Lulu in Motown, Louise Brooks in Detroit

Back on December 8, 2006, I had the honor of introducing Pandora's Box before a screening of the film at the Detroit Film Theatre in Detroit, Michigan. Located within the Detroit Institute of Arts,
this historic venue was the first museum theater in the United States to screen film as art, prior
to similar screenings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It was an honor as well as a pleasure to introduce the film, as I had grown up in metro Detroit and to this day, the D.I.A. remains one of my very favorite art museums. 

The following piece is adapted from my 2006 introductory remarks. They are, if I may suggest, remarks to keep in mind when Pandora's Box is shown at the historic Senate Theater (6424 Michigan Avenue in Detroit) on March 22. (See the prior LBS blog post for further details.)

Before I say something about Pandora’s Box, I thought I might speak a little bit about Louise Brooks and her relationship with the Motor City. Yes, the gods do sometimes walk among us.  

Before she became an actress, Louise Brooks was a dancer. For more than two years, Brooks was a member of—and toured with—Denishawn, the leading modern American dance company of the teens and twenties. Led by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, the company included a who’s who of those who would shape modern dance in America. During the 1922-23 and 1923-24 seasons, the future actress—then still a teenager—danced alongside such legendary figures as Martha Graham, Charles Weideman, and Doris Humphrey. 

The company came to Detroit twice—first in March of 1923, and then again in March of 1924. As a member of Denishawn, Louise Brooks performed at Orchestra Hall, the current home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. According to contemporary accounts, the company enjoyed large crowds and received favorable reviews. 

Dance would play an important part in Brooks’ life. In the opening scene in Pandora’s Box, the actress performs a short dance—something Brooks had recalled from an earlier Denishawn routine. Later in life she would remark, “I learned to act by watching Martha Graham dance, and I learned to dance by watching Charlie Chaplin act.” 

It was an actress, however, that Louise Brooks made her greatest impression on the Motor City—especially its film critics. In the 1920’s, Detroit was a three paper town. There was the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, as well as the now defunct Detroit Times. Also covering the local arts and entertainment scene—including motion pictures—was a weekly called Detroit Saturday Night. Each of these publications reviewed new films, and each usually went out of its way to say something good or interesting about Louise Brooks. 

For example, Charles J. Richardson of the Detroit Times, in reviewing The American Venus—a somewhat risqué 1926 comedy which first brought Louise Brooks to public notice—stated “Louise Brooks, the former Follies chorine, makes her film debut in the production and does well in a small role. This Miss Brooks just now is the patron saint of all chorus girls seeking admittance into the sacred ranks of screen players.” That’s not a bad write-up for a first screen credit. 

Harold Hefferman, writing in the Detroit News, had also noticed the young actress in her first big role. He wrote “Louise Brooks, a black-haired boyish-bobbed entry . . . cuts quite a figure.” Indeed, throughout the 1920’s, Harold Hefferman would lavish praise on the actress time and again. The Detroit News critic nearly gushed while reviewing her next film, A Social Celebrity. “Louise Brooks, possessing one of the most striking and expressive faces ever to come to the screen, plays the heroine in a saucily successful manner.” 

Meanwhile, Hefferman’s journalistic rival, Charles J. Richardson, continued to express similar sentiments in his reviews for the Detroit Times. In writing about the 1927 comedy, Rolled Stockings, Richardson stated bluntly “Louise Brooks, as usual, is delightful to gaze upon.” Back then, critics sometimes wore their hearts on their sleeves. 

Admiration for the actress was not limited to the city’s male critics. During the 1920’s, Ella H. McCormick of the Detroit Free Press repeatedly singled out the actress. “Louise Brooks is the nifty stepper” she would write in May, 1926. A month later, reviewing It’s the Old Army Game, McCormick observed “W. C. Fields scored a splendid triumph in this picture. A great part of the success of the offering, however, is due to Louise Brooks, who takes the lead feminine part.” At year’s end, in her review of the December 1926 release, Just Another Blonde, McCormick would state “Miss Brooks is one of the best brunette contradictions to the lighter hypothesis that can be found on the silver screen.” 

In the mid-1930’s, as her film career began fade, Louise Brooks returned to dance— and once again returned to Detroit. With a partner, Brooks performed as a ballroom dancer in night clubs, theaters, and other Midwest and East Coast hotspots. In August of 1934, Louise Brooks danced at the Blossom Heath Inn on Jefferson Avenue. Today, that venue—which is located between 9 and 10 mile road—hosts weddings and bridal fairs, but back then the Blossom Heath Inn was a well known road-house which hosted prominent touring acts. 

At the time of her month-long engagement in what would become St. Clair Shores, both the Free Press and News ran the following notice in the night-club column of their respective papers. “Edward Fritz, proprietor of the Blossom Heath Inn, announces the engagement of the season’s greatest floor show, headed by Louise Brooks, motion picture star, and Dario, creator of the Bolero from the motion picture Bolero. Several other new acts are included.” It was an unimpressive dénouement to a remarkable career. Within a few years, Louise Brooks would appear in her last film, leave Hollywood, and sink into decades of obscurity. 

