The Diary of a Lost Girl

I have just edited, written the introduction, and republished the controversial 1905 novel which was the basis for the 1929 Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl.

Though little known today, it was a literary sensation at the beginning of the 20th century, was translated into 14 languages, and is considered one of the bestselling books of the time. By the end of the Twenties, The Diary of a Lost Girl had sold more than 1,200,000 copies.

Was it – as many believed – the real-life diary of a young woman forced by circumstance into a life of prostitution? Or a sensational and clever fake, one of the first novels of its kind? This contested book – a work of literary sophistication and unusual historical significance – inspired a sequel, a play, a parody, a score of imitators, and two silent films.

This new edition of the original English language translation brings this important book back into print in the United States after more than 100 years. It includes an introduction detailing the book's remarkable history and relationship to the 1929 silent film. This special "Louise Brooks Edition" also includes rare images and vintage illustrations.

More information at http://www.pandorasbox.com/diary.html /// Buy a copy or check out sample pages & more at Lulu.com

A look back

A look back, featuring Louise Brooks.

Louise Brooks in Welsh language literature

This past weekend I received an interesting email, the kind I love to get. It was about a reference to Louise Brooks in contemporary Welsh language literature. In Y Ddynes Ddirgel (The Mysterious Woman), author Mihangel Morgan compares a character to Louise Brooks. The passage in Welsh reads.

"Roeddwn i'n codi o'm sedd ac yn troi tua'r drws pan welais i hi yn llithro allan. Dim ond cipolwg, mater o eiliad neu ddau. Dim ond ochr ei phen a welswn – ond roeddwn i'n eithaf si r taw hyhi oedd hi. Roedd ei gwallt yn fyr ac yn ddu fel adain brân ac wedi'i dorri'n onglog ac yn gornelog fel gwallt Louise Brooks yn Pandora's Box. Ond ai hi oedd hi? Allwn i ddim bod yn hollol sicr, doeddwn i ddim wedi'i gweld hi ers blynyddoedd. Ac onid oedd hi wedi marw? Roedd hi wedi diflannu, ta beth. Na, allwn i ddim bod yn sicr."

Which reads in English as

"I was getting up from my seat and turning towards the door when I saw her slip out. It was only a glance, just a matter of a second or two. I could only see the side of her head – but I was quite sure that it was her. Her hair was short and as black as the wings of a crow and had been cut in an angular, edged shape like the hair of Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box. But was it her? I couldn’t be completely sure, I hadn’t seen her for years. And hadn’t she died? She had disappeared, at least. No, I couldn’t be sure."

Y Ddynes Ddirgel, a novel, was published in 2001.

Mihangel Morgan was born in Aberdare in south Wales in 1955. His first novel Dirgel Ddyn (Mysterious Man, 1993) won the National Eisteddfod Prose Medal and marked the beginning of a career as one of Wales' formeost contemporary authors. More about the book and the author can be found here.

Diolch yn fawr (thank you) to Dilwyn (Roberts-Young) for send this information to me. Dilwyn even mentioned he listens to RadioLulu while at work in Wales.

Diary of a Lost Girl to screen in San Francisco

Diary of a Lost Girl, the acclaimed 1929 German silent film starring Louise Brooks, will be the centerpiece of this year’s San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The Festival, which is celebrating its 15th annual event in July, has announced the schedule for its 4-day summer happening held at the historic Castro Theater. Diary has been designated the Founder’s Pick film for the 2010 Festival.

The 116-minute version of Diary which will be screened on July 17 has been mastered from a restoration of the film made by the Cineteca di Bologna with approximately seven minutes of previously censored footage. This 35 mm print is courtesy of KINO International. The film will be accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. The musical group, known for their accompaniment to silent films, will debut their original score for the Brooks film.

Following this special screening, a book signing will take place at the Castro Theater which should prove of interest to fans of Louise Brooks. Ira M. Resnick, the author of Starstruck: Vintage Movie Posters from Classic Hollywood (Abbeville), will be signing copies of his new coffee table book. It contains, notably, a number of illustrations of posters and lobby cards of Brooks’ films, including a one-of-a-kind poster for Diary of a Lost Girl for which the author once paid $60,000.

