretty much all that was possible to find in the UC-Berkeley collection. Some trips I have planned in the next six to eight months include visits to Palo Alto, California (Stanford University library) in the Fall; Detroit, Michigan (a visit home with a side trip to the Detroit Public Library) in December; San Jose, California (San Jose State University library) early next year; and Los Angeles, California (the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles Public library, and possibly elsewhere) in May, 2003. There is still much to find!

LBS anniversary

In August of 2002, the Louise Brooks Society (www.pandorasbox.com) celebrates its seventh year online. And sometime this month, the website will also enjoy its 750,000th visitor.

Begun in 1995, the LBS has grown to become the largest, most popular and most comprehensive website devoted to any silent film star. (It is also one of the oldest silent film websites on the internet.) The site now contains more than 200 pages of material, and serves as home to the Louise Brooks Society - the world's first "virtual fan club." At last count, its approximately 1100 members hail from 43 countries on six continents.

In its seven year history, the LBS has been recommended by the Encyclopedia Brittanica's "Brittanica Internet Guide," featured on the Microsoft Network's "One Click Away," as well as being named an USA Today Hot Site, Open Directory Cool Site, Celebrity Site of the Day,  Hollywood Site of the Week, and Yahoo "Desert Island Pick." And just last month, in an article about Louise Brooks, the Stuttgarter Zeitung newspaper in Germany referred to the LBS website as "exemplary." [ See www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/stz/page/detail.php/218213 ]

And as always, new material is added on an on-going basis. Look for more material in the coming weeks and months.

Anniversary / News of Lulu

Louise Brooks died of a heart attack during the night of August 8th, 1985. She was seventy-eight years old. This year marks the seventeenth anniversary of her passing. Why not watch a film or video or DVD in remembrance.

Also on August 8th, News of Lulu - the newsletter of the Louise Brooks Society, was sent out to all members. A few additional vintage citations were added to various film bibliographies; these entries were gathered from Le Figaro and the Manchester Guardian. And - for fun - a new collection of links, Around the World with Louise Brooks, has been added to the News of Lulu website. Also, a few pages were added to the filmography section.

Film screenings

Pandora's Box will be shown in Chicago at the Gateway Theatre (5216 W. Lawrence Avenue) on Friday, August 9 at 8:00 pm. There will be live organ accompaniment by Dennis Scott. For details see www.silentfilmchicago.com/festival2002.htm

The Walter Read Theater at Lincoln Center (at W. 65th St.) in New York City will be screening Diary of a Lost Girl on Saturday, August 10 at 9 pm. The screening will feature live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin.

The Cleveland Institute of Art's Cinematheque will show Diary of a Lost Girl on Saturday, August 24 at 9:30 pm. Lingua - a three-member band consisting of musicians Dan Bode (harmonica), Al Moses (guitar), and Rick Kodramaz (bass) -- will perform a new musical score. More info can be found at www.cia.edu/campuslife/cinematheque/julaug02.asp#diary

New citations added to bibliographies

Additional vintage citations were added to various film bibliographies; these entries were gathered from three California newspapers, the Modesto News-Herald, Fresno Bee and Daily Californian - the later being the student newspaper at the University of California at Berkeley.

In search of the perfect bob, in the Philippines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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