But things changed. Louise Brooks and her great European films—Pandora’s Box, Diary of a Lost Girl, and Prix de beauté—were rediscovered. Today, the actress is best known for the role as Lulu in G.W. Pabst’s 1929 masterpiece. In his rather thoughtful article in this week’s Metro Times, Michael Hastings noted: “Has there ever been a more perfect, more tragic, more mythic fusion of actor and character than Louise Brooks’ Lulu in Pandora’s Box? The girl with the “black helmet” hairdo may not have been German, and she certainly didn’t go on a date with Jack the Ripper, but just about everything else in Brooks’ life leading up to and following her signature 1929 role became, in some weird, extrasensory way, the blueprint for director G.W. Pabst’s masterpiece of sexual suggestion.” 

Despite Louise Brooks’ now legendary status, there are those who have questioned her art. In her classic book about German expressionist film entitled, The Haunted Screen, historian Lottie Eisner asked, “Was Louise Brooks a great artist—or only a dazzling creature whose beauty leads the spectator to endow her with complexities of which she herself was unaware?” That’s a good, even provocative question—as it lies at the heart of the debate still surrounding the actress. 

When a heavily censored Pandora’s Box made its American debut in December of 1929, the critic for the New York Times wrote “Miss Brooks is attractive—and she moves her head and eyes at the proper moment, but whether she is endeavoring to express joy, woe, anger or satisfaction—it is often difficult to decide.” The N.Y. Herald Tribune added, “Louise Brooks acts vivaciously but with a seeming blindness as to what it is all about.” Other reviews were just as damning. 

Critics then—and critics today—call her talent into question. Is Louise Brooks a great actress?—or only someone who fools the audience and gets by on her looks? 

Admittedly, Louise Brooks is something of a problem in film history. She is unique among movie icons in that no other actress has made such an impact with so few films. Part of the problem is that a quarter of her films are lost. And today, Brooks’ reputation rests almost unfairly on one role—that of Lulu, a prototypical femme fatale in this 77-year-old film by G.W. Pabst.  

When a revised edition of The Haunted Screen was published in 1957, Lottie Eisner answered the question she had posed just a few years before. Then, in writing about the two films Brooks made with Pabst, Eisner asked if Brooks was a great artist. Now, revising her text, Eisner wrote something just as provocative: “Her gifts of profound intuition may seem purely passive to an inexperienced audience, yet she succeeded in stimulating an otherwise unequal director’s talent to the extreme. Pabst’s remarkable evolution must thus be seen as an encounter with an actress who needed no directing, but could move across the screen causing the work of art to be born by her mere presence. Louise Brooks, always enigmatically impassive, overwhelmingly exists throughout these two films. We know now that Louise Brooks is a remarkable actress endowed with uncommon intelligence, and not merely a dazzlingly beautiful woman.”

More about Pandora's Box can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its Pandora's Box (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 © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box screens in Detroit on March 22

Pandora's Box (1929), starring Louise Brooks, will be shown in Detroit, Michigan on March 22. This presentation by Silents at the Senate will feature a live musical accompaniment by Andrew Rogers on the organ. More information about the event, which takes place at the historic Senate Theater (6424 Michigan Avenue in Detroit), can be found HERE. [ Doors open at 7 pm for this 8 pm screening, with a 7:30 organ recital. ]

 

 

According to the Senate website, "Silents at the Senate begins its 2025 season with Pandora’s Box, a silent masterpiece from Austrian director G.W. Pabst, starring the American flapper icon Louise Brooks! Come see this impeccable example of pre-sound cinematic artistry, accompanied by organist Andrew Rogers on our Mighty Wurlitzer theater pipe organ!  

Produced during the artistically vibrant Weimar Republic period in Germany, Pandora’s Box adapts two popular stage plays into a single tale of depravity, temptation, wrath and ruin. It’s melodrama at its finest, made on the eve of the sound era when the visual language of silent cinema reached its absolute peak.  

And with the majesty of the world’s best instrument for silent film accompaniment enhancing the imagery and emotions, the awesome power of live sound and recorded vision—the original magic of the movies—cannot be denied. 

The Senate Theater and The Detroit Theater Organ Society is supported by The Michigan Arts and Culture Council and The National Endowment for the Arts."

The Detroit area has long had a special relationship with Louise Brooks. Not only were her films shown there in the 1920s and 1930s -- though likely not at the Senate -- but Brooks herself danced in Detroit in the mid 1920s and mid-1930s.

 

The 900 seat Senate Theater is an historic venue, and one of the finest surviving theaters in Detroit. It opened in 1926, during the final few years of the silent film era. More information about the Senate and its history can be found on its about page, on its Wikipedia page, and on its Cinema Treasures webpage. 

The history of the Senate is a story in itself, as is the story of how it came to have its Mighty Wurlitzer. Here is a short 1964 documentary about the installation of the Senate's Mighty Wurlitzer. 

More about Pandora's Box can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its Pandora's Box (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 © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Louise Brooks in Diary of a Lost Girl screens in St. Louis on March 12

Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), starring Louise Brooks, will be shown in St. Louis(e), Missouri on March 12. This presentation by Silents, Please! STL will feature an introduction by SPSTL's Kate Stewart. More information about the event, which takes place at the Arkadin Cinema and Bar (5228 Gravois Ave in St. Louis), can be found HERE. 