Also signing books following Diary of a Lost Girl will be Hollywood screenwriter Samuel Bernstein, whose Lulu: A Novel, has just been published by Walford Press. The subject of this “non-fiction” novel is, of course, Louise Brooks. And as well, there will be a signing for my forthcoming edition of Böhme’s The Diary of a Lost Girl, which is being brought back into print a century after it was first published in English translation in the United States. This new, illustrated edition includes an introduction detailing the history of the book and the films made from it.

More about this special happening at http://www.examiner.com/x-48577-Louise-Brooks-Examiner~y2010m5d21-Louise-Brooks-film-centerpiece-of-2010-Silent-Film-Festival

On Kenneth Tynan & Louise Brooks

There is an interesting article in today's Guardian UK about Kenneth Tynan, the British-born critic and writer whose 1978 New Yorker article about Louise Brooks, "The Girl in the Black Helmet," helped ignite a revival of interest in the actress.

Although best known as a theatre critic, Tynan also wrote widely on film and for the movies. Tynan wrote a number of screenplays including the Ealing Studios' "least Ealing film ever." Michael Billington's article, "Kenneth Tynan off stage: the theatre critic's life in film," looks at the critic's unrealized screenplays (including one for The Lord of the Flies) and collaboration with Roman Polanski.

Billington concludes his article this way:  "But, if Tynan's screen output was small, his writing on film is imperishable. Best of all is his famous New Yorker profile of Louise Brooks, in which he tracks the ageing, reclusive star down to her Rochester, NY hideaway and gets her to relive her memories of making Pandora's Box with Pabst. If Brooks was intrigued by Tynan, he was obviously hypnotised by her. And, in Tynan's scene-by-scene breakdown of Brooks's most famous movie and in his thralldom to this enchantress, you get a perfect marriage of his critical instinct and lifelong star-worship."

Which reminds me, I need to go and find the picture of Tynan dressed in drag as Louise Brooks . . . . complete with a black helmet.

Archives up for sale

As everyone knows, the print industry is on the skids. Newspapers and magazines are in trouble. Many have folded. And some are starting to sell off their assets - namely their archives, in order to raise cash and clean house.

Lately, two of the leading Chicago newspapers have started to sell off their photo archives. (Other newspapers from around the country are doing the same thing.) The two Chicago papers are The Sun-Times and The Tribune. Here is a recent article from the Chicago Reader about the Sun-Times and its sale of its photo archive. The article mentions that some of the images are being sold through eBay.

I have also noticed some Chicago Tribune images for sale on eBay, and elsewhere. Some of these images are vintage, some are contemporary. Some were common publicity phots, others were images taken by local news photographers. Two of the images I noticed were of Louise Brooks. Here is one of them.

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Who knows what else will show up? Perhaps something unusual and interesting? Louise Brooks spent a little time in Chicago while married to a Chicago resident. She also danced there while a member of the Denishawn Dance Company. I have visited the city and its public library on more than a few occasions researching the actress. It has many connections with Brooks, and a rich history within film history. It was even home to Photoplay magazine.

LBS mentioned

Hazaa, this Louise Brooks Society blog was mentioned in another blog. The post, titled "A Love Letter to Louise Brooks," can be found at http://feminema.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/love-letter-to-louise-brooks/

Louise Brooks postcard

This nice old postcard of Louise Brooks is currently for sale on eBay. Check it out. It's a Ross Verlag 4608/1.

From Jim Tully to Colleen moore

As mentioned in yesterday blog, here is one of my copies of Jim Tully's Beggars of Life, inscribed to actress Colleen Moore. I found it in a used bookstore here in California. The store owner gave me a discount, because it had sat on the shelves for so long. And they were happy to sell.

 

Tully's inscription to Colleen Moore reads "With the admiration of a Irish rover to a whimsical girl who knew him when." The book is signed, Hollywood, California 1926.

Beggars of Life returns to print

Speaking of Beggars of Life . . . the 1924 bestselling book by Jim Tully which served as the basis for the 1928 William Wellman film of the same name starring Louise Brooks, is due to be republished. The book will be republished in June by Kent State University Press, with a new cover and new introductions by Tully scholars Paul J. Bauer and Mark Dawidziak.

