The Damned and the Beautiful

For a change of pace, I thought I would take a break from reading film biographies. Instead, I thought I might read up on the Jazz Age - one of my favorite periods in history. I've had a copy of The Damned and the Beautiful, by Paula Fass, sitting around for sometime. Originally published by Oxford University Press in 1977, this almost 500 page book is a sociological study of American youth in the 1920's. After the first few chapters, I decided I really couldn't finish this book. I found it somewhat dry, though interesting at times. I skimmed over the remaining chapters.



The author did her homework. She quotes from a number of books, magazine articles, and even student newspapers from the time. (Thus, I found the footnotes especially interesting! Fass cited a bunch of university newspapers, some of which I hope to eventually explore for Louise Brooks / Denishawn reviews.) One thing I especially liked about the book were the quotes which prefaced each chapter. Chapter 7 begins with these.

"To me the Jazz Age signifies an age of freedom in thought and action. The average young person of today is not bound by the strict conventions which governed the actions of previous generations." - University of Denver coed

"The word flapper to us means not a female atrocity who smokes, swears, delights in pictures like The Shiek and kisses her gentlemen friends goodnight, although there is no particular harm in any of the foregoing. We always think of the flapper as the independent, 'pally' young woman, a typical American product. Frivolity . . . . is not a crime, and flappers, being young, are naturally frivolous.

Any real girl . . . who has the vitality of young womanhood, who feels pugilistically inclined when called the 'weaker sex,' who resents being put on a pedestal and worshipped from afar, who wants to get into things herself, is a flapper . . . . The flapper is the girl who is responsible for the advancement of woman's condition in the world. The weak, retiring, 'clinging' variety of woman really does nothing in the world but cling." - Letter to the editor, Daily Illini, April 20, 1922

I will probably go back to this book sometimes, at least to pick through the footnotes. I've starting reading another, less academic, book - That Jazz, by Ethan Mordden. Originally published in 1978, this 300-plus page book is subtitled "An Idiosyncratic Social History of the American Twenties." I first notice this title in the bibliography of Louise Brooks, by Barry Paris. I am about thirty pages into it - and am liking it.

p.s. Mordden is best known as the author of well-received books on opera, film, and theater. He is also a novelist. In 1988, he published a novel entitled Everybody Loves You: Further Adventures in Gay Manhattan, in which he drops the name of a certain silent film star. . . ."When we gather at the board, I babble, dispersing the attacks. I am like a bag lady in the scattered energy of my references. I speak of Louise Brooks, of The Egoist, of Schubert's song cycles. They nod. They ask intelligent questions."

Considered the "Jennifer Aniston" of her days

I noticed a handmade jewelry box for sale on eBay. A couple of Louise Brooks images adorn the lid. However, what stood out was the description provided by the seller identifying the silent film star - "She was considered the 'Jennifer Aniston' of her days. Everyone had her haircut." That's a new one!

LB on YouTube

YouTube is a website where individuals can watch, upload and share fast streaming videos. A search of the site will reveal four Louise Brooks clips. There are brief two minutes clips from The Show Off and Diary of a Lost Girl, as well as a longer, seven minute clip from Pandora's Box (with music by Marcella Detroit - To Die For). Also on the site is a complete one-hour, twenty minute version of The Show Off. I haven't watched it yet, thus I can't speak to quality. A search of the site also turns up clips featuring Clara Bow, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand, Greta Garbo, Harold Lloyd, Rudolph Valentino and Alla Nazimova and others.

Poems "about" eary film stars

My friend Gianluca, who alerted me to a recent edition of a book of poems by Tadeusz Rozewicz featuring an image of Louise Brooks on the cover, also found a webpage from Cuba featuring a handful of poems "about" eary film stars, including one "about" Louise Brooks! There are other poems "about" Theda Bara, Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, Mae Murray, Charlie Chaplin and others. The poems are by Carlos Esquivel, a contemporary Cuban writer. Here is the Brooks' piece (whose title translates as "A Love Letter to Louise Brooks").

