This blog post is my first this month. Instead of blogging regularly, I have been concentrating my efforts on my two volume book project, Around the World with Louise Brooks, which I hope to finish by September and publish by November. Volume one is subtitled "The Actress." Volume two is subtitled "The Films." I have completed about eithy percent of the books. And can say both volumes will contains hundreds of images and ten of thousands of words of text. New information will be revealed, some of it a bit startling (at least to those deeply interested in Louise Brooks). I expect each 8" x 10" volume will run between four hundred to five hundred pages.
Around the World with Louise Brooks is something different, even unprecedented. This is not the story of Louise Brooks, Kansas-born American silent film actress. Rather, this is the story of Louise Brooks, international movie star. Most all of the images in each book have been sourced from international publications - and all together, they tell Brooks story from a different perspective.
Lately, I have broke new ground in unearthing material for the first time from Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Bermuda. Here is an image I just came across from Argentina, which I would like to share. It was colorized, and appears below as it did in 1928. I am not sure if it will appear in my new book, but if it does, it will appear in black and white, as the interiors of Around the World with Louise Brooks are in black and white.
In fact, Around the World with Louise Brooks will feature material from more than 50 countries including The Ukraine, Vietnam, Poland and Iceland. There is material from a few nations which no longer exist, like The Free State of Danzig, and a few countries yet to be born, like Indonesia.
Did you know that a portrait of a young Louise Brooks first appeared in Europe nearly half a year before she made her first film? Or that the uncredited actress was pictured in film stills published in South America which were used to promote The Street of Forgotten Men, her first film? Or that her sensational 1929 film Diary of a Lost Girl was shown in Japan under a different title not long after its release in Germany? Or that the French-made Prix de beaute was shown in Haiti on a number of occasions in the early 1930s? Or that Brooks name appears in advertised credits in New Zealand for King of Gamblers, a film from which her role was cut? All this and more in Around the World with Louise Brooks.
As mentioned, most all of the images in each book have been sourced from international publications. The only exception is a chapter from volume one, "Mit Anderen Worten: Louise Brooks en los Estados Unidos," or "In Other Words: Louise Brooks in the United States." It surveys the actress career through America's many non-English language ethnic and emigre newspapers and magazines. Just lately I have added a few "exciting" pieces from Hungarian-American and Slovenian-American newspapers. They join Russian, Polish, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish-American publications. Want to know how the German-made Pandora's Box was promoted in the German-American press when it first showed in the United States? You can find out in Around the World with Louise Brooks. Admittedly, there are a few English-language clippings in this chapter, but they hail from American territories like the United States Virgin Islands, and a Japanese-English newspaper serving the population of pre-statehood Hawai'i. Here below is something remarkable, a bilingual English-Yiddish clipping about Brooks' marriage to Eddie Sutherland which leads off "Mit Anderen Worten: Louise Brooks en los Estados Unidos." It appeared in the Jewish Forward, which was published in New York City.
A cleaned-up version of the above piece appears in the book. A Yiddish piece that won't appear (there is too much other material) which is shown below is this remarkable conglomeration of 1928 advertisements featuring Howard Hawks' A Girl in Every Port, William Wellman's Wings, and an early stage adaption of Dracula, with immigrant Bela Lugosi in the title role.
Besides "Mit Anderen Worten: Louise Brooks en los Estados Unidos," other chapters in the first volume include "New Zealand’s Shaped Text Ads" (a visual delight for typographers) and "Louise Brooks as Modan Gāru" (which looks at Brooks' popularity in Japan in the 1920s). There are also individual chapters featuring vintage postcards from around the world, trade ads, and magazine covers - each with dozens of examples. There is also a chapter of magazine portraits, one of curiosities and odds 'n ends, and another looking at Brooks' long running relationship with Canada. Did you know that Canada was the first foreign country Brooks ever visited, as well as one of the last she ever visited....
Around the World with Louise Brooks is something different, even unprecedented. This is not the story of Louise Brooks, Kansas-born American silent film actress. Rather, this is the story of Louise Brooks, international movie star. Most all of the images in each book have been sourced from international publications - and all together, they tell Brooks story from a different perspective.
Lately, I have broke new ground in unearthing material for the first time from Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Bermuda. Here is an image I just came across from Argentina, which I would like to share. It was colorized, and appears below as it did in 1928. I am not sure if it will appear in my new book, but if it does, it will appear in black and white, as the interiors of Around the World with Louise Brooks are in black and white.
In fact, Around the World with Louise Brooks will feature material from more than 50 countries including The Ukraine, Vietnam, Poland and Iceland. There is material from a few nations which no longer exist, like The Free State of Danzig, and a few countries yet to be born, like Indonesia.
Did you know that a portrait of a young Louise Brooks first appeared in Europe nearly half a year before she made her first film? Or that the uncredited actress was pictured in film stills published in South America which were used to promote The Street of Forgotten Men, her first film? Or that her sensational 1929 film Diary of a Lost Girl was shown in Japan under a different title not long after its release in Germany? Or that the French-made Prix de beaute was shown in Haiti on a number of occasions in the early 1930s? Or that Brooks name appears in advertised credits in New Zealand for King of Gamblers, a film from which her role was cut? All this and more in Around the World with Louise Brooks.
As mentioned, most all of the images in each book have been sourced from international publications. The only exception is a chapter from volume one, "Mit Anderen Worten: Louise Brooks en los Estados Unidos," or "In Other Words: Louise Brooks in the United States." It surveys the actress career through America's many non-English language ethnic and emigre newspapers and magazines. Just lately I have added a few "exciting" pieces from Hungarian-American and Slovenian-American newspapers. They join Russian, Polish, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish-American publications. Want to know how the German-made Pandora's Box was promoted in the German-American press when it first showed in the United States? You can find out in Around the World with Louise Brooks. Admittedly, there are a few English-language clippings in this chapter, but they hail from American territories like the United States Virgin Islands, and a Japanese-English newspaper serving the population of pre-statehood Hawai'i. Here below is something remarkable, a bilingual English-Yiddish clipping about Brooks' marriage to Eddie Sutherland which leads off "Mit Anderen Worten: Louise Brooks en los Estados Unidos." It appeared in the Jewish Forward, which was published in New York City.
A cleaned-up version of the above piece appears in the book. A Yiddish piece that won't appear (there is too much other material) which is shown below is this remarkable conglomeration of 1928 advertisements featuring Howard Hawks' A Girl in Every Port, William Wellman's Wings, and an early stage adaption of Dracula, with immigrant Bela Lugosi in the title role.
Besides "Mit Anderen Worten: Louise Brooks en los Estados Unidos," other chapters in the first volume include "New Zealand’s Shaped Text Ads" (a visual delight for typographers) and "Louise Brooks as Modan Gāru" (which looks at Brooks' popularity in Japan in the 1920s). There are also individual chapters featuring vintage postcards from around the world, trade ads, and magazine covers - each with dozens of examples. There is also a chapter of magazine portraits, one of curiosities and odds 'n ends, and another looking at Brooks' long running relationship with Canada. Did you know that Canada was the first foreign country Brooks ever visited, as well as one of the last she ever visited....
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