This from the publisher: "Jim Tully takes us across the seamy underbelly of pre-WWI America on freight trains, and inside hobo jungles and brothels while narrowly averting railroad bulls (cops) and wardens of order. 

Written with unflinching honesty and insight, Beggars of Life follows Tully from his first ride at age thirteen, choosing life on the road over a deadening job, through his teenage years of learning the ropes of the rails and living one meal to the next. 

Tully’s direct, confrontational approach helped shape the hard-boiled school of writing, and later immeasurably influenced the noir genre. Beggars of Life was the first in Tully’s five-volume memoir, dubbed the "Underworld Edition," recalling his transformation from road-kid to novelist, journalist, Hollywood columnist, chain maker, boxer, circus handyman, and tree surgeon.

Jim Tully (1891–1947) was a best-selling novelist and popular Hollywood journalist in the 1920s and ’30s. Known as "Cincinnati Red" during his years as a road-kid, he counted prizefighter and publicist of Charlie Chaplin among his many jobs. He is considered (with Dashiel Hammett) one of the inventors of the hard-boiled style of American writing."

The reprint of Beggars of Life is part of larger effort by Kent State University press to bring other Tully books back into print. So far, two other Tully novels have been reissued. They are Circus Parade, with a foreword by Harvey Pekar, and Shanty Irish, with a foreword by John Sayles. No word yet on who might be writing the foreword to Beggars of Life.

I do plan on getting a copy of this new edition, though I already own two other copies of the book! One of them is an old photoplay edition which once belonged, reportedly, to the son or grandson of Ambrose Bierce. The other is a first edition copy which once belonged to Colleen Moore. It has her decorative bookplate inside, and the book is inscribed by Tully to the actress with an appropriate Irish sentiment. It is one of my treasures.

Once it is released, the book should be available for purchase online and at better independent bookstores.

Secret hobo code

When the William Wellman film, Beggars of Life, was released in 1928, some of the publicity materials focused on hobo culture. The film was based on a book of the same name by Jim Tully, which tells of his days as a hobo among the wandering down-and-out of America. In the film, Brooks plays a young women who dresses as a young man and goes on the run. And for a time, she hangs out in what was then termed a "hobo jungle."

Articles about the film at the time contained mini-dictionaries of hobo terms and slang. This publicity photo, which is currently for sale on eBay, depicts the actress in character holding a coded message - the snipe (or descriptive text) on the back of the picture states the sign  notes the approaching town has a police force hostile towards vagrants.

New examiner.com column about Louise Brooks

Tori Amos and Tori Spelling have one, as does John Lennon and the Jonas Brothers. So does Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, and Miley Cyrus. That's why I've started a new examiner.com column focusing on Louise Brooks. It's a national column, which means I'll be covering all things Louise Brooks from a national perspective. That will include screenings, events, happenings, new books, new DVDs, new CDs and all kinds of other stuff. I will also throw in a few interviews from time to time - and who knows what else. Yesterday, I posted my first column.

At the national level, I will be joining other illustrious examiners such as Robin Leach (I kid thee not) and many others. Got a news tip? Send it along.

The new Louise Brooks Examiner column can be found at http://www.examiner.com/x-48577-Louise-Brooks-Examiner

Please check it out. You can even sign up for email alerts whener ever a new piece is posted.

Last Ziegfeld Follies Girl dies at 106

Doris Eaton Travis, one of the last living Ziegfeld Follies Girls and a contemporary of Louise Brooks, has died. She was 106 years old.

In her long career, Travis appeared in silent and talking pictures, performed for presidents and princesses, bantered with Babe Ruth, offended Henry Ford, outlived her six siblings (who were also performers), wrote a newspaper column, hosted a Detroit television show, and earned a degree in history at age 88.

Her film roles include small roles in Taking the Count  (1928) and Street Girl (1929). The former was written by Rube Goldberg. The latter starred Bettty Compson.

Travis continued to work late in life, with annual appearances on Broadway, a small role in a Jim Carrey movie, and a recently published memoir, The Days We Danced: The Story of My Theatrical Family From Florenz Ziegfeld to Arthur Murray and Beyond. That book was published in 2003.

In 2006, a visual biography about Travis was also published. It was called Century Girl: 100 Years in the Life of Doris Eaton Travis Last Living Star of the Ziegfeld Follies. More about Doris Eaton Travis at Wikipedia, and here at her AP obituary. Here is a short video made a few years ago.

