Lulu in Bollywood - Louise Brooks in India

In search of all things Louise Brooks... I had the chance to look through past issues of the Times of India, the English-language daily newspaper. Today, it is the largest selling English-language daily in the world.

Back in the 1920s and 1930's, the Times of India covered the Bombay (now Mumbai) and New Delhi entertainment scenes. That included films, and of special interest, the films of Louise Brooks.

As far as I could find, at least eight of the actress' films were shown in India. I found editorial coverage and / or advertisements for The American Venus (1-26 / 9-27), Just Another Blonde (12-26 / 7-27), Evening Clothes (3-27 / 5-29), Now We're in the Air (10-27 / 9-29), Beggars of Life (10-28 / 3-29), The Canary Murder Case (2-29 / 5-30), and as well, When You're in Love (2-37 / 9-37), and King of Gamblers (5-37 / 11-37). The dates in parenthesis represent the month of the film's American release / followed by the month of the film's showing in either Bombay or New Delhi, India.

In terms of editorial, both Beggars of Life and The Canary Murder Case received a fair amount of coverage, as did When You're in Love. In terms of newspaper advertisements, many of the ads were something like the one pictured to the left for Now We're in the Air. Cool, but somewhat modest. However, I did find a couple of rather large advertisements for both The American Venus and Beggars of Life. Each took-up nearly 1/5th of the page! Wow!!