According to the venue website, "Re-teaming actress Louise Brooks and director G.W. Pabst (Pandora’s Box), DIARY OF A LOST GIRL is a wonderfully salacious adaptation of Margarethe Bohme’s scintillating novel, in which the naive daughter of a middle class pharmacist is seduced by her father’s assistant, only to be disowned and sent to a repressive home for wayward girls. She escapes, searches for her child, and ends-up in a high-class brothel, only to turn the tables on the society which had abused her. Brooks delivers a tour-de-force performance that helped cement her status as one of cinema’s most luminescent beauties."

“A deliciously sordid soap opera…[starring] one of the most iconic stars that cinema has ever seen!” -Wendy Ide, The Times

In 2010,  the Louise Brooks Society published a corrected and annotated edition of the original 1907 English language translation -- notably, this edition, the first in English in 100 years -- brought this important work of feminist literature back into print in English. It includes an introduction by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society, detailing the book's remarkable history and relationship to the 1929 silent film. This special "Louise Brooks Edition" also includes more than three dozen vintage illustrations.  (Purchase on amazon.)

More about Diary of a Lost Girl can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its Diary of a Lost Girl (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 © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

It Pays to Advertise, with Louise Brooks (briefly), was released on this day in 1931

It Pays to Advertise, with Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1931. The film is a farce about rival soap companies, an advertising agency, and a ne’er do-well playboy who attempts to make good. Louise Brooks plays Thelma Temple, a dancer appearing in a musical titled Girlies Don’t Tell. 

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

Production on the film took place in and around Los Angeles in late 1930. Brooks’ part in the film, done to fulfill her contract with Paramount, amounted to little more than a cameo. The Hollywood Reporter wrote “Louise Brooks flashes in and out of the opening scenes and looks like a good bet for bigger roles.” Due to tepid reviews and negative publicity, It Pays to Advertise did poorly at the box office. At best, most exhibitors reported only fair business. In Los Angeles, according to one report, the film “set a new low.” The film also failed to do much for Brooks’ sputtering career.

It Pays to Advertise was based on a popular stage play from 1914. In 1931, reviewers commented that the story was old-fashioned – despite the fact that Paramount attempted to update its scenario through the use of new scenes, art deco sets, snappy dialogue, and a fast-moving script.

The film received few positive reviews. Photoplay wrote that it has “plenty of speed and lots of laughs”, while praising the “perfect cast”. Variety wrote “Subject to the limitation of all screen farces, this revamped stage frolic makes good enough program material with only moderate prospects at the box office.” New York’s The World, however, called it “pretty dreary.” The New Yorker stated “Among the dull pictures of the week we might list that old relic, It Pays to Advertise, which is full of smart-aleck cracks and is altogether a bore.”

The film starred Norman Foster, then husband of Claudette Colbert, and Carol Lombard, who was at the beginning of her film career. The gravel-voiced Eugene Pallette played the soap king; he had also played a supporting role in Brooks’ previous American film, The Canary Murder Case. The fast talking Skeets Gallagher played the wisecracking publicist – then called press agents. Brooks received fifth billing, and was largely left off promotional materials supplied by the studio.

Few publications mentioned Brooks, except to mention her brief appearance. Some publications noted that the role represented a comeback. The Kansas City Star commented, “Carole Lombard is pretty as the Mary Grayson in the cast, but Louise Brooks, who used to be quite a name in the photoplay world, is more attractive as the actress who does the airplane fall and is not seen thereafter.” Harry Evans, writing in Life magazine, stated “Louise Brooks, whom we have not seen on the screen since her momentary appearance in The Canary Murder Case (in which a voice double was used to speak her lines), seems to have been studying, as she gets away with her bit in this one creditably. Her real purpose in the film, however, is to show her legs, and in this phase of stage-craft she certainly needs no double.”

It Pays to Advertise was a b-film, and wasn't exhibited as much as other featured releases. Nevertheless, under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Jamaica, The Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom (including England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland). In the United States, the film was also promoted under the title Vale a Pena Anunciar (Portuguese-language press). Elsewhere, It Pays to Advertise was shown under the title To platí, aby inzeroval (Czechoslovakia). 

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— It Pays to Advertise was based on the play of the same name by Roi Cooper Megrue and Walter C. Hackett. It was first presented on the Broadway stage on September 8, 1914 at the Cohan Theatre, and ran for nearly a year. Thelma Temple, the character played by Louise Brooks, does not appear in the original play.

—  Set in the advertising and business world, It Pays to Advertise referenced a number of actual products and their slogans. As a result, one trade journal took exception to the practice. Harrison’s Reports, which billed itself “a reviewing service free from the influence of film advertising,” objected to product placement in film — be it verbal or visual. Over the course of four months (in articles titled “The Facts About Concealed Advertisements in Paramount Pictures,” “This Paper’s Further Efforts Against ‘Sponsored’ Screen Advertisements,” and “Other Papers That Have Joined the Harrison Crusade Against Unlabelled Screen Advertising”) editor P. S. Harrison railed against the business world farce in particular and product placement in films in general. “The Paramount picture, It Pays to Advertise, is nothing but a billboard of immense size. I have not been able to count all of the nationally advertised articles that are spoken of by the characters.” In the next issue, Harrison stated “In last week’s issue the disclosure was made that in It Pays to Advertise there are more than fifteen advertisements in addition to the main advertisement, ’13 Soap Unlucky for Dirt,’ which Paramount is accused of having created as a brand for the purpose of selling it.”  Taking the high moral ground, Harrison’s Reports spurred a campaign against “sponsored moving pictures – meaning pictures which contain concealed or open advertising of some one’s product.” Harrison wrote to the studios – and Harrison’s Reports noted that a handful responded with pledges to not include verbal or visual product placement. The crusading editor also wrote to more than 2,000 newspapers, and a number published articles and editorials decrying the practice. Among those papers that joined Harrison’s cause were four of the New York dailies, the Gannett chain, and scores of small town papers, as well as the Denver Post, Detroit Free Press, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and Tulsa Tribune. The Christian Science Monitor added to the chorus of complaint when it remarked, “Paramount should have been well paid for the large slices of publicity for trade-marked products that are spread all through this artificial story.”