                                                      UNA CARTA DE AMOR PARA LOUISE BROOKS

Nada me une a ti sino lo que está más lejos:

el padre que no pude decir abrácense hijos,

esta sequía que ya aburre

 y junta las hebras de dormir con las de estar muertos,

ese perro recién nacido por los golpes y la fragilidad

de los apostadores,

y el trueno que no nos deja un águila viva.

Nada une como secar la pólvora en que hemos estado a salvo

mientras guardan en los sepulcros las hachas húmedas por la sangre

de otras muchachas.

Condenado a ser un hombre triste,

como un mensajero que se acoda

en la tribu enemiga, viviendo fuera de los muertos que le pertenecen,

doloroso y elegido en esta religión de olvidarte,

en la tierra que huele a abalorios, a coz,

advenedizo ante el oráculo y el agua áspera de las consignas.

Pero no soy quien cae de rodillas

y echa fuera de la armadura su presagio de vejez.

Sólo soy quien declara su amor como el prisionero

apostado a soñar con lo imposible.

Ya la madre no pensará en nosotros,

y en las misas los tambores llamarán a la fornicación,

heridos por el ácido de las absoluciones

y por los peñascos de quienes vaticinan

una zona blanca para los esqueletos amados.

Bienvenidos, dirán los niños,

y rezaremos ardiendo los sepulcros,

vueltos a callar en la carne y en la madera,

derribados por el coraje y la orina con que el hijo nos condenaba.

La sangre debe unir todo lo que en mí se hunde.

Debajo de esta barba de príncipe, mi corazón intacto

a las arrugas y a los zarcillos,

derramándose por las moras y los herbolarios,

húmedo de las concubinas que  habrán cobrado mi locura.

El corazón cercado,  como el tonto pájaro de Atamelipa.

Nada me une a ti sino lo que ruedea devolviéndose.

Augurar también que nos pregunten,

que en el vientre y los muslos un hijo nos pertenezca.

Nada me une más a ti que lo que no existe,

una espalda que imagino como única mentira,

y una muchacha con su cuerno de caza terminando la historia.

Quién sabe con qué esperanza tendremos el alcohol,

y la garganta hará un incendio para hacernos olvidar,

para sentarnos ante el poema

e inventar un grito.

Find in a Library

Looking for Louise Brooks: Portrait of an Anti-Star or a biography of Clara Bow or Lya Da Putti? How about a book on Denishawn or silent film? Here is a clever web application which will help you determine which libraries have what your're looking for. "Find in a Library" lets you use search sites to locate books, videos and other materials in a library near you. When your search term matches words associated with a library-owned item - such as a title or author's name - your search results can include a link for that item with the prefix "Find in a Library." And remember, if your local library doesn't have a particular title, they may be able to borrow it from another library through inter-library loan.

Angela Carter play

There is an article in today's Guardian about a play by Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus, which is being staged at the Lyric Hammersmith in London. Carter - one of the great writers of post-World War II Britian - was something of a "fan" of Louise Brooks, and she wrote about the actress on a couple of occassions. This article also discusses Brooks, femme fatales, Lulu and the Wedekind play - all of which interested Brooks.

"Carter was always intrigued by the femme fatale and the 'performance' of femininity - hardly for her a universal, but a construct made up of a time's assumptions and wishes. She translated the German playwright and cabaret artist Frank Wedekind's plays Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, where Lulu, that original turn-of-the-20th-century fatal woman, is born. Fevvers' sensational journey, the clowns and strong men of Nights, the lesbian lover and the waif, not to mention Fevvers' ribald enactment of sexual wiles and the predatory grand duke who tries to turn her into a toy, owe something to Lulu.

Carter's winged aerialist is a bold late-20th-century woman's response to the myth of the femme fatale: the woman who is both mysterious and fatal because she is made the repository of the male's forbidden desires. Writing about Louise Brooks, the great silent film incarnation of Lulu, Carter notes: "Desire does not so much transcend its object as ignore it completely in favour of a fantastic re-creation of it. Which is the process by which the femme gets credited with fatality. Because she is perceived not as herself but as the projection of those libidinous cravings which, since they are forbidden, must always prove fatal."

