Silent film actress Rosalind Byrne

Lovely silent film actress Rosalind Byrne was born on November 30, 1893 in New York City. She acted in 9 movies between from 1923 - 1930, (mostly in bit parts, and usually uncredited), and is best remembered today as the hat-check girl (pictured above) in Buster Keaton's Seven Chances (1925). Byrne also has roles in Flaming Youth (1923), The Fast Set (1924), Harold Lloyd's The Freshman (1925), Casey at the Bat (1927) and Children of Pleasure (1930). She died on October 20, 1960 in Clackamas, Oregon.

Though her film career was brief, Byrne is also remembered for her attractive bob hair style. A search on Google will turn up a few additional images.

Not real but still true

Berlin - Louise Brooks was there . . . .

Diary of a Lost Girl (Louise Brooks edition) on sale

Get Diary of a Lost Girl (Louise Brooks edition) at 15% off through with this special offer.

Thanksgiving is almost here! At the Louise Brooks Society, we’re thankful to have you as a friend and we want to offer you a discount as a sign of our appreciation. Now through November 27, use code GIVETHANKS to get 15% off Diary of a Lost Girl (Louise Brooks edition). It’s a great time to share this book with family and friends, or grab a new copy to read. Shop Now! Happy Thanksgiving from the LBS.

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Diary of a Lost Girl on Blu-Ray

The 1929 Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl, has just been released on Blu-ray by Eureka in the UK. This is the film's first ever Blu-ray release. I haven't seen it yet, so can't speak to the quality of the film's presentation nor its accompanying booklet. [An extensive critique can be found here.] The following text comes from the Eureka website.

"A masterwork of the German silent cinema whose reputation has only increased over time, Diary of a Lost Girl [Tagebuch einer Verlorenen] traces the journey of a young woman from the pit of despair to the moment of personal awakening. Directed with virtuoso flair by the great G. W. Pabst, Diary of a Lost Girl represents the final pairing of the filmmaker with screen icon Louise Brooks, mere months after their first collaboration in the now-legendary Pandora’s Box [Die Büchse der Pandora].

Brooks plays Thymian Henning, an unprepossessing young woman seduced by an unscrupulous and mercenary character employed at her father’s pharmacy (played with gusto by Fritz Rasp, the degenerate villain of such Fritz Lang classics as Metropolis, Spione, and Frau im Mond). 

After Thymian gives birth to his child and rejects her family’s expectations for marriage, the baby is stripped from her care, and Thymian enters a purgatorial reform school that seems less an institute of higher learning than a conduit for fulfilling the headmistress’s sadistic sexual fantasies. 

The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present this glorious restoration of an iconic German film for the first time anywhere on Blu-ray."

• New high-definition 1080p presentation of the film on the Blu-ray
• Original German intertitles with optional English subtitles
• Piano score of Javier Pérez de Aspeitia
• New and exclusive video essay by filmmaker and critic David Cairns
• 40-PAGE BOOKLET including writing by Louise Brooks, Lotte Eisner, Louelle Interim, Craig Keller, and R. Dixon Smith

Louise Brooks Society supports Net Neutrality

The Louise Brooks Society supports Net Neutrality. Without it, the LBS and other small websites and content providers would be lost among the wilds of cyberspace. Read more about net neutrality at http://www.whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality

Diary of a Lost Girl (Louise Brooks edition) on sale at 30% off

      Get Diary of a Lost Girl (Louise Brooks edition) at 30% off through this special limited offer.

One last chance to save

Get Diary of a Lost Girl (Louise Brooks edition) at 30% off.  Today through November 24, get 30% off all softcover books with code FLASH30 and 50% off all hardcover books with code HC50. Shop now!

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Early environmental cartoon features Mother Earth with a Louise Brooks' bob

This early environmental cartoon, from November 20, 1926 features Mother Earth with a Louise Brooks' bob!

Kickstarter coloring book includes Louise Brooks

 

A new Kickstarter campaign coloring book, Illuminating the Stars Vol. 1, will feature 33 stunning pen & ink drawings of Hollywood stars by Portland artist Alicia Justus. This 36-page, 9"x12" coloring book will have a beautiful full color cover, 34 black & white coloring pages, and will feature the following stars!

    Buster Keaton
    Olive Thomas
    Florence Lawrence
    Larry Semon
    John Gilbert
    Mary Pickford
    Fatty Arbuckle
    Mabel Normand
    Nina Mae McKinney
    Lya de Putti
    Martha Mansfield
    Lon Chaney
    Anna May Wong
    Mary Nolan (Bubbles)
    Lou Tellegen
    Roszicka and Jancsika Dolly
    Karl Dane
    Jeanne Eagels
    Louise Brooks (Lulu)
    Charlie Chaplin
    Lottie Pickford
    Jack Pickford
    Alma Rubens
    Bela Lugosi
    Thelma Todd
    Ramon Novarro
    Mayo Methot
    Tom Mix
    Rudolph Valentino
    Natacha Rambova
    Juanita Hansen
    Myrtle Gonzales
    Russ Columbo
    Clara Bow

It is pretty cool looking. For more illustrations and more, check out the Kickstarter campaign page at  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/947849256/illuminating-the-stars-coloring-book-volume-1

Louise Brooks large photographic canvas

Louise Brooks fan Elizabeth sent in this photo of a large (homemade, non commercial) photographic canvas installed in her home. This is very cool. Elizabeth, thank you for sharing!