— The play has been made into a film on four occasions: there was a silent film in 1919, directed by Donald Crisp; the talkie in 1931, directed by Frank Tuttle; and a Swedish adaptation in 1936, directed by Anders Henrikson. In 1932, Paramount produced French language version of the 1931 film: Paramount remade the film at their studio at Joinville, France under the title Criez-le sur les toits, directed by Karl Anton and starring Saint-Granier and Robert Burnier.

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 © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.   

When You’re in Love, with Louise Brooks (barely), was released on this day in 1937

When You’re in Love, with Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1937. When You’re in Love is a romantic musical scripted and directed by long-time Frank Capra writer Robert Riskin and starring Grace Moore and Cary Grant. The enjoyable and fast-moving plot turns on high-spirits and high-notes. Louise Brooks makes an uncredited appearance as one of a number of dancers in a musical sequence near the end of the film. 

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

Louise Brooks, third from the left, is obscured by Grace Moore's hand.
This is likely the only known still to depict Brooks.

 

Production of the film took place at Columbia Pictures studios in Southern California between October 5 and December 20, 1936 . The musical pageant at the end of the film, which likely includes Louise Brooks, was likely shot in part at the Hollywood Bowl.

For When You’re in Love, Brooks accepted work as an extra (its almost impossible to spot her) with the promise of the feminine lead in another Columbia film. To exploit the situation, the studio put out the word that Brooks was willing to do anything to get back into pictures. “Louise Brooks is certainly starting her come-back from the lowest rung of the ladder,” wrote Wood Soanes of the Oakland Tribune. “She is one of a hundred dancers in the ballet chorus of Grace Moore’s When You’re in Love.” Brooks kept her part of the bargain, but the studio did not. Brooks’ lead in a Columbia film never materialized.

The film proved especially popular, and was seen as a worthy successor to Moore’s triumph in the 1934 film One Night of Love, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The Hollywood Reporter stated, “With a more substantial story than the last two Grace Moore vehicles, When You’re in Love is a signal triumph for the foremost diva of the screen, for Cary Grant who should soar to stardom as result of his performance in this, and for Robert Riskin, here notably handling his first directorial assignment.” The Hollywood Spectator added “It is unquestionably her best to-date and never has she appeared to better photographic advantage.” Rob Wagner, writing in Rob Wagner’s Script (a trade journal), was especially enthusiastic. “Here is the perfect combination – the director who writes his own script and delivers perfectly . . . Yes, I’m raving, … but because I’m a priest of beauty; and this picture thrilled me.”

The film was held over in New York City, as well as in Baltimore, Seattle, Detroit, New Orleans, Trenton, Tacoma, and Springfield (Massachusetts and Illinois). The same was true in Atlanta, Georgia. The Atlanta Constitution wrote that the film, the “best picture made by Grace Moore” was “now in its third week at the Rialto Theater, with the demand for seats showing no signs of easing.” The same was true in Hartford, Connecticut. The Hartford Courant wrote “Don’t look now, but Loew’s Theater appears to be starting another one of those record-breaking picture engagements with When You’re in Love.”

The great British novelist Graham Greene, writing in Night and Day, was tempered in his assessment. “Miss Moore, even in trousers singing Minnie the Moocher, can make the craziest comedy sensible and hygienic. In For You Alone, the story of an Australian singer who buys an American husband in Mexico so that she may re-enter the States where her permit has expired, Mr. Riskin, the author of Mr. Deeds and (let’s not forget) Lost Horizon, has tried his best to write crazily, but he comes up all the time against Miss Moore.”

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, Dutch Guiana (Surinam), Haiti, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Palestine (Israel), Papua New Guinea,  The Philippines, and South Africa. As well, it was once advertised in Canada as When You Are in Love. In the United States territory of Puerto Rico, the film was exhibited under the title Preludio de amor (Spanish-language press).
 
