A silent film mystery from Japan

I came across this image in a 1927 Japanese movie magazine, but can't figure out what or who it is. Can anyone help? I don't think it is Louise Brooks. Nevertheless, it is a very striking image who or whatever it turns out to be. Thanks in advance.

This Summer's Research Report

Every Summer for the last ten or twelve years I have made a point of spending a day or two visiting one of the San Francisco Bay Area's university libraries. I have spent a few days at San Francisco State University, San Jose State University, Sonoma State University, as well as University of California-East Bay in Hayward and Standford University in Palo Alto. Each has a little something, a piece of the puzzle. I have also driven out to University of California-Davis and Sacramento State University. And at each I found things I hadn't seen before related to Louise Brooks.

I have also visited the University of California-Berkeley many times, perhaps three dozen times. I usually visit the school's microfilm room or great research library. This time, I decided to visit their Asian library in search of any sort of clippings I might find about Louise Brooks and her films in China or Japan. An exploration of the recently built East Asian library was something I have been meaning to do for some time.

I struck gold. I found advertisements for many of Louise Brooks' American Silents in the one or two Chinese newspapers I looked at. And remarkably, I also found an ad for Diary of a Lost Soul, which wowed me. Previously, only Pandora's Box was known to have shown in Japan. Now, the other G.W. Pabst film in another Asian country!

Here is just one of the fabulous film ads I found, this one for Rolled Stockings in Japan. I also found a magazine cover with the actress, clippings which may or may not be reviews, captioned photographs, and other miscellaneous clippings.

There is more, lots more. I was browsing the shelves when I pulled down a bound volume of a Chinese film magazine and flipped through it, finding this.

Can anyone translate this bit of text alongside the picture of Louise Brooks? I assume it is some sort of brief biographical bit.

Here is another nifty page, also from a post WWII Chinese publication, this one about director G.W. Pabst and his films, including Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl.

There is still much to be found!

Buster Keaton Festival in Kansas

Here is some information about the upcoming Buster Keaton Festival in Iola, Kansas. Visit the Buster Keaton Celebration website for further details.

Louise Brooks, Modernism, the Surrealists, and the Paris of 1930

Louise Brooks has long been popular in France, and in Paris in 1930, she must have seemed to have been everywhere. The actress was widely written about and pictured in the French capital's many  newspapers and magazines. I have collected dozens of clippings. Her image, as well, was also seemingly everywhere. There is even a picture, shown below, of Brooks' portrait on display in the window of a Paris photographer's studio. If anyone has a time machine handy, I would like to travel back to Paris and purchase a few prints.

Indeed, Brooks was the toast of Paris while she was in France making Prix de beauté. The press recorded her arrival, and profiled her in numerous pieces.

Prix de beauté was in production between August 29 through September 27, 1929, and debuted at the famous Max-Linder Pathe on May 9, 1930. A major American film star in an important French production was BIG NEWS, not at least due to the fact that Prix de beauté was also one of the earliest French talkies. (Sound and music are important visual motifs in the film, which was shot as both a silent and sound film.)

Prix de beauté was a huge success, and it went on to enjoy three month run in various theaters. After two months at the Max-Linder (and for part of that time also at the historic Lutetia-Pathe to accommodate the crowds), the film moved to the Folies Dramatiques, where it was advertised as an "immense success" and played nearly a month. This extended run was at a time when most films played only a few days or a week before moving on.

Remarkably, the successful run of Prix de beauté took place at a time when another of Brooks' films, the German production Diary of a Lost Girl (Trois Pages D'un Journal), was also playing in the French capital, at the Au Colisee. (It also was shown at the Rialto and Splendide theatres in Paris in 1930.) As was Beggars of Life (Les mendiants de la vie), at the Clichy-Palace in March of the same year. Like today, films being shown were advertised in the newspaper, and on one occasion, the two film's respective  advertisements sat side-by-side.

Diary of a Lost Girl continued to be shown on and off in Paris in 1930. It was even shown at the famous Ursulines theater in November as part of a trippple bill. As shown below, the evening's program begins with G.W. Pabst's Joyless Street, followed by Howard Hawk's A Girl in Every Port, starring Brooks, followed by G.W. Pabst's Diary of a Lost Girl, also starring Brooks.

A Girl in Every Port (which Blaise Cendrars called "the first appearance of contemporary cinema") debuted in France at the Ursulines, "one of the oldest cinemas in Paris to have kept its facade and founder's vision" as a "venue for art and experimental cinema." The Ursulines opened in 1926 with films by André Breton, Man Ray, Fernand Léger, René Clair and Robert Desnos. And in 1928, it premiered the first film of Germaine Dulac, The Seashell and the Clergyman, from a story by Antonin Artaud. The latter film was heckled by the surrealists, leading to a fight that stopped the screening.