Universal Lulu: "Eloise Brooks"

As found on YouTube..... "Eloise Brooks" special effects video set to OMD's "Pandora's Box"

Happy birthday Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks was born on this day in 1906. Happy birthday Louise!

Here is a mini biography from Who's Who in Hollywood 1900 - 1976, by David Ragan. It's a bulky, 860 page encyclopedia style work with zillions of entries on just about everyone. As a reference work, its nice to have around - though it has been superseded by the internet and other contemporary reference works. The entry on Louise Brooks (written while she was still alive) is especially curious - it is respectful, but riddled with errors.

Jack Finney's novel, Marion's Wall

A few years ago, upon Kevin Brownlow's recommendation, I read Jack Finney's 1973 novel, Marion's Wall. Recently, I've just reread it. And still like it. The story starts a little slow, but picks up and finishes with a flourish. Anyone who likes silent film will like this novel.

Set in San Francisco in the early 1970's, the story involves a young married couple whose bodies are taken over by two long-dead silent film stars. The story moves forward as the couple comes to terms with the ghosts/personalities who have taken them over. Eventually, the couple makes their way to Hollywood, where they encounter a very different film industry and individuals from their long ago past. Throughout, various silent films and actors are referenced.

Brownlow mentioned the book to me while we were talking about literary homages and allusions to Louise Brooks. The actress does not make an appearance in this book, nor is she mentioned. Nevertheless, I would suggest that the books' main character - a blonde named Marion Marsh - brings Brooks' map cap spirit to mind.

Has anyone else read this novel?

[ Finney wrote a number of other nostalgic novels involving "time travel," such as Time and Again, as well as The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He lived just north of San Francisco, and a few months ago I had the pleasure of meeting his daughter. We talked about Marion's Wall.]

Hear Pola Negri sing!

If you love music of the 1920's and 1930's, you will want to check out RadioLulu or the Weimar Rundfunk Music website. You can even hear Pola Negri sing!

Today: Pandora's Box screens in London

Once again the Phoenix welcomes the nationally renowned silent film musical accompanist Stephen Horne to play alongside GW Pabst’s Pandora’s Box (1929), which will be screened on 35mm film.

Pandora’s Box tells the story of Lulu, played by the brilliant Louise Brooks, whose eroticism leaves a trail of lust and rage which brings ruin to herself and her admirers. The film made Brooks a lasting icon of cinema, leading film critic Roger Ebert to eloquently say: ‘she regards us from the screen as if the screen were not there; she casts away the artifice of film and invites us to play with her.’

With projectionists becoming a scarcity and with multiplexes and digital cinema constantly growing, this kind of a cinematic event is a welcome rarity. To book tickets click on the date below:

Sunday 9th November at 1pm
The Phoenix Cinema
52 High Road, East Finchley, London N2 9PJ 

Louise Brooks screens in Toronto in 2015

Louise Brooks screens in Toronto in 2015 at the Toronto Silent Film Festival.

Comic book character modeled after Louise Brooks

The Comic Book Resources website ran an interview with Denis St. John, creator of the Amelie comic book. And in the interview, the artist was asked:

You mentioned that you wanted Amelia to look like a femme fatale or silent film star, and I kept thinking of Louise Brooks.

Yeah, Louise Brooks or Theda Bara. She starts off the book looking more like a normal person than when it ends. There's a physical and mental transformation that happens when you're around these objects. For some, you become a Nosferatu. Amelia starts the book wearing a hoodie and looking like a person you would interact with in the normal world, and she ends as a vamp.

This homage to Louise Brooks represents one of a number of comic book nods to the actress going all the way back to the 1920s.

Shirley MacLaine wants to make a film about Louise Brooks

In a recent interview with Shirley MacLaine in the New York Post, the actress was asked:

Anyone you’ve wanted to work with but haven’t?

Marlon [Brando]. I wondered what it would be like to work with someone who put his lines on the wall and the floor and the furniture in front of him. He thought it was more spontaneous. And Marty Scorsese. I really want to do a picture about Louise Brooks, the famous silent movie star. [Scorsese’s] obsessed with sex and death, and that’s what Louise was all about.

"At 80, Shirley MacLaine still talking — and not looking — back" appeared in the New York Post on November 1st.

Louise Brooks: For the Hell of It

On Thursday, October 30, the Irish Repertory Theater presented a staged reading of Louise Brooks: For the Hell of It, by Janet Noble. Here are the details.

