Film Forum in New York City has announced the launched of a weekly series devoted to "Screen Deco." The series, which starts today, runs every Monday through January 1. And what's more, the series will include a Louise Brooks film exemplifying the deco aesthetic, God's Gift to Women (1931) directed by Michael Curtiz (oops I mean) Pandora's Box (1929), directed by G. W. Pabst. The screening for the 1929 German classic will take place on November 4th and it will feature an in-person introduction by author Daniel Kehlmann, whose recent novel, The Director, was inspired by the life of G.W. Pabst. (Louise Brooks is a character in the novel as well.) More information about this new series can be found HERE.
“If movies promised life, liberty, and the pursuit of riches,
then Art Deco provided the perfect setting.”
– Howard Mandelbaum and Eric Myers, Screen Deco: A Celebration of High Style in Hollywood
Here is what the Film Forum website has to say about this new series.
"Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs and Industriels Modernes in Paris, which introduced this revolutionary new design movement to the world, the festival includes over 25 films from the 1920s and 1930s, all stellar examples of movies designed in the style now known as Art Deco, a term not coined until the 1960s.
Festival highlights include silents OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS, with Joan Crawford, the first Hollywood movie with extensive Deco production design; A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS, with Greta Garbo; PANDORA’S BOX, with Louise Brooks; and the insanely Deco French film L’INHUMAINE. Pre-Code movies in the festival include Michael Curtiz’s FEMALE; Edgar G. Ulmer’s THE BLACK CAT, with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi; William Wyler’s COUNSELLOR AT LAW, with John Barrymore; GRAND HOTEL, with Garbo and Barrymore; Ernst Lubitsch’s ONE HOUR WITH YOU and TROUBLE IN PARADISE; the Busby Berkeley musical FOOTLIGHT PARADE, with James Cagney, Ruby Keeler, and Dick Powell; INTERNATIONAL HOUSE, with W.C. Fields, Burns & Allen, and Cab Calloway; and TOP HAT, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and many others.
Says festival curator Bruce Goldstein, Film Forum’s Repertory Artistic Director, “Art Deco was introduced to Hollywood movies with a vengeance by MGM’s supervising art director Cedric Gibbons – the only studio designer to have attended the Paris exhibition – in the Joan Crawford silent OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS, the opening film in our series. ‘Moderne’ remained a predominant style in Hollywood until World War II. But it’s the racy Pre-Code era that fits it like a silver lamé gown.”
In their book Screen Deco: A Celebration of Hollywood High Style, co-authors Howard Mandelbaum and Eric Myers write, “Art Deco encompasses everything from the ornate zigzags of the movement’s infancy in the early 20s through the stripped-down, streamlined geometric forms of 30s Moderne. It was closely allied to the fantasies of wealth and elegance in America between the wars. Naturally, it was right at home in Hollywood.” As part of the festival, Mr. Mandelbaum and Mr. Myers will present a 50-minute illustrated presentation on the history of Art Deco in movies on Monday, November 24 at 7:30.
Other special guests in the festival include author and film critic Molly Haskell; Scott Eyman, author of a new biography of Joan Crawford; author and playwright Gray Horan, great niece of Greta Garbo; Casey Lalonde, grandson of Joan Crawford; Daniel Kehlmann, author of The Director, a new novel inspired by PANDORA’S BOX director G.W. Pabst; Kim Luperi and Danny Reid, co-authors of a new TCM book on Pre-Code movies; pianist and musicologist Peter Mintun, a specialist of music of the 1920s and 30s; Linda Zagaria of the Art Deco Society of New York; and Shane Fleming, a 21-year-old film historian, collector and archivist, who recently discovered a lost film featuring Ginger Rogers in her debut.
Two presentations by Goldstein, originally delivered at editions of the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, will accompany the Thursday, November 27, 7:00 screening of FOOTLIGHT PARADE and the Sunday, December 7, 3:40 screening of INTERNATIONAL HOUSE.
SCREEN DECO is presented in association with the Art Deco Society of New York."
Pictured above is a publicity still of Louise Brooks in her most deco film, God's Gift to Women, which was directed by Michael Curtiz. It's a talkie from 1931, and enjoyable to watch. And, it features the adorable "Sisters G". God's Gift to Women is available on DVD.
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