Lulu may just be a good-hearted girl, whore or not, but Wedekind and her suitors would have her embody mystery and become the instrument of vice. The femme fatale's punishment for sex . . . . "

I would be interested in hearing from anyone in London who has the chance to see this stage play.

Epitomized "Sad Young Men"

On this day in 1940, the great American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald died in Hollywood. (Louise Brooks had met the writer some years earlier.) "Mr. Fitzgerald in his life and writings epitomized 'all the sad young men' of the post-war generation. With the skill of a reporter and ability of an artist he captured the essence of a period when flappers and gin and 'the beautiful and the damned' were the symbols of the carefree madness of an age." More from the original New York Times obituary can be read here.

The red glove and other poems

I have just received word that a recent edition of a book of poems by Tadeusz Rozewicz entitled Il guanto rosso e altre poesie (1948)  features an image of Louise Brooks on the cover. And, apparently, the credit for the cover image reads "Cover, Louise Brooks. The Thirties, from the Louise Brooks Society Archive San Francisco." Rozewicz (born 1921) is a world famous writer, and is the author of many poems, plays and novels. He is Polish by birth. A bit more on this Italian language edition can be found on this web page.

Music and Lulu

I was scouring the web last night in search of music relating to the life and films of Louise Brooks. I ordered a half-dozen somewhat expensive CD's from Europe, and some of what I found will end up on RadioLulu once I've had a chance to listen to the discs and convert tracks to the mp3 format.

I spent a few hours searching a German site called jpc - music a la carte. One of the discs I ordered (which may never come, as it may no longer be available - we shall see) is by Berthe Slyva, a French singer. This particular disc contained two vintage recordings of two songs from Prix de beauté, the 1930 French film which starred Brooks. The songs, "Je n'ai qu'un amour c'est toi" (the familiar closing song) and "Mais quand le coeur dit oui," both ended up on sheet music associated with the film. [ Another CD I came across on another website, featuring French recordings from 1930, includes another version of  "Je n'ai qu'un amour c'est toi," this one by Marthe Coiffier. Check the box next to her name and then double click on the "Lancer L'ecoute" button to hear a 45 second sample!]  I don't feel that either version of "Je n'ai qu'un amour c'est toi" on these two discs is the version heard in the film, so there is a third recording out there somewhere. (And no, it's not Edith Piaf.) This third version (by Helene Caron) may be the one issued as a 78 record in France around 1930.

My search around jpc also turned up a remarkable disc of German film music dating from 1900 through 1945. This album, Filmmuseum Berlin - Musik zum deutschen Film Vol. 1, contains all kinds of unusual recordings such as the "Caligari-Foxtrott" and music fromNosferatu and Metropolis and Pandora's Box! From what I can tell, some of these recordings are vintage, and some are contemporary. I will find out more when and if my order comes. (More info on this recording here - as well as sound samples.)

I also purchased a CD called TanzSzene Berlin 1930, a collection of vintage dance music which includes Ilja Livschakoff's "Du bist meine Greta Garbo," as well as a disc by Will Meisel which contains his classic " Dort tanzt Lulu." Another disc had a Pola Negri track . . . .  

Filmic compositions

I recently picked up a copy of Aubert: Orchestral Works, a collection of five shorter works by Louis Aubert (1887 - 1968). I had not heard of this French composer, but I stumbled upon this CD and was drawn to the cover (which depicts Charlie Chaplin) as well as the interestingly titled second work on the disc, "Cinema, six tableaux symphoniques." According to the liner notes, this symphonic suite is taken from a ballet first staged in 1953, and each movement or episode in the work depicts a moment in the history of film. The movements are titled "Cinéma, six tableaux symphoniques Douglas Fairbanks et Mary Pickford," "Cinéma, six tableaux symphoniques Rudolph Valentino," "Cinéma, six tableaux symphoniques Chaplin et les Nymphes Hollywoodiennes," "Cinéma, six tableaux symphoniques Walt Disney," etc.... This music is charming and easy to listen to, and will appeal to those who may like Debussy or Ravel.