Between 1926 and 1957, a number of now-classic films premiered at the theater, such as René Clair's Le Voyage Imaginaire and Erich Von Stroheim’s Greed. According to the wonderful Cinema Treasures website, "This little theatre with a balcony has a very charming facade looking like a romantic country house. At the beginning of talking movies, the premiere of Sternberg’s Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich took place here, and ran 14 months." In December 1930, Diary of a Lost Girl and Blue Angel even shared the bill.

The Ursulines theatre was a kind of cinematic home to the Surrealists.... Which got me thinking about the affection some of the surrealists had for Brooks. It's known that Philipe Soupault, the great French Surrealist poet, mentioned the actress in his journalism and reviewed Diary of a Lost Girl. (A couple of images of the actress adorn the poet's collected writings on the cinema, Ecrits de cinema 1918-1931.) And it's also known that Man Ray was smitten by the actress. The great photographer and the film star met in Paris in late 1958, and Man Ray recounted how he had seen her image in Paris years before. Man Ray was fond enough of Brooks that he sent her a small painting in memory of their meeting and in memory of his memory.

Perhaps Man Ray also saw one or two of her films. Earlier, in 1928, A Girl in Every Port shared the bill with a short Man Ray film, L'Etoile de Mer, at the Ursulines during the months of October, November, and December. L'Etoile de Mer (The Starfish) was scripted by the surrealist poet Robert Desnos and "stars" Desnos and Alice Prin. Better known as Kiki de Montparnasse, Prin (Man Ray's one-time paramour) famously sported Louise Brooks-like bobbed hair and bangs.

Prix de beauté proved especially popular, and even influential. (A novelization of Prix de beauté was published in 1932. And in 1933, a short story by the French writer Leon Bopp was published which describes a character in love with Louise Brooks.) Similarly, A Girl in Every Port (which was one of the few American films to retain its American title in France) proved popular and was revived time and again in Paris in the 1920's and 1930's. [I wonder which of those showings was the one Jean-Paul Sartre took Simone de Beauvoir to on one of their first dates.] 

Of course, one could also Lee Miller to this piece. Miller, a sometime Surrealist photographer and one-time paramour of Man Ray, is known to have seen Louise Brooks dance on stage in Poughkeepsie, New York long before Brooks became a film star and Miller a Surrealist.... If any scholars of Surrealism can add to the information found on this page, please contact me.

I will close this blog with two collages from 1929, both of which include Brooks. The first is Herbert Bayer's "Facing Profiles." Bayer was associated with the Bauhaus. The second is Edward Burra's "Composition Collage." Burra was a English modernist. Obviously, something was in the air circa 1930.

LULU: a live silver screen experience

I saw and loved the original production in 2006, and am thus curious and excited about this production....

Silent Theatre presents a re-imagination of its inaugural production "LULU: a black and white silent play". Step aboard this three prong adventure as a live taping of each production allows audiences to watch the show, participate in immersive components, and consequently, download the filmed version of the experience featuring the audience's participation. Based on Frank Wedekind's Lulu Cycle plays and accompanied by a live band, the story follows a young woman whose aspirations, sexual appetite and lust for intimacy leaves lethal affairs in her wake. Our original production was hailed by the New York Times as "bolder, faster and meaner than any others" with "crisply designed scenes that slip back and forth between erotic and macabre."

Also join them for "LULU: the remix" each Saturday night at 10:30p. Experience the production with a modern twist and Silent Theatre's very own Marvin Quijada as the live DJ. A fierce cast weaves a tale of seduction, unrequited desire and destructive longing.

Opening: Nov. 25th @8p LULU: a live silver screen experience
Run: Nov. 26th @8P LULU: a live silver screen experience
Opening: Nov. 26th @ 10:30p LULU: the remix
Run: Nov. 27th @5p LULU: a live silver screen experience
Run: Dec. 2nd @ 8p LULU: a live silver screen experience
Run: Dec. 3rd @ 8P LULU: a live silver screen experience
Run: Dec. 3rd @ 10:30p LULU: the remix
Run: Dec. 4th @ 5p LULU: a live silver screen experience
Industry Night: Dec. 5th @ 8p LULU: a live silver screen experience
Run: Dec. 9th: @ 8p LULU: a live silver screen experience
Run: Dec. 10th @ 8p LULU: a live silver screen experience
Run: Dec. 10th @ 10:30p LULU: the remix

$20 cabaret table seating
$10 SRO
$50 VIP intimate cocktail table seating with bubbly and giveaways

Vendors, goodies, boozies, live music, dance music, photo booth, flirty staff and all around one of a kind experience.