Elsewhere, When You’re in Love was shown under the title Le Cœur en fête (Algeria); Preludio de Amor (Argentina); Sérénade and Interlude (Austria); Sérénade (Belgium); Prelúdio de Amor (Brazil); 鳥語花香 (China);  Preludio de amor (Cuba); Když vy jste v lásce (Czechoslovakia) and Ked si zalúbeny (Slovakia, unconfiirmed); Serenade (Denmark); Preludio de Amor (Dominican Republic); Ma olen armunud (Estonia); Rakastuessa and När man är kär (Finland); Le Cœur en fête (France); Otan i kardia ktypa (Greece); Közjáték and Preludio de Amor (Hungary); Serenade (Iceland); Amanti di domani (Italy); 間奏楽 or Kansō-raku (Japan); Wenn die Liebe erwacht (Latvia); Serenade (Luxembourg); Preludio de amor (Mexico); Le Cœur en fête (Morocco); Als je verliefd bent (The Netherlands); Forelsket (Norway); Kiedy jestes zakochana (Poland) and חפּחדדה (Yiddish in Poland); Prelúdio de Amor (Portugal); A rioi szerenad (Romania); Preludio de amor (Spain); När man är kär (Sweden); Le Cœur en fête and Wenn Du verliebt bist (Switzerland); Bir ask macerasi and Sen aska dusunce and Yalniz senin için (Turkey); and Preludio de amor (Uruguay). 

The film was also shown under the title For You Alone in British Malaysia (Singapore), Ireland, and the United Kingdom (including England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, and Scotland). 

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— Grace Moore (1898–1947) was an American operatic soprano and actress in musical theater and film. She was nicknamed the “Tennessee Nightingale.” During her sixteen seasons with the Metropolitan Opera, she sang in several Italian and French operas as well as the title roles in Tosca, Manon, and Louise. Louise was her favorite opera and is widely considered to have been her greatest role. Moore is credited with helping bring opera to a larger audience through her popular films. Moore died in a plane crash near Copenhagen’s airport on January 26, 1947, at the age of 48. Moore’s life story was made into a movie, So This Is Love, in 1953.

— Attracted to Hollywood in the early years of talking pictures, Moore’s first screen role was as Jenny Lind in the 1930 MGM film A Lady’s Morals. Later that same year she starred with the Metropolitan Opera singer Lawrence Tibbett in New Moon, also for MGM. After a hiatus of several years, Moore returned to Hollywood under contract to Columbia Pictures, for whom she made six films. In the 1934 film One Night of Love, she portrayed a small-town girl who aspires to sing opera. For that role she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The last film that Moore made was Louise (1939), an abridged version of Gustave Charpentier’s opera of the same name, with spoken dialog in place of some of the original opera’s music. The composer participated in the production, authorizing the cuts and changes to the libretto, coaching Moore, and advising director Abel Gance.

— In the film, Moore sings “Siboney“. Xavier Cugat’s version of “Siboney” was recommended by Brooks in her self-published booklet, The Fundamentals of Good Ballroom Dancing.

— The New York Times noted that the lyrics of Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher” had been censored, writing “we did notice that the censors took out the reference to the King of Sweden who gave Minnie whatever she was needin’. Now it’s the King of Rythmania, who filled her full of vintage champagnia.” Although Daily Variety noted that preview audiences enjoyed Moore’s swing rendition of the classic song, it was not included in the general release print. 

—  Back in 2016, I wrote an article for the Huffington Post on When You're in Love when it debuted on the cable station, getTV. Check it out.

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 © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Kansas Silent Film Festival to Screen Louise Brooks film A Girl in Every Port on February 28

 

As it has a few times in the past, this year's Kansas Silent Film Festival will include a film featuring the Kansas-born silent film star, Louise Brooks. This year, the venerable event will screen the Howard Hawks directed film, A Girl in Every Port (1928), starring Victor McLaglen, Louise Brooks and Robert Armstrong. Brooks will light-up the screen on Friday, February 28. More about the Kansas Silent Film Festival can be found HERE. 

Here is the full line-up of films and related events, which included screenings of films starring Buster Keaton & Phyllis Haver.(both Kansas-born actors), Clara Bow (from Brooklyn), Harold Lloyd (from Nebraska), and the Canadian-born Nell Shipman, among others. HERE is a link to an article which just appeared in the Topeka Capital-Journal.

LIVE EVENT, with FREE ADMISSION for all showings
@ White Concert Hall, Washburn Univeristy, 1700 SW Jewell, Topeka, KS 66603

Friday Afternoon, Feb. 28, 2025: Begins @ 1:00 PM

Overture & Welcome
___________________________

The Curtain Pole 10 min.	(1909)	Mack Sennett, a D.W. Griffith film  —Music by Bill Beningfield
Valley of the Giants 51 min.	(1919)	Wallace Reid, directed by James Cruze  —Music by Ben Model

Guest Talk: Scott Eyman 20 min.

Scott talks about how he chooses subjects for his celebrity biographies and their roots in silent film

The Johnstown Flood 68 min.

(1926)

George O'Brien, directed by Irving Cummings —Music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

—BREAK, 15 min.—

A Girl in Every Port 78 min.

(1928)

Victor McLaglen & Louise Brooks, directed by Howard Hawks —Music by Marvin Faulwell & Bob Keckeisen

_________________________

—DINNER BREAK—
_________________________

Friday Evening, Feb. 28, 2025: Begins @ 7:30 PM
@ White Concert Hall, Washburn University

His New Mama 15 min.	(1924)	Harry Langdon, directed by Roy Del Ruth —Music by Jeff Rapsis
The Second Hundred Years 21 min.	(1927)	starring Laurel and Hardy, directed by Fred Guiol —Music by Ben Model
Lady Windermere's Fan 89 min.	(1925)	Ronald Colman, directed by Ernst Lubitsch —Music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

Sat. Mar. 1, 2025, 9:00 a.m.-Noon
@ White Concert Hall, Washburn University

Overture & Welcome

Film Documentary 60 min.