Pandora's Box screens in Pasadena, CA

Pandora's Box, the 1929 G.W. Pabst silent film starring Louise Brooks, will be shown in Pasadena, California on Friday, May 28th.

The screening, with live music by jazz bassist Tom Peters, is set for 8 pm at Boston Court (70 North Mentor Avenue, one block north of Colorado Blvd and one block east of Lake Avenue, four blocks from the Metro Gold Line Lake Ave station). Apparently, Peters will be performing his own score to the film.

More info and ticket availability here.

I would love to hear from anyone who attends - I am especially interested to know their impressions of the score.

Louise Brooks letter for sale

History for sale, an online auction site, has a Louise Brooks letter for sale. The auction page, which has images of the two page, 1985 letter as well as descriptive text, can be found here. The letter is selling for a mere $3,999.00. Check it out.

On the beach

This little seen image of the Denishawn Dance Company, taken during the 1922-1923 season, features future dance great Martha Graham, standing center, and future silent film actress Louise Brooks, kneeling second on the right. Graham and Brooks' time with Denishawn overlapped for a single season, when they toured the country togetheralong with Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn and the other members of Denishawn. Graham, born in 1894, was about 30 years old at the time. Brooks, born in 1906, was about 16. Those were the days.

Come to the San Francisco Silent Film Festival!

CONSIDER THIS BLOG YOUR FIRST WARNING: The event to attend this summer for every fan of Louise Brooks is the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The event is scheduled to take place July 15th - 18th at the historic Castro Theater. For more info, visit the SFSFF website at www.silentfilm.org.

I really can't say much more, but Louise Brooks will shine at this special event - a gathering a like-minded silent film enthusiasts from around the world. Among those scheduled to be in attendance are Ira Resnick, author of Starstruck: Vintage Movie Posters from Classic Hollywood (which features a bunch of posters and lobby cards from Brooks' films) as well as screenwriter Samuel Bernstein, author of the just published Lulu a novel. Those two guests - each of whom will be signing books - are just the tip of the iceberg, as they say. More, much more, will be revealed in the coming weeks.

By the way, if you have never been to the Castro Theater, it is well worth checking out. It is a grand old neighborhood movie place - one of the last standing in San Francisco. It was built in 1922, and Janet Gaynor used to work there as an usherette. I just saw a silent film there last night, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916), with live musical accompaniment by Stephin Merritt (of the Magnetic Fields) and Daniel Handler (of Lemony Snicket fame).

And of course, films featuring Louise Brooks were shown there many times over the years. Actually, no theater in the city has shown more Louise Brooks' films over the years then the Castro. Here is a list of some of the films the Castro has shown which I have been able to document.

Love Em and Leave Em (Apr. 7-8, 1927)
Just Another Blonde (June 7-8, 1927)
Beggars of Life (Feb. 17, 1929)
Canary Murder Case (May 19-21, 1929)
It Pays to Advertise (June 8-9, 1931)
When You’re in Love  (June 3-5, 1937 with Criminal Lawyer)
Diary of a Lost Girl (Jan. 22, 1987 with Sadie Thompson as part of “Vamps” series)
A Girl in Every Port (Jan. 23, 1987 with Sadie Thompson as part of “Vamps” series)
Pandora’s Box (Feb. 26, 1987 as part of “Vamps” series)
Prix de Beaute (Feb. 26, 1987 as part of “Vamps” series)
Diary of a Lost Girl (Nov. 8, 1988 with Pandora’s Box)
Diary of a Lost Girl (May 11, 1992 with Pandora’s Box)
Pandora’s Box (May 5-8, 1995 as part of the San Francisco Film Festival)
Pandora’s Box (Dec. 16-17, 1995)
Pandora’s Box (Apr. 2, 1996 with Wings)
Just Another Blonde (July 14, 1996 screening of fragments, as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival)
Pandora’s Box (May 18, 1998 as part of Femme Fatale Festival)
Diary of a Lost Girl (Jan. 14, 2002 as part of the Berlin & Beyond Festival)
Pandora’s Box (July 15, 2006 as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival)
The American Venus (July 14, 2007 screening of a trailer & fragments as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival)
Beggars of Life (July 14, 2007 as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival)

Undoubtedly there were others, but the records - including the local neighborhood newspaper which carried advertisements for the Castro, have been lost. The picture up top is of yours truly introducing Pandora's Box at the 2006 San Francisco Silent Film Festival. And the picture below is of me outside the theater that same year. I hope to see some of you this year.