Thursday, October 30, 2014
3:00 pm at the DR2 Theatre

Louise Brooks: For the Hell of It

 by Janet Noble

Louise Brooks: For The Hell Of It will be read by Quentin Maré* (Rock ‘n’ Roll, The Castle), Howard McGillin*
(Gigi, It’s A Wonderful Life) and Maryann Plunkett* (The Apple Family Plays, A Man For All Seasons )
*courtesy of AEA

Louise Brooks: For The Hell Of It is a ghost play, a cosmic encounter of this legendary silent film star with two men who figured prominently in her life: Jim Tully, the Irish American writer whom she met at the top of her Hollywood career while on location starring in Beggars of Life, the film adaptation of his novel; and James Card who met her much later and influenced her out of a bottle in NYC and up to the Eastman House film archive in Rochester where she was rediscovered and feted internationally by the likes of Henri Langlois at the Cinematheque Francaise and ultimately found a second career writing about cinema.

Janet Noble (Playwright): Janet Noble has enjoyed an adventurous life in the theater. As an actress she worked with repertory companies around the United States and at off-off-Broadway venues in NYC. She appeared as The Moon in The Grand Tarot with Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company and in many plays at The Irish Arts Center.  Her one-act plays have been included in The Ensemble Studio Theater’s annual Octoberfests. Her first 2 full-length plays were staged at the IAC: Kiss the Blarney Stone and Away Alone. Away Alone has been produced around the country and at The Peacock in The Abbey Theatre of Dublin. Ultimately, her film version of the play, Gold in the Streets, was produced by Noel Pearson and directed by Liz Gill. She’s had residencies at The Millay Colony for the Arts and Edward Albee’s William Flanagan Foundation for Creative People and was a recipient of a NYS Council on the Arts grant for and with which she wrote a radio play, Squirrel Stew.  She is a member of The Dramatists’ Guild and the Irish American Writers and Artists. Noble was born in Grovers Mill, New Jersey, fabled site of the Martian landing in Orson Wells’s radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. She was in vitro at the time, while her parents played pinochle at the kitchen table ....and the radio played. She thanks Charlotte and Ciarán and she wishes you all a happy Halloween!

All Readings are FREE, but reservations are requested. Please call 212-727-2737 to RSVP.All readings are at the DR2 Theatre, 103 East 15th Street in Union Square.

 

The 2014-2015 Reading Series is underwritten in part by the members of our Patron's Circle.

Pandora’s Box with live piano accompaniment in London Sunday 9th November

Once again the Phoenix welcomes the nationally renowned silent film musical accompanist Stephen Horne to play alongside GW Pabst’s Pandora’s Box (1929), which will be screened on 35mm film.

Pandora’s Box tells the story of Lulu, played by the brilliant Louise Brooks, whose eroticism leaves a trail of lust and rage which brings ruin to herself and her admirers. The film made Brooks a lasting icon of cinema, leading film critic Roger Ebert to eloquently say: ‘she regards us from the screen as if the screen were not there; she casts away the artifice of film and invites us to play with her.’

With projectionists becoming a scarcity and with multiplexes and digital cinema constantly growing, this kind of a cinematic event is a welcome rarity. To book tickets click on the date below:

Sunday 9th November at 1pm
The Phoenix Cinema
52 High Road, East Finchley, London N2 9PJ 

Add N to X: Do you see Louise Brooks?

From 1999, the cover of a 5 track CD of songs by Add N to X. Do you see Louise Brooks?

Add N to X's four-song Revenge of the Black Regent EP mixes science and fiction into a compact version of their inventive electronic rock. The majestically sinister title track is propelled by a toxic-sounding synth bass and Steven Claydon's unabashedly (or is that bashedly?) rock drumming, over which gooey, synthetic strings and Alison Goldfrapp's operatic super-soprano hover, recalling the diva at the Korova Milk Bar in A Clockwork Orange. The rest of the EP's tracks are similarly moogy and droogy; "Is That Alright FYUZ" adds more pummeling percussion to another piece of Avant Hard's synth fetishism, and "Old Lady Ealing Does Man Experiments" evokes a mad scientist's lab, replete with bubbling test tubes, buzzing electrodes, and robotic minions muttering non sequiturs. Finally, with its slightly eerie groove and cryptic French vocals, "The March of Pure Mathematical Evil That Ends and Results in War" recalls Stereolab, if they used their powers for evil instead of good. The CD is also enhanced with the very necessary addition of the group's hilarious video for "Metal Fingers in My Body," a cartoon depicting a Louise Brooks-esque flapper ordering and using the services of a robot gigolo. As with all of Add N to X's work, Revenge of the Black Regent uses quirky, unpredictable vintage technology to describe -- and celebrate -- the ghosts in the machine. ~ Heather Phares

Louise Brooks ~ Girlfriend in a Coma

Song ~ "Girlfriend in a Coma" by the Smiths, set to imagery of Louise Brooks. Its hard to resist.