Beggars of Life, the 1928 William Wellman directed film starring Louise Brooks, continues to make the news.
The new Kino Lorber release of the film was written up by Leonard Maltin, who stated:
Beggars of Life was also the subject of a recent long piece in Bright Lights Film Journal. This piece, by Gordon Thomas and titled "Boxcars, Beery, and a Dutch Bob: William Wellman’s Beggars of Life (1928) on Blu-ray," started by saying what we've known all along, "It’s easy to get excited over Kino Lorber’s recent blu-ray release of William Wellman’s 1928 silent, Beggars of Life. For devotees of Louise Brooks, the film holds legendary status as her best American film." I think it is an interesting piece, and I especially appreciated some of the familiar images.
The film had also just been shown in Cambridge, Massachusetts as part of an on-going William Wellman retrospective. Ty Burr's coverage of the films in the Boston Globe, "He made talkies worth talking about," focuses mostly on Wellman's work in the sound era - as does the series itself. Nevertheless, Burr noted "Beggars of Life (1928), the rarely screened silent that opens the series on Oct. 27, casts Louise Brooks and Richard Arlen as hoboes who hit the rails after Brooks’s character murders her abusive stepfather; it showcases the director’s eye for broad landscapes and the people in danger of getting lost in them." [Wellman is easily my favorite pre-code / 1930's director. If you haven't seen Wild Boys of the Road (1933), Public Enemy (1931), Night Nurse (1933), etc.... you are missing out. Wellman's work in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s is simply outstanding - that why I am so excited about the forthcoming publication of Frank Thompson and John Gallagher's book, Nothing Sacred: The Cinema Of William Wellman.]
For more information on “The Legends of William Wellman” series, go to http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2017sepnov/wellman.html.
And, if you haven't done so already, get ahold of a copy of the new Kino Lorber DVD or Blu-ray of Beggars of Life - as well as my new book, Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film. Each has received good reviews on amazon.com, where each are available. The Kino Lorber discs looks great, and it features audio commentaries by myself and William Wellman, Jr. And what's more, my new book contains lots of new information about the film, more than 50 little seen images, and a foreword by William Wellman, Jr.
The new Kino Lorber release of the film was written up by Leonard Maltin, who stated:
Beggars of Life (1928) is another important silent film that isn’t as well-known as it ought to be, because only a few 16mm prints survived–one in the collection of the late William K. Everson, another acquired by George Eastman House’s curator James Card back in 1950. In recent years his successors decided to try making a 35mm blowup and it turned out surprisingly well. (It, too, was shown at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.) Louise Brooks, Wallace Beery, and Richard Arlen star in this starkly compelling story of hobo life based on the best-selling novel by famed hobo-author Jim Tully. (For more about Tully, see my 2012 column printed below.) This fascinating slice-of-life features period music performed by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra and it’s well worth seeing—and owning.
Beggars of Life was also the subject of a recent long piece in Bright Lights Film Journal. This piece, by Gordon Thomas and titled "Boxcars, Beery, and a Dutch Bob: William Wellman’s Beggars of Life (1928) on Blu-ray," started by saying what we've known all along, "It’s easy to get excited over Kino Lorber’s recent blu-ray release of William Wellman’s 1928 silent, Beggars of Life. For devotees of Louise Brooks, the film holds legendary status as her best American film." I think it is an interesting piece, and I especially appreciated some of the familiar images.
The film had also just been shown in Cambridge, Massachusetts as part of an on-going William Wellman retrospective. Ty Burr's coverage of the films in the Boston Globe, "He made talkies worth talking about," focuses mostly on Wellman's work in the sound era - as does the series itself. Nevertheless, Burr noted "Beggars of Life (1928), the rarely screened silent that opens the series on Oct. 27, casts Louise Brooks and Richard Arlen as hoboes who hit the rails after Brooks’s character murders her abusive stepfather; it showcases the director’s eye for broad landscapes and the people in danger of getting lost in them." [Wellman is easily my favorite pre-code / 1930's director. If you haven't seen Wild Boys of the Road (1933), Public Enemy (1931), Night Nurse (1933), etc.... you are missing out. Wellman's work in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s is simply outstanding - that why I am so excited about the forthcoming publication of Frank Thompson and John Gallagher's book, Nothing Sacred: The Cinema Of William Wellman.]
For more information on “The Legends of William Wellman” series, go to http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2017sepnov/wellman.html.
And, if you haven't done so already, get ahold of a copy of the new Kino Lorber DVD or Blu-ray of Beggars of Life - as well as my new book, Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film. Each has received good reviews on amazon.com, where each are available. The Kino Lorber discs looks great, and it features audio commentaries by myself and William Wellman, Jr. And what's more, my new book contains lots of new information about the film, more than 50 little seen images, and a foreword by William Wellman, Jr.
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