Diary of a Lost Girl to show in Brooklyn

The Diary of a Lost Girl, the great 1929 silent film starring Louise Brooks, will be shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of it's BAMcinemaFEST. Two screenings are set for Sunday, June 20th at 4:30 and 8 pm in the BAM Rose Cinemas. I wish I could be there. Tickets go on sale on May 17th. This from the BAM website.

Irish rock collective 3epkano (who performed their score to Metropolis last year) closes out BAMcinemaFEST 2010 with another electrifying performance to G.W. Pabst’s controversial drama Diary of a Lost Girl.

Pabst’s second collaboration with his magnetic Pandora’s Box star features Louise Brooks as Thymiane, who goes from young innocent to high-class call-girl after being raped and sent to a rigid reformatory. In this haunting examination of moral depravity in the post-WWI-era Weimar Republic, Pabst creates a potent mixture of lurid expressionism and social realism, concocting a sordid environment overrun with lecherous men and lost, loose women. Sex and violence are intrinsically linked in his powerful and controversial drama that cemented Brooks’ status as a silent-era icon.

What's interesting to note is that before she became an actress - and while still a teenager, Brooks was a dancer and a member of the world famous Denishawn Dance Company. The future actress twice danced at the Brooklyn Academy of Music while touring with Denishawn. The first time was on October 22, 1923. The company returned again on April 5, 1924. Who would have thought then that Louise Brooks would "return" all these year's later?

I would love to hear from anyone who attends this event. 

Louise Brooks, exhibiiton practices: rong & wright

I spent most of Friday at the California State Library in Sacramento, continuing my survey of small town newspapers in Northern California. I found a bunch of stuff, and added to my list of more than 750 instances of when Louise Brooks films were shown in the region during the 1920's and 1930's. That may seem like a lot, and it is. But I am sure that other stars, like Clara Bow of Colleen Moore, were shown even more as each was not only more prolific but also more popular.

By compiling all this data, I have come to a couple of realizations. The first is that I am nuits to have done it. The second is that Paramount (the studio for which Brooks made most of her films), dominated the region in terms of exhibition - especially outside the major cities, like San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose and Sacramento, though Brooks' films did show a lot in those places as well. And thirdly, less than ten weeks went by during the period of 1926 and 1927 when one of Brooks' films wasn't showing somewhere around the San Francisco Bay Area. That's less then 10 seven day periods over the course of 104 weeks. How's that for ubiquity?

Well, anyways, I wanted to post a few things I found, as examples. Here are a couple of typical newspaper advertisements for the Liberty Theatre in Susanville, California. Susanville is in the north and eastern part of California, not so far from the Nevada border and Mt. Shasta.

What sticks out about the ad on the left is that fact that they got some important details mixed up. The 1927 film, Evening Clothes, which is noted as playing on October 24-25, was listed as starring Thomas Meighan. That's wrong. Of course, it stars the suave Adolph Menjou. Perhaps the person who typeset the ad was thinking of another 1927 Louise Brooks' film, The City Gone Wild, which does star the rough and tumble Meighan. It had just been released but wouldn't play Susanville till February. A week later, as the ad on the right shows, the theater got it right. On October 30th, the Liberty ran another 1927 film, Rolled Stockings, and noted correctly that it starred Louise Brooks.

Speaking of Rolled Stockings, I also came across something of an atypical factoid about it and the town of Placerville, California. It, too, is located in the north and eastern part of the state, not so far Sacramento and North Highlands, and east of Folsom near the Sierra Nevada foothills. The theater owners or patrons of the one theater in town must have really liked that film, because they showed it a lot - three times to be exact! Rolled Stockings was shown at the Elite Theatre on June 19 and July 17, 1927 - and then again on January 1, 1928. It's pretty unusual for a small town theater to show a film twice, let alone three times.

