Clarence Brown : Hollywood's Forgotten Master (and some Louise Brooks connections)

One of the pleasures of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival is opportunity to meet some of the authors, scholars, and film world personalities in attendance at the annual event. I haven't missed a summer festival since it began in 1995, and over the years I have met everyone from actors Fay Wray and Sydney Chaplin (Charlie's son) to authors like Anthony Slide and Kevin Brownlow. There are others, including some with connections to the world of Louise Brooks.

Pamela Hutchinson and Thomas Gladysz

This year I renewed friendships with authors William Wellman Jr. and Pamela Hutchinson (author of the BFI book on Pandora's Box), and made a new acquaintance, film scholar Gwenda Young. She is a professor of film history and lecturer in film studies at University College, Cork, Ireland. Gwenda is also the author of numerous articles about film history, including three articles about Clarence Brown, and co-editor of two books of critical essays. In 2003, along with Kevin Brownlow, she curated a retrospective of Brown's films at the National Film Theatre, London.

Gwenda was on hand to promote the release of her excellent new book, Clarence Brown : Hollywood's Forgotten Master (University Press of Kentucky). It is a good read, well researched, and full of fascinating bits about early Hollywood, including Louise Brooks. It is highly recommend.

I won't attempt to summarize the book, but will instead offer this publisher synopsis: 

Greta Garbo proclaimed him as her favorite director. Actors, actresses, and even child stars were so at ease under his direction that they were able to deliver inspired and powerful performances. Academy–Award–nominated director Clarence Brown (1890–1987) worked with some of Hollywood's greatest stars, such as Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Mickey Rooney, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy. Known as the "star maker," he helped guide the acting career of child sensation Elizabeth Taylor (of whom he once said, "she has a face that is an act of God") and discovered Academy–Award–winning child star Claude Jarman Jr. for The Yearling (1946). He directed more than fifty films, including Possessed (1931), Anna Karenina (1935), National Velvet (1944), and Intruder in the Dust (1949), winning his audiences over with glamorous star vehicles, tales of families, communities, and slices of Americana, as well as hard-hitting dramas. Although Brown was admired by peers like Jean Renoir, Frank Capra, and John Ford, his illuminating work and contributions to classic cinema are rarely mentioned in the same breath as those of Hollywood's great directors.

In this first full-length account of the life and career of the pioneering filmmaker, Gwenda Young discusses Brown's background to show how his hardworking parents and resilient grandparents inspired his entrepreneurial spirit. She reveals how the one–time engineer and World War I aviator established a thriving car dealership, the Brown Motor Car Company, in Alabama―only to give it all up to follow his dream of making movies. He would not only become a brilliant director but also a craftsman who was known for his innovative use of lighting and composition."

In a career spanning five decades, Brown was nominated for five Academy Awards and directed ten different actors in Oscar-nominated performances. Despite his achievements and influence, however, Brown has been largely overlooked by film scholars. Clarence Brown: Hollywood's Forgotten Master explores the forces that shaped a complex man―part–dreamer, part–pragmatist―who left an indelible mark on cinema.

Clarence Brown's other early films include Trilby (1915), The Last of the Mohicans (1920), The Eagle (1925, with Rudolph Valentino), The Goose Woman (1925), Flesh and the Devil (1926), Kiki (1926), A Woman of Affairs (1928), Anna Christie (1930), Romance (1930). The last three starred Greta Garbo, and for the last two, Brown received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Another early effort is Brown's 1924 film, The Signal Tower, which was one of the films being shown at this year's event. (I had written an article for the Ukiah Daily Journal on The Signal Tower, which was filmed in Northern California.)

Any silent film buff should be well acquainted with Brown's body of work. (I have seen about ten of the above mentioned films, and wish to see more.) However, what piqued my interest in Gwenda Young's book were mentions of Louise Brooks. Young notes the Jazz Age's sometime preference for androgynous women (including Brooks), and later quotes the actress on John Gilbert's feminine masculinity. Young also quotes Brooks on Clarence Brown dislike of lesbians, despite his having worked with Garbo and other not-so-straight actors so often.

Quoting from Brownlow's interview with Brown, Young also discussed the director's racial attitudes. "Even more revealing, perhaps, was an anecdote he told about a feud he had with actress Louise Brooks over an incident that occurred back in the 1920s. While attending a party at her house, he had been shocked that she permitted her black guests to share the swimming pool with whites: 'If I've been sour to Louise Brooks it's because she and Eddie Sutherland [Brooks's then husband] didn't draw the color line'."

Gwenda's book is a honest portrayal of a flawed human being who was also a great director. And rightly so, the book has received a good deal of praise. The Wall Street Journal called it "A sweeping and elegantly written biography. It is as gracefully told, as delicate and memorable, as the best work of its subject. Young's book effortlessly portrays a man who never let the Hollywood system interfere with his filmmaking instincts." While Emily Leider, author of Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood, said "Gwenda Young's research for her study of the films directed by Clarence Brown is beyond excellent. It is extraordinary."

I was very please to meet Gwenda Young at this year's Festival (she had come all the way from Ireland) and have her sign my book. UK film historian Kevin Brownlow, who wrote the foreword to the book and was also in attendance at this year's event, also signed my copy. My double autographed copy of Clarence Brown: Hollywood's Forgotten Master is a book I will long treasure!