An opportunity to see a documentary on the history of silent film comedy.

—BREAK, 5 min.—

Max Linder Compilation 20 min.	(1907-1912)	Max Linder —Music by Ben Model
Ice Cold Cocos 20 min.	(1926)	Billy Bevan, directed by Del Lord —Music by Ben Model
Something New 57 min.	(1920)	Nell Shipman, directed by Bert Van Tuyle —Music by Jeff Rapsis

___________________________

Lunch Break (on your own), resuming at 1:30 p.m
___________________________

Sat. Mar. 1, 2025, 1:30-5:00 p.m.
@ White Concert Hall, Washburn University

Overture & Welcome
___________________________

An Eastern Westerner 27 min.	(1920)	Harold Lloyd, directed by Hal Roach —Music by Jeff Rapsis
The Enchanted Cottage 80 min.	(1924)	Richard Barthelmess, directed by John S. Robertson —Music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

—BREAK, with Scott Eyman Book Signing—

The Balloonatic 22 min.	(1923)	Buster Keaton, directed by Edward F. Cline —Music by Marvin Faulwell
Mantrap 71 min.	(1926)	Clara Bow, directed by Victor Fleming —Music by Ben Model

Dinner

Special Dinner Event, Our Sixteenth Annual CINEMA-DINNER, Seating begins @ 5:15 p.m. Dinner from 5:30 to 7:20 p.m. Special Guest Scott Eyman speaks about his work as writer of celebrity biographies of those with roots in silent filmmaking. — This event is by reservation only. Dinner is $40. Contact Bill Shaffer at bill.shaffer@washburn.edu to reserve your space —

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Sat. Mar. 1, 2025, 7:30-10:00 p.m.
@ White Concert Hall, Washburn University

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Overture & Welcome

Ambrose's First Falsehood 11 min.	(1914)	Mack Swain, directed by F. Richard Jones —Music by Bill Beningfield
A Night in the Show 24 min.	(1915)	Charlie Chaplin, directed by Charles Chaplin —Music by Ben Model
Don Q: Son of Zorro 111 min.	(1925)	Douglas Fairbanks, directed by Donald Crisp —Music by Marvin Faulwell & Bob Keckeisen

 

 

More about A Girl in Every Port can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its A Girl in Every Port (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 © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Diary of a Lost Girl, starring Louise Brooks, screens in Kent, England

Diary of a Lost Girl, starring Louise Brooks, will be shown later today (February 23) at the Palace Theater in Kent, England. This screening will feature a live musical accompaniment by Lilian Henley on the piano. More information about this event can be found HERE.

According to the venue website: "Join us for a deep dive into night and the city, the characters and cabaret of Berlin in the late 1920s, including a young woman (played by the iconic bob-haired Louise Brooks) who we accompany as she finds her way through the dark and dangerous world.

Diary of a Lost Girl begins with the 16-year-old Thymian, daughter of a pharmacist, being given a diary as a first communion present, in which she will go on to record her life of shame and humiliation, betrayed by a succession of men and women. Her innocence ended after she is made pregnant, when she first records her experiences in a repressive reform school and then, having escaped, at a high-class brothel where she’s transformed from dowdy inmate into the stunning woman we know as Louise Brooks the film star.

Throughout it all, Brooks is an incredible, natural, modern presence. Her Thymian transcends her story, retaining her moral decency in a corrupt world. Director GW Pabst had already directed her in Pandora’s Box which outraged correct middle-class audiences in Germany (and everywhere!) on its release, and this film, set in Berlin towards the end of a period of social freedoms and cultural permissiveness (think Liza Minnelli in Cabaret) delivered much the same!"

 In 2010,  the Louise Brooks Society published a corrected and annotated edition of the original 1907 English language translation -- notably, this edition, the first in English in 100 years -- brought this important work of feminist literature back into print in English. It includes an introduction by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society, detailing the book's remarkable history and relationship to the 1929 silent film. This special "Louise Brooks Edition" also includes more than three dozen vintage illustrations.  (Purchase on amazon.)

More about Diary of a Lost Girl can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its Diary of a Lost Girl (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 © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

A Girl in Every Port, featuring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928

A Girl in Every Port, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928. A Girl in Every Port is a classic early “buddy film,” On loan to Fox, Louise Brooks plays Marie (Mam’selle Godiva), the girl in Marseille, France. The film was directed by Howard Hawks, and stars Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong as the two sailors, and features Marie Casajuana, Sally Rand, Natalie Kingston, Leila Hyams, and Myrna Loy as the women they romance in various ports of call. 

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

The film was shot in November and December, 1927 at Fox’s studios in Hollywood. Location shooting was done on a boating trip to Santa Cruz Island, located along the California coast. The film debuted at the mammoth Roxy theater in New York City. Fox claimed, and Film Daily reported, that A Girl in Every Port had broke the “world’s record” for a single day’s box office receipts, when on February 22, 1928 it premiered at the Roxy in New York and grossed $29,463.00. A hit, the film was written up in just about every NYC publications, from the German-language New Yorker Volkszeitung to Women’s Wear Daily to the socialist Daily Worker.

