Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em, featuring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1926

Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em, featuring Louise Brooks and Evelyn Brent, was released on this day in 1926. Based on a popular stage play, the film is a topical drama about two flapper sisters — one “good” and one “bad” — who work as shop girls in a department store. A popular and critical success, the film marked a turning point in  Brooks’ career. Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em was the last movie Brooks made on the East Coast. And soon, she would leave for Hollywood and Paramount’s studio on the West Coast.

More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society website filmography page.

The Chicago Tribune named the film one of the six best movies of the month. Its critic, Mae Tinee, proclaimed, “Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em is one of the snappiest little comedy dramas of the season. Full of human interest. Splendidly directed. Acted beautifully.” Dorothy Herzog, film critic for the New York Daily Mirror (and Evelyn Brent’s later romantic partner) penned similarly, “A featherweight comedy drama that should register with the public because of the fine work done by the principals and its amusing gags. . . . Louise Brooks gives the best performance of her flicker career as the selfish, snappily dressed, alive number — Janie. Miss Brooks sizzles through this celluloider, a flapper lurer with a Ziegfeld figure and come-on eyes.”

Critics across the country thought Brooks stole the show. The Los Angeles Record wrote, “Evelyn Brent is nominally starred in Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em, but the work of Louise Brooks, suave enticing newcomer to the Lasky fold, stands out most. The flippant, self-centered little shop girl is given sly and knowing interpretation by Miss Brooks, who is, if memory serves aright, a graduate of that great American institute of learning, the Follies.” The Kansas City Times went further, “Louise Brooks does another of her flapper parts and is a good deal more realistic than the widely heralded Clara Bow. Miss Brooks uses the dumb bell rather than the spit-fire method. But she always gets what she wants.”

And once again, New York critics singled out the actress, lavishing praise on Brooks with the film almost an after-thought. 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.”

 

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, Hong Kong, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, Panama, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). In the United States, the film was presented under the title Amalos y Dejalos and Amalas y Abandonalas (Spanish-language press) and Ama-o e Deixa-o (Portuguese-language press).

Elsewhere, Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em was shown under the title Amalos y déjalos and Se corrió una fija (Argentina); Zwei Mädel und ein Mann and Zwei Mädchen und ein Mann (Austria); Een Galant uitstaller (Belgium); Amal-as e deixal-as (Brazil); Amalos y déjalos (Cuba); Láska ’em a odejít ’em (Czechoslovakia); Het Meisje van ‘t Warenhaus (Dutch East Indies – present day Indonesia); Le galant etalagiste (Egypt); Oekesed võisfejad and Schwestern als Rivalinnen (Estonia); Rakasta heitä ja jätä heidät (Finland); Le galant etalagiste (France); 浮氣はその日の出来心 or Uwaki wa sonohi no dekigokoro (Japan); Le galant Etalagiste! (Luxembourg); Het Meisje Van ‘T Warenhuis and Meisjes die je Vergeet (The Netherlands);  Hvad en kvinne tilgir (Norway); Kobieto nie grzesz (Poland); Amá-las e Deixá-las (Portugal); and ¡Amalos y déjalos! (Spain).

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— John Van Alstyne Weaver, Jr. (1893-1938) was a poet, novelist and screenwriter whose slangy, vernacular poems (written in what was once described as “Americanese”) attracted the approval of the famed critic H. L. Mencken. Weaver’s stage play, Love ’em and leave ’em; a comedy in three acts (with George Abbott) was adapted from his earlier verse novel.

— The character Lem Woodruff was played by Osgood Perkins, an accomplished stage actor and the father of famed actor Tony Perkins.

— Ed Garvey, who plays Mr. Whinfer, was a star football player at Notre Dame.

— 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. The remake was directed by Brooks’ ex-husband Eddie Sutherland.

More about Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em (filmography page).

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2024. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.