The Denver Silent Film Festival has announced its opening night film will be William Wellman's acclaimed hobo drama, Beggars of Life (1928), starring Wallace Beery, Richard Arlen and Louise Brooks. This screening will take place on Friday, September 27 at 7 pm. And what's more, the film will feature LIVE musical accompaniment by The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. More information about the screening can be found HERE.
The Denver Silent Film Festival notes: "Louise Brooks – not yet an international phenomenon -- plays a young woman who kills her abusive stepfather, runs off with a hobo and hops trains disguised as a boy. Director William Wellman makes visceral the feeling of being unjustly pursued and living in constant danger. A beautiful and touching film, chosen for the festival by David Shepard honoree Anita Monga."
The print being screened comes from the collection of the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York.
Directed by William Wellman the year after he made Wings (the first film to win an Academy Award), Beggars of Life (1928) is a gripping drama about a girl (Louise Brooks) dressed as a boy who flees the law after killing her abusive stepfather. On the run, she rides the rails through a male dominated hobo underworld in which danger is close at hand. Picture Play magazine described the film as "Sordid, grim and unpleasant," adding, "it is nevertheless interesting and is certainly a departure from the usual movie."
In 1928, Beggars of Life was named one of the six best films for October by the Chicago Tribune, and, it made the honor roll for best films of the year in an annual poll conducted by The Film Daily. Nevertheless, its grim story set among disheveled tramps drew mixed reviews upon release. One Baltimore newspaper said it would have limited appeal, quipping, "Tully tale not a flapper fetcher for the daytime trade."
Abroad, the film fared well. In Japan, Beggars of Life placed third among foreign films in the 1929 Kinema Junpō ranking of the year’s best motion pictures. Beggars of Life also placed on the 1932 Pour Vous readers poll of the best films of all time.
In fact, at a time when most American films were shown only a few days or a week, Beggars of Life proved especially popular in Paris, where it enjoyed an extended weeks-long run. In fact, the film continued to be shown in Paris for another three years, with multiple screenings taking place in the French capitol as late as February, 1931.
Why was Beggars of Life so well received in France? I think Louise Brooks' unusual starring role had a lot to do with it, but just as much of its popularity can be explained by the film's very American story line. French film goers then and now seemed to love cinematic Americana. For more about this classic film, see the newly revamped Beggars of Life filmography page on the new revamped Louise Brooks Society website.
Looking to learn more about Beggars of Life, both the film and the Jim Tully book on which it was based. I would like to recommend one or more of these three books. There is the 2003 reissue of Jim Tully's Beggars of Life: A Hobo Autobiography (from AK Press). There is the 2012 biography, Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler, by Paul Bauer and Mark Dawidziak (from Kent State University Press); and there is my own Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film (from Pandora's Box Press). The latter features a foreword by William Wellman Jr., the son of the acclaimed director of Beggars of Life.
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