The liner notes refer to another French composer with whom I was not familiar, Charles Koechlin (1867 - 1950), and his "Seven Stars Symphony." According to the Wikipedia entry on Koechlin, the "Seven Stars Symphony" (1933) was "inspired by Hollywood" and "He was fascinated by the movies and wrote many 'imaginary' film scores and works dedicated to the Hollywood actress Lillian Harvey, on whom he had a crush. He also composed an "Epitaph for Jean Harlow." This webpage contains additional information on Koechlin. And this English-language Russian webpage has some really interesting material.

One doesn't often come across classical music inspired by the early cinema, especially that dating from the time. Is anyone familiar with this composer or their filmic compositions? I would like to track down some of Koechlin's work.

Flapper Monkey Too Untrained for Matrimony

It's not unsual, while looking through newspapers and magazines of the 1920's, to come upon articles about flappers. Incredibly, flappers (young women with a decidely modern outlook) were seen as a "threat" to society. And many of the articles I have come across are of the finger-wagging variety.

Yesterday, I couldn't help but notice and read and copy "Flapper Monkey Too Untrained for Matrimony; Her Three Babies Died." This is certainly one of the most ridiculous pieces I have ever read.

Still things to be found

I spent about three hours at the library today. There are still things to be found.

I went through two reels of microfilm of the Omaha Daily News in search of material on the December, 1922 and February, 1924 Denishawn performances (with Louise Brooks) in Omaha, Nebraska. I found a number of articles and a review. Radio was just coming in around 1922, and the Daily News devoted no less than four articles to a local broadcast on WNAL by Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis. One article, suggesting that Denishawn were hip, began "Old folks won't have a chance at the radio headsets Thursday from 7 to 7:30 pm. Youth will demand a listening, for - Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis, among the brightest luminaries in the realm of dance . . . will broadcast their famous 'History of the Dance' lecture." Perhaps it was the modernity or daring of the Denishawn aesthetic that appealed to the younger generation. A review the following day entitled "Ted Shawn Tells Fans Nude Dance Returning," noted that Shawn "declared the undraped dance on the wave of popularity."



These radio broadcasts could be heard far and wide. An article in the Omaha paper related how an earlier broadcast of Shawn and St. Denis from Davenport, Iowa over station WOC could be heard in New York City. "Skeptic Becomes Ardent Radioite" related how a Denishawn manager, listening in the Flatiron building, heard the Denishawn radio lecture. It was the manager's first experience with radio, the article reported.

The February, 1924 Denishawn performance was equally well covered. One article reported that more than 100 people would attend a luncheon for Ruth St. Denis and Denishawn dancer Doris Humphrey at the Fontenelle Hotel. (It wasn't clear if Shawn, Brooks, or the other dancers attended this event - though it did list who from Omaha would be there and were they would sit.) An effusive article in the Omaha Daily News on the day of their program at the Brandeis theater was headlined "Ruth St. Denis Transforms Body Into Flowing Liquid!" The review the following day was titled "Translate Music Into Poetic Motion."

This is the second Omaha newspaper I have looked at. I have also gone through the World-Herald. My next inter-library loan request covering this material will be for the Omaha Evening Bee.

I also went through two months of the Hollywood Citizen News. I have been tracking down a series of near daily advertisements that Louise Brooks' dance studio, the Brooks O'Shea Studio of Distinctive Ballroom Dancing, took out in Hollywood Citizen News and the Los Angeles Times. Today, I collected 42 different ads - each of them different "hints for dancers." Very interesting stuff - though I doubt Brooks had much to do with the dance instructions contained in the ads. Also, I will have to request more microfilm, as the series stopped near the end of the month with the promise to resume later in the year. (I have nearly 100 different advertisements photocopied so far!) Here is a rather little known item I also came across. It dates from 1940. I love finding stuff like this.



And for fun, I requested and searched through nine months of the Fargo Forum. I hadn't looked through any newspaper from this city before, let alone much else from North or South Dakota. And for that reason, I did it. What I found were some brief articles and advertisements for three of Brooks' films. Among them was an October, 1927 screening of The Street of Forgotten Men. Interestingly, Brooks' first film was still being shown in theaters some two years after its release.