Play about Louise Brooks at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland

The Winter Gift, a play written by Tim Davies and directed by Nerys Rees about the life of Louise Brooks, is being staged at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. The play runs August 22 through August 27. Tickets and a little more information HERE.

 

"Berlin, 1928 – a fun-loving young American actress and a straight-laced German film director come together to make a classic of the silent screen, Pandora’s Box. New York, 1955 – a solitary, alcoholic, penniless and forgotten idol of the silent screen languishes in a slum tenement. She expects visits only from the rent collector. One day, there is a knock at the door – someone has found Louise Brooks, and it isn't the rent collector. The Winter Gift uses original sources to tell the story of Louise Brooks, GW Pabst, Pandora’s Box... and what happened afterwards."

Louise Brooks’ 1928 Trans-Atlantic Voyage to Europe

This guest post, by past guest blogger Philip Vorwald, offers new details about one of Louise Brooks trans-Atlantic journeys. Philip wrote, "I was investigating the White Star Line for a friend when I thought about her trip to Germany in 1928. On a lark, I plugged a few things in, and found out an interesting error regarding her trip.  She did not sail on the S.S. Majestic."

R.M.S. Majestic

Louise Brooks left New York harbor on October 6, 1928 at midnight, bound for Cherbourg, France. The ship she was sailing on would continue through to Southampton, England, but she would disembark in France for Paris, and then on to Berlin by train to film Pandora’s Box later in the fall of 1928.

Barry Paris’ biography of Louise Brooks states she sailed on the S.S. Majestic. My research into this voyage shows the name of the vessel to be incorrect. She actually sailed for France aboard the R.M.S. Majestic. This is not just a simple moniker name error. They were two completely different ships, operating at two different time periods.

There were two (2) White Star Liners with the name Majestic. The first, known as the S.S. Majestic, ran from 1889 to 1914. It was built by Harland and Wolff Shipyards in Belfast. She was de-commissioned and  scrapped in 1914, 14 years before Louise’s voyage. She couldn’t have been on it.

At the time, the S.S. Majestic was one of the largest and fastest trans-Atlantic liners. By the early 1900s, however, she was getting too old and too slow, so the White Star Line commissioned a new, larger vessel that was to replace the S.S. Majestic, and this vessel was also was built by Harland and Wolff Shipyards in Belfast. This ship was launched as the R.M.S. Titanic.

The second “Majestic” was the R.M.S. Majestic. This ship was originally built in Germany in 1914 and named the S.S. Bismarck. After WWI, the Germans handed the vessel over to the British, who renamed it the R.M.S. Majestic.

The R.M.S. Majestic served with the White Star Line from 1922 to 1934, running a common route from New York to Cherbourg / Southampton. Then she ran with the Cunard White Star Line company from 1934 to 1937. She sank on 1939, and was raised and scrapped in 1943.

Thus, Louise Brooks sailed on the R.M.S. Majestic, of the original White Star Line, in 1928. 

R.M.S. Majestic leaving New York harbor

Now We're in the Navy on DVD

Grapevine Video has released Now We're in the Navy (1926) on DVD, a silent film featuring Wallace Beery, Raymond Hatton, Lorraine Eason, Tom Kennedy, and Chester Conklin. The film is part of a popular series of "service comedies" starring Beery and Hatton. That series also included Behind the Front (1926) and Now We're in the Air (1927), the latter film, now lost, includes Louise Brooks.

Of note, Now We're in the Navy was directed by Brooks' husband of the time, Eddie Sutherland. And, it includes a nod the the director's wife. One of the small boats in the film is named "Louise."

But what's more, Brooks herself was on hand at a benefit pre-release midnight showing of the film at the Rialto Theater in New York City on November 5, 1926. Eddie Sutherland, was also on hand, as was Betty Bronson, Ricardo Cortez, Richard ‘Skeets’ Gallagher, William Powell, Evelyn Brent, and Philip Strange. Helen Morgan sang to the crowd.) The event was a benefit showing in aid of the New York American Christmas and Relief Fund. The film would prove to be a huge hit, and would enjoy extended runs in a other cities.

I haven't yet seen the Grapevine release, so I can't speak to its quality. More information on the Grapevine release can be found HERE.

Portrait of Francis Lederer

Here is a fun, early 1930's American magazine portrait of handsome Francis Lederer, who co-starred with Louise Brooks in the German-made Pandora's Box (1929). Curiously, the piece refers to the Czech born actor as "god's gift to women," the title of a 1931 Brooks' film starring Frank Fay in the title role.

