More on Love Em and Leave Em (1926) with Louise Brooks

As noted in the prior blog, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is set to screen the seldom shown 1926 film, Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em, on July 25 at Lincoln Center in New York City. The flapper drama stars Evelyn Brent, Lawrence Gray and Louise Brooks. More about this event can be found HERE.

The film was both a popular and critical success at the time of its release in December of 1926. In fact, 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.”

Newspaper ad from the film's
NYC debut in Dec. 1926

Critics across the country likewise 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.”

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.”

Roscoe McGowan, writing in the New York Daily News, added "“Director Tuttle has managed to present Louise Brooks in a role to which she lends some conviction as well as ornamentation . . . all very well and entertainingly done.”

Newspaper ad from the film's NYC debut in Dec. 1926

Here is a smattering of some of the praise the film received from elsewhere around the United States.

“The cast has three featured members – Evelyn Brent, Lawrence Gray and Louise Brooks. It would have been just as well to have reversed the order of the names, for Louise Brooks, playing an entirely unsympathetic role . . . runs away with the picture.” — Fred, Variety

“Louise Brooks, the sister who is responsible for all of her sorrow, personifies the popular conception of a modern flapper with faultless accuracy. Her so-called ‘million dollar’ legs contribute materially to this portrayal.” — Hake Herbert, St. Louis Times 

“The characterization, though, is excellent, made all the more so by the painstaking work of Evelyn Brent and Louise Brooks as the sisters. The former retains sympathy without being superhumanly saintly; the later, besides being a ravishing beauty, gives a deft portrayal of an utterly selfish and superficial creature.” — Carl B. Adams, Cincinnati Enquirer

“No other person than Louise Brooks, however, instills the spice in this concoction. Decidedly the flapper she is intended to characterize, Miss Brooks uses her accomplishments to advantage. She is a capricious young lady, with a knowledge of getting what she wants when she wants it. Not so convincing are the roles taken by Evelyn Brent and Lawrence Gray.” — Leona Pollack, Omaha World Herald

“To Louise Brooks go the acting laurels of the picture.” — Louise Kreisman, UCLA Daily Bruin

“Louise Brooks as the flapper sister practically runs away with the show.” — Harry Lang, San Francisco Examiner

For more on the film, be sure and check out the newly revamped (pun intended) Love Em and Leave Em (filmography page) on the expanded 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). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.