A nice note

I received an email from a blogger by the name of sourduck who wrote: "I love your LiveJournal LB site. I link to it a lot at my linkblog.  At any rate, I came across this doing something entirely different but I thought you might appreciate this desktop wallpaper:  www.doctormacro.com/Images/Sylvie/Sylvie%20-%20Brooks,%20Louise_01.jpg  

(The page before it shows a number of desktop wallpapers: www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Star%20Pages/Sylvie/Sylvie.htm ).

" It's nice to hear that this blog doesn't put everyone to sleep. . . . At any rate, I wanted to pass along the urls to that wallpaper site. I especially like the Theda Bara image. The Jean Harlow, Ronald Colman, and Carole Lombard wallpapers are also quite attractive.

Marion Davies, a biography

Just finished reading Marion Davies, a biography by Fred Laurence Guiles. I liked the book well enough, though it took me a while to finish it. Not sure why that was. I have been busy with work lately. Nevertheless, this 1972 biography was informative and well-researched. I have seen Davies' Show People and really liked the film, and her. (If you haven't seen the film, you should. Marion Davies is a delight.)  This book makes a case for Davies as an accomplished actress and interesting Jazz Age personality, above and beyond her relationship with William Randolph Hearst.



Has anyone read this book, or Davies' own posthumous The Times We Had ? I think I may read that next.

LBS at Flickr

Here is the url for the LBS at Flickr = http://www.flickr.com/photos/louisebrookssociety/

David Levine Postcard Book

A caricature of Louise Brooks adorns the cover of a recently released David Levine postcard book. The "personalities" series contains twenty 4" x 6" postcards featuring different David Levine caricatures taken from 40 years of The New York Review of Books. Levine's mid-80's caricature of is featured. More info and a link to purchase can be found here.

                   

New York Review Books is the same publisher that released The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, which also featured Louise Brooks on the cover. More info and a link to purchase for that title can be found here. That's two items from the same publisher! (p.s. The publisher is having a sale!)

LBS 10th anniversary postage stamp

The Louise Brooks Society 10th anniversary postage stamp - for sale through Cafepress.com - will only be available through the end of the year. (This year marks the tenth anniversary of the LBS - and to celebrate, the LBS created a stamp by gum!) Approved for domestic use by the United States Postal Service, stamps are sold in sheets of 20 and are available in seven denominations, including the postcard rate. This is the perfect collectible for those stamp collectors among Louise Brooks many fans . . . .

Theda Bara documentary

There is an article in today's Fresno Bee about a new documentary on Theda Bara. Hugh Munro Neely, who directed the documentary, also directed the recent stylish documentaries on Clara Bow and Louise Brooks. I am looking forward to seeing it.

Once again, I went to the library

Once again, I went to the library in search of yet more Louise Brooks material. Four inter-library loans were waiting for me. Most of my requests these days are aimed at Denishawn performances. To that end, I went through some microfilm of the now defunct Minneapolis Journal and the now defunct Albany Evening Journal. I also went through the Rockford Register-Gazette (from Rockford, Illinois). In each newspaper I found articles, advertisements and a couple of reviews. Louise Brooks was mentioned in one of the reviews. One other unusual article spoke about a visit by the Denishawn dancers to a Minneapolis hospital to visit sick children. The search goes on . . . . I have added citations to the Denishawn bibliographiesof the relevant material.



One of the advertisements I came across for Denishawn's 1923 Minneapolis performance is pictured above. Interestingly, adjoining it was an advertisement for a performance by the noted stage (and silent film) actor Fritz Leiber, who was once well known for his interpretations of Shakespeare. His son, Fritz Leiber Jr., who would become one of the great science fiction and fantasy authors of the post-War period, referenced Louise Brooks in his classic horror novel Our Lady of Darkness (1978).

Along with a bunch of Denishawn material, I also scored some articles, reviews and advertisements for The Street of Forgotten Men, A Social Celebrity, and The Show Off. This material came from the Minneapolis Journal, Albany Evening News (the successor to the Albany Evening Journal) and Des Moines Register (from Des Moines, Iowa). I think I have gotten everything I can from the Des Moines Register.

On this day in 1929

On this day in 1929: The New York Sun declared Pandora's Box ". . . has smashed the Fifty-fifth Street Playhouse's box office records. It will therefore be held for another week." This week-long engagement marked the film's American debut.