Why this small town showed Rolled Stockings three times I can't say. Perhaps they liked it. As the list below shows, the first Placerville screening was also one of the earliest in the State, beating out not only the region's biggest city, San Francisco, but also Berkeley and Oakland, where much of the film was shot. All of the instances of the regional screening of this now lost Brooks' film are listed below.

American in San Jose (June 15-17, 1927); Modesto Theater in Modesto (June 18, 1927); Elite in Placerville (June 19, 1927); Maywood Airdome in Corning (June 25, 1927); California in Santa Rosa (July 2, 1927); National in Chico (July 3, 1927); Hub in Mill Valley (July 5-6, 1927); New Stanford in Palo Alto (July 10, 1927 with Whispering Stage); Princess in Sausalito (July 10-11, 1927); Strand in Los Gatos (July 14-15, 1927); Elite in Placerville (July 17, 1927); Liberty in Marysville (July 23, 1927 with Hills of Peril); Liberty in St. Helena (July 24, 1927); California in Pittsburg (Aug. 2-3, 1927); Grand Lake in Oakland (Aug. 6-12, 1927); Casino in Antioch (Aug 7, 1927); Golden State in Monterey (Aug. 7, 1927); Mystic in Petaluma (Aug. 8, 1927); Granada in San Francisco (Aug. 13-19, 1927); Playhouse in Calistoga (Aug. 23-24, 1927); Boyes Hot Springs Theatre in Boyes Hot Springs (Aug. 26, 1927); California in Berkeley (Aug. 28-30, 1927); Peninsula in Burlingame (Sept. 4, 1927); Manzanita in Carmel (Sept. 4, 1927); Lodi Theatre in Lodi (Sept. 4, 1927); Capitol in Sacramento (Sept. 4-6, 1927); Merced Theatre in Merced (Sept. 5, 1927); New Santa Cruz Theatre in Santa Cruz (Sept. 5-6, 1927); Columbia & Loring in Crockett (Sept. 6, 1937); Sequoia in Redwood City (Sept. 9, 1927); Hippodrome in Napa (Sept. 11, 1927); New San Mateo Theatre in San Mateo (Sept. 11, 1927); Orpheus in San Rafael (Sept. 11, 1927); National in Woodland (Sept. 13-14, 1927); Lorin in Berkeley (Sept. 16, 1927); Starland in Sebastopol (Sept. 17, 1927); Chimes in Oakland (Sept. 18, 1927); Opal in Hollister (Oct. 12, 1927 with On Ze Boulevard); Hayward Theatre in Hayward (Oct. 14, 1927); Auburn Theater in Auburn (Oct. 28, 1927); Liberty in Susanville (Oct. 30, 1927); Redding Theater in Redding (Nov. 12, 1927); Mountain View Theatre in Mountain View (Nov. 16, 1927); Rivoli in Berkeley (Nov. 26, 1927); Tamalpias in San Anselmo (Nov. 30, 1927); Broadway in Oakland (Dec. 9-10, 1927); Strand in Lincoln (Dec. 13, 1927); New Fillmore in San Francisco (Dec. 19-21, 1927); New Mission in San Francisco (Dec. 19-21, 1927); California in Livermore (Dec. 23, 1927); Elite in Placerville (Jan. 1, 1928); New Roseville Theatre in Roseville (Jan. 6, 1928); Fern in Oakland (Feb. 8-9, 1928); Sequoia in Sacramento (Mar. 22, 1928); Smith’s in Yuba City (June 21-22, 1928).

I suppose there is something to be discerned about theater exhibition practices from all this data. I don't know. My interest is in local histories, as well as the intersection of individual histories (biography) and cultural histories. That's my interest. For more on the topic of exhibition practices, be sure and check out Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley's Hollywood in the Neighborhood: Historial Case Studies of Local Moviegoing (Univ of California Press, 2008). It includes a whole chapter by George Potamianos focussing on the Elite Theater, "Building Movie Audiences in Placerville, California 1908-1915."

It is also interesting to note that the film that preceded Rolled Stockings at the Elite theater in the small town of Placerville was the great German futuristic sci-fi epic Metropolis. Here is a picture of yours truly standing next to a very specific replica of the robot from that film. Ten points to anyone who knows where this picture was taken. And an additional five points to anyone who knows which star of Metropolis co-starred with Louise Brooks in a later film.