The film received glowing reviews. TIME magazine stated, “A Girl in Every Port is really What Price Glory? translated from arid and terrestrial irony to marine gaiety of the most salty and miscellaneous nature. Nobody could be more charming than Louise Brooks, that clinging and tender little barnacle from the docks of Marseilles. Director Howard Hawks and his entire cast, especially Robert Armstrong, deserve bouquets and kudos.” Weekly Film Review noted that the audience “Cheered it – and loved it!”

What many critics focused on was the bond between the two male characters, sailors played by Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong. Bland Johaneson of the New York Daily Mirror wrote, “A Girl in Every Port at the Roxy is a man’s picture. It’s a good character comedy. But the love interest is the love of two men friends. The girls are all rats. And that limits the picture’s appeal to the romanticists. . . . Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong do fine acting, and the comedy is neatly handled.” Limitations aside, women also liked the picture, according to the Newark Star-Eagle. “Women laughed delightedly in the Fox Terminal yesterday at what was supposed to be exclusively a he-man picture. Victor McLaglen starred as a true adventurer in A Girl in Every Port, and although the film was mostly fast battling, feminine spectators found delightful entertainment in it. . . . He has a prize associate in Robert Armstrong, who was the fighter in the stage version of Is Zat So, and Louise Brooks, cast as a sideshow siren, does capitally as the crisis of McLaglen’s career as a seaport Don Juan. . . . This is a salty, virile picture, full of flying fists and colorful rows in strange climates and distinguished by the unmovie like and emphatic characterizations of the two leading males.” 

The salty nature of the picture did not go unnoticed. According to Irene Thirer of the New York Daily News, “Director Howard Hawks has injected several devilish touches in the piece, which surprisingly enough, got by the censors.” An exhibitor from Michigan wrote in the Exhibitor’s Herald, “the salesman said that this was a good picture when he sold it to me… time must have rotted it for it is one of the smuttiest pictures on the market. If you want to promote immorality, by all means play this one. I have to use care and precaution in the selection of pictures, and this one brought plenty of criticism”.

Aside from its popularity in the United States, the film had an even bigger impact in Europe, especially France. Writing in 1930 in his “Paris Cinema Chatter” column in the New York Times, Morris Gilbert noted “ . . . there are a number of others – mostly American – which have their place as ‘classics’ in the opinion of the French. . . . They love A Girl in Every Port, which has the added distinction of being practically the only American film which keeps its own English title here.” The film enjoyed a long run in Paris, where to this day it is still highly regarded.

Notably,  Jean-Paul Sartre hoped to take Simone de Beauvoir to see the film on one of their first dates. Later, the writer Blaise Cendrars stated the film “marked the first appearance of contemporary cinema”.

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). In the United States, the film was also presented under the title Uma noiva em cada porto (Portuguese-language press).

Elsewhere, A Girl in Every Port was shown under the title Poings de fer, coeur d’or (Algeria); Una novia en cada puerto and Una chica en cada porto (Argentina); Das Verdammte Herz – Zwei lustige Matrosen (Austria); Une fille dans chaque port (Belgium, French) and Een liefje bij elke landing (Belgium, Dutch); Uma noiva em cada porto (Brazil); Una Novia en Cada Puerto (Cuba); Dívka v každém prístavu (Czechoslovakia) and Dievca v kazdom pristave and Vsade ine dievca (Slovakia); Blaue jungens, blonde Mädchen (Danzig); En Pige i hver Havn (Denmark); Una Novia en Cada Puerto (Dominican Republic); Een Liefje in iedere Haven and In iedere Stad een andere Schat! (Dutch East Indies - Indonesia); Poings de fer, coeur d’or and Une femme dans chaque port and Une fille dans chaque port (France); Blaue jungens, blonde Mädchen (Germany); Az ocean Don Juana (Hungary); Kærasta i hverri höfn! (Iceland); Capitano Barbableu and Il Capitano Barbableu and Capitan Barbablù (Italy); 港々に女あり or Minato Ni on'na ari (Japan); Ein zeitgemasser Don-Juan and Meitene katra osta (Latvia); Mergina kiekviename uoste (Lithuania); Poings de Fer – Coeur d’Or Blaue Jungen – Blonde Madchen (Luxembourg); Una novia in cada puerto (Mexico); In iedere Stad ... een andere Schat! and In elke stad een andere schat (Netherlands); En pike i hver havn (Norway); A kochanek miał sto and Dziewczyna w kaz.dym porcie and Era Pogoni Za Bogatym Memzem (Poland); Uma Rapariga em Cada Pôrto and Uma companheira em cada pôrto (Portugal); O fata in fiecare port (Romania); Una novia in cada puerto and Un Amor en Cada Puerto and Una xicota a cada port (Spain, including The Canary Islands); En flicka i varje hamn (Sweden); and Poings de fer et coeur dor (Switzerland).

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— Much was made over the “bevy of beautiful girls” appearing in the film. Writing in the Hollywood Daily Citizen, Elena Brinkley quipped, “It seems to me they’ll never finish signing girls for Victor McLaglen’s A Girl in Every Port.” Early on, among those she reports cast was Anna May Wong.

— Maria Casajuana, a Spanish-born dancer and one-time “Miss Spain,” made her screen debut in A Girl in Every Port. As a newcomer, her role was heavily promoted. Beginning with Road House (1928), Casajuana appeared in films as Maria Alba. She also appeared in Goldie, a 1931 remake of A Girl in Every Port.