J. Peterman winter coat

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.

Reading

Any film buff who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area will want to check out a new book, Theatres of San Francisco, by Jack Tillmany. Recently, I had a chance to meet the author during his book signing at the historic Castro Theater.


Jack Tillmany documents the city's many theatres through a remarkable selection of vintage images drawn from the author's personal archive.This new book paints a detailed picture of the golden age of going to the theatre in San Francisco. This volume reminds us that almost every neighborhood in the City boasted its own beloved theatre. Ironially, the one theatre closest to my San Francisco residence - the Searchlight, is not depicted. The Searchlight opened in 1916 at 1596 Church Street, and operated under nearly a dozen names during the next 50 years. Though the building still stands, no photographs of the building as a theater are known.

"Only a handful of the 100 or so neighborhood theatres that once graced these streets are left in San Francisco, but they live on in the photographs featured in this book. The heyday of such venues as the Clay, Noe, Metro, New Mission, Alexandria, Coronet, Fox, Uptown, Coliseum, Surf, El Rey, and Royal was a time when San Franciscans thronged to the movies and vaudeville shows, dressed to the hilt, to see and be seen in majestic art deco palaces." Also included is the Granada, where all of Louise Brooks' Paramount features were shown.

Are you The American Venus of Eau Claire?

Yesterday's trip to the library was worthwhile. I looked at two newspapers on microfilm, the Eau Claire Leader (from Eau Claire, Wisconsin) and the Hannibal Evening Courier-Post (from Hannibal, Missouri). Both papers yielded Denishawn material (some articles, some distinct advertisements, and reviews), as each city was a destination on the Denishawn tour during the years Louise Brooks was with the company.

While looking through the Hannibal newspaper around the time of Denishawn performance, I came across this remarkable advertisement.



Along with the Denishawn dates, I had also requested a couple of months of microfilm of the Eau Claire Leader, on the off-chance I might run across some film reviews in that Wisconsin paper. And in fact, I did come across material on local screenings of The American Venus and A Social Celebrity. I found articles promoting each film, and some advertisements. Each were no doubt supplied by the studio, and were nothing I hadn't seen before. I one unsual item I did run across was this advertisement promoting a local beauty contest to be held in conjunction with the screening of The American Venus.



Such contests were held elsewhere (I have run across a few such instances), but this promotion has a local angle to it. Very nifty!

Watching and listening

The other day, I watched a somewhat interesting silent film called Sex in Chains (1928). William Dieterle directed and starred in this social drama, which had been banned by the German government because of its subject matter - sexual relations between male prisoners. (Needless-to-say, the sexuality is oblique.) The film centers on a young man who's incarcerated for causing an accidental death and who develops sexual relations with a fellow inmate. Also in the film was Carl Goetz, who, less than one year later, would play Schigolch in Pandora's Box.

[ Under the title, "Gay-Themed Films of the Silent Era," Kino released Sex in Chains as part of a set of four films that were controversial in their day.The set also included G.W. Pabst's Diary of a Lost Girl, Carl Theodor Dreyer's Michael, and Richard Oswald's  Different from the Others. ]

I also recently listened to a BBC radio documentary about Charlie Chaplin, which was narrated by Robert Downey, Jr. "Smile: The Genius of Charlie Chaplin" aired earlier in the week and can be listened to again at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/documentaries/#chaplin Part two of this recommended program airs on Tuesday, December 6th. Check it out.

Hairstyle Keeps Bobbing Along

An article in today's Hartford Courant, "Hairstyle Keeps Bobbing Along," mentions Louise Brooks. The article begins, "Aeon Flux, opening Friday, is set 400 years in the future. But the hairdo Charlize Theron sports as the title character is as old as the Roaring Twenties. Theron's dramatic black symmetrical hairstyle can be traced all the way back to Louise Brooks, the dark-haired star of silent films of the 1920s and '30s who was famous for her trend-setting bob hairstyle."  . . . And ends, "Brooks might be taken aback by today's entertainments, but she'd no doubt be thrilled to see her bangs bobbing about on stage and screen."