UPDATED: First Louise Brooks television broadcast

Yesterday, I wrote "Certainly, Overland Stage Raiders was the first film featuring Louise Brooks to be shown either on television or at a drive-in. The earliest television listing I came across for the film was from March 8, 1953 in Hazelton, Pennsylvania as part of "John Wayne Theater." The film then showed two days later in Los Angeles. As far as television goes, 1953 is pretty early."

I was wrong.

Yesterday, I couldn't imagine finding an earlier television broadcast of a film in which Louise Brooks appeared. Until today. . . , when I found that Windy Riley Goes Hollywood was broadcast on TV in 1948, five years before Overland Stage Raiders. Wow, as far as television goes, 1948 is very early. The film was shown under the title Windy Riley Goes to Hollywood on November 18, 1948 on WJZ (Channel 7) in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

I found the above listing while I was researching Windy Riley Goes to Hollywood, under which the 1931 Fatty Arbuckle-directed film was listed a few times in the early 1930s. Most times, exhibitors and advertisers got the title, Windy Riley Goes Hollywood, right. But sometimes they didn't. Here is a screen capture of the film's title. Following it is a 1931 advertisement from East Liverpool, Ohio for the Gloria Swanson film Indiscreet, with which the incorrectly named Windy Riley Goes to Hollywood was paired.

This mistake wasn't a one-off. The East Liverpool advertisement named Windy Riley incorrectly three times in three different advertisements over the course of three days. Others made the same mistake.  So did the Hamilton Evening Journal in Hamilton, Ohio in 1931, and the Rhinelander Daily News in Rhinelander, Wisconsin in 1932, and the Medford Mail Tribune in Medford, Oregon also in 1932. As did the Asbury Park Press television listings in Asbury Park, New Jersey in 1948.

Out of curiosity, I searched for television listings for Louise Brooks' other talkies. I found that God's Gift to Women was shown on TV in Cincinnati in September, 1958, and again in 1959 in Bennington, Vermont and Sandusky, Ohio and elsewhere. It was also shown in Tucson, Arizona in 1960. The earliest television listing I could find for Empty Saddles was in March 1957 in Long Beach, California, and then Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in November, 1957 and June, 1958, followed by St. Louis, Missouri in September, 1959. [Oh, King of Gamblers was shown in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in October 1960 and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Christmas Day in 1960.]

Louise Brooks at a drive-in and other firsts from the 1950s

I come across a lot of unusual material while researching Louise Brooks. Here are the latest, each related to the 1938 film Overland Stage Raiders, a western from Republic Studios which featured  Brooks alongside John Wayne.

Would you believe that in 1954 Overland Stage Raiders was shown at a drive-in in Carbondale, Illinois? The film was part of a Friday-Saturday triple bill, along with another Wayne film, Lady from Louisiana (1941) and a crime drama called Million Dollar Pursuit (1951). Both films were from Republic. The following day, the drive-in was showing the more recent The Wild One (1953), starring Marlon Brando.

Pictured left is an advertisement for the Waring Auto drive-in near Carbondale. This venue opened in July, 1948 as the Waring Auto Theatre, with space for 500 cars. It was later renamed the Campus Drive-In, after its proximity to Southern Illinois University. During the 1970’s, it played mostly horror and adult movies, before closing towards the end of that decade. The drive-in has since been demolished and a hog farm s(h)its on the site today.

And that's not all....

Overland Stage Raiders was reissued in 1953, and that same year it was shown as part of a double bill alongside Zombies of the Stratosphere in Kokomo, Indiana! The film was also screened on various bills in small towns and large cities across the United States, from Paris, Texas to Detroit, Michigan, from Green Bay, Wisconsin to St. Louis, Missouri.

Zombies of the Stratosphere, for those not familiar, was a 1952 black-and-white Republic Studios serial that was the second to feature Commando Cody. Today, it is best remembered as one of the first screen appearances of a young Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), who plays one of the three Martian invaders.

Overland Stage Raiders was also shown on television numerous times between 1953 and 1959. I found listings from across the United States. It was shown in Los Angeles, California and Phoenix, Arizona and Asbury Park, New Jersey and Rochester, New York (just before Brooks moved there) and elsewhere.

Certainly, Overland Stage Raiders was the first film featuring Louise Brooks to be shown either on television or at a drive-in. The earliest television listing I came across for the film was from March 8, 1953 in Hazelton, Pennslyvania as part of "John Wayne Theater." The film then showed two days later in Los Angeles. As far as television goes, 1953 is pretty early. Pictured below is a June, 1953 advertisement for "Sunday Televiewing" in Los Angeles. KTTV is now known as Fox 11 in Southern California.