— Casajuana was not the only actress working under another name. Gretel Yolz was actually Eileen Sedgwick, one of the Five Sedgwicks, a pioneering family in Hollywood.

— In 1931, Fox remade A Girl in Every Port as a sound film entitled Goldie. The remake was directed by Benjamin Stoloff and starred Spencer Tracy, Warren Hymer and Jean Harlow. The 1952 Marx Brothers’ film of the same name is unrelated.

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 © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

Surrealist Painting artist Man Ray sent to silent film icon Louise Brooks goes to auction

If you've read the outstanding Barry Paris biography of Louise Brooks, then you likely know that the famed surrealist Man Ray once sent Louise Brooks a small painting. That painting has just gone to auction at Sothebys in New York City. (While the paining is on display at Sothebys gallery in NYC, the auction itself is also being held online. The link to the auction can be found HERE.)

According to the Sothebys' auction page, "Andrew Strauss and Timothy Baum of the Man Ray Expertise Committee have confirmed the authenticity of this work under reference 00468-P-2025 and that it will be included in the Catalogue of Paintings of Man Ray, currently in preparation."

Man Ray was something of a fan of Louise Brooks. According to the Paris biography, the artist "was struck by Brooks's face" when he saw it in magazines during the filming of  Prix de Beaute." And, he never forgot her. [To imagine one of the covers Man Ray might have seen, be sure and check out this gallery page of French magazine covers featuring Louise Brooks circa 1929 / 1930 on the Louise Brooks Society website.]

Louise Brooks' image on display in Paris in 1930

The artist and the actress met for the first time in late 1958, when Brooks was in Paris for a retrospective of her films. According to the Paris biography, "On one occasion, she met Man Ray, the surrealist artist-photographer, who had long admired her and soon sent her, upon her return to the States, one of his small abstractions." That painting hung on the wall of Brooks' bedroom apartment in Rochester, New York until the time of her death in 1985, when it was willed to her heirs. The Estate has had the painting in their possession these 40 years, and have now decided to sell it.

I've long wondered... why would a then very famous artist send a then somewhat forgotten silent film star one of his newest paintings? I think the answer is nostalgia, that he once was and may still have been somewhat smitten with Brooks - especially her look, and what she represented to the artist, not to mention her resemblance to his one-time paramour Alice Prin (aka Kiki de Montparnasse), who Man Ray described in his autobiography as "beautiful" and having "the hairdo then in fashion among the smart women, short cut with bangs low on the forehead." (Coincidentally, Man Ray and Kiki had one of their first dates in a movie theater, when they held hands. I wonder what film they saw?) As Robert Benayoun, a surrealist historian and the one-time editor of the French film magazine Positif  told Barry Paris, "The surrealists were always in love with her... Man Ray loved that kind of face and image."

(Left) A 1928 newspaper ad featuring a Man Ray flm and a Louise Brooks film,
and (Right) the lovely Kiki de Montparnasse

Here is a picture of the reverse of the painting, which is inscribed in the artist's hand, "for Louise Brooks a souvenir of Man Ray Paris 1958". To me, it is a somewhat curious inscription. This small but extravagant gift is described not as a souvenir of an occasion, or of a place, or of their meeting -- but as a souvenir of a person - the artist.

For more about "Louise Brooks and the Surrealists", be sure and check out a this page on the subject on the Louise Brooks Society website. 

Also, check out this earlier Louise Brooks Society blog, "The Indestructible Lee Miller and the Destructible Louise Brooks," from December 13th of last year. It details the time that a Man Ray film and a Louise Brooks film shared the same bill at the Ursulines theater (shown above) in Paris in 1928!

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 © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Gary Conklin, Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 92

Variety is reporting that Gary Conklin, the noted documentary filmmaker, died on December 26 at the age of 92. For fans and devotees of Louise Brooks, Conklin may be best known for Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture, which featured Louise Brooks in one of her few appearances in any documentary. The Variety obit for Conklin can be found HERE.

Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture, which was released in 1976, tells the cultural story of Berlin during the Weimar Republic through interviews with persons who were involved in the literature, film, art, and music of the period. Besides Brooks, this groundbreaking documentary included interviews with Francis Lederer (Brooks co-star in Pandora's Box), as well as Christopher Isherwood, Lotte Eisner, Elisabeth Bergner, Carl Zuckmayer, Gregor Piatigorsky, Claudio Arrau, Rudolf Kolisch, Mischa Spoliansky, Herbert Bayer, Mrs. Walter Gropius, and Arthur Koestler. 

Notably, Brooks knew Eisner, a well known film critic and historian, and was acquainted with Isherwood, author of The Berlin Stories (the basis for Cabaret), whom she met later in life. And, as well, there is a connection with the Bauhaus artist Herbert Bayer, who included an image of Brooks in one of his collages from the period.

Herbert Bayer's "Profil en face" (1929)

For more about this must see film, check out this page on Conklin's website. It includes a link to a clip from the film as well as a clip of Louise Brooks. Kenneth Tynan (the author of the famous Louise Brooks profile "The Girl in the Black Helmet"), described this film as “A magnificent documentary on a fascinating period of history.”

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 © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.