Love ’Em and Leave ’Em (1926), starring Louise Brooks, will be shown at the BFI (British Film Institute) NFT 2 in London on August 18. A 78 minute, 16mm print from the BFI National Archive will be shown at this rare screening, which will include an introduction and live piano accompaniment. (There are no details on who will give the intro or play the piano.) Tickets go on sale July 4. More information can be found HERE.
Love ’Em and Leave ’Em is a delightful film, and it proved popular in its day on both sides of the Atlantic. According to the BFI website,"Louise Brooks proves she is more than just a proficient at the Charleston in this snappy comedy of sibling rivalry. She almost out-acts the film’s star, Evelyn Brent, who plays the elder sister who has promised her mother to keep the vampish youngster out of trouble. It was Brooks’ best performance to date – ably directed by Frank Tuttle – and heralded her transfer to Hollywood and true stardom."
Critics praised the film and Brooks' role in it. In fact, many suggested Brooks stole the film from star Evelyn Brent. The New York Herald Tribune critic opined, “Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em . . . did manage to accomplish one thing. It has silenced, for the time being at least, the charge that Louise Brooks cannot act. Her portrayal of the predatory shop girl of the Abbott-Weaver tale was one of the bright spots of recent film histrionism.”
John S. Cohen Jr. of the New York Sun added, “The real surprise of the film is Louise Brooks. With practically all connoisseurs of beauty in the throes of adulation over her generally effectiveness, Miss Brooks has not heretofore impressed anyone as a roomful (as Lorelei says) of Duses. But in Love 'Em and Leave 'Em, unless I too have simply fallen under her spell, she gives an uncannily effective impersonation of a bad little notion counter vampire. Even her excellent acting, however, cannot approach in effectiveness the scenes where, in ‘Scandals’ attire, she does what we may call a mean Charleston.”
Along with Louise Brooks and Evelyn Brent, Love Em and Leave Em also features leading man Lawrence Gray as well as Osgood Perkins, an accomplished stage actor and the father of later famwed actor Tony Perkins. Also in the cast is Ed Garvey, a star football player at Notre Dame, and Anita Page, who reportedly had an uncredited bit part.
In 1929, Love 'Em and Leave 'Em was remade as The Saturday Night Kid, a talkie starring Clara Bow, Jean Arthur, and James Hall with Jean Harlow in a bit part. And what's more, the remake was directed by Brooks' ex-husband Eddie Sutherland.
More information about the film can be found on the Love Em and Leave Em (filmography page) on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website.
THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas
Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society (www.pandorasbox.com).
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