Happy Halloween from the Louise Brooks Society

 Happy Halloween from the Louise Brooks Society! 

 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

1929 Romanian crossword puzzle featuring Louise Brooks

Can you solve this 1929 Romanian crossword puzzle featuring Louise Brooks? It was published in Realitatea Ilustrata in January 1929. It doesn't seem as though any of the clues have anything to do with the actress, but if I am wrong, please let me know.

 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

A brief note on/to the poopey-head trying to hack the Louise Brooks Society

For the last year or so, a rather pathetic individual has been attempting to hack into the Louise Brooks Society website at www.pandorasbox.com. And for the last couple of years, this human dimwit has failed time and again.

Their actions have not gone unnoticed. They use a VPN (in Russia, Singapore, Ireland and elsewhere) and attempt to login to the website using generic credentials or made-up user names. These attempts are being monitored, and, for the record, recorded for future reference. 

I can't imagine why someone would want to hack the 30 year old Louise Brooks Society. Perhaps they don't like old movies.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Diary of a Lost Girl, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1929

Diary of a Lost Girl, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in Germany in 1929. In this once controversial production, Brooks plays the title role — the “lost girl”. The film is the sensational story of a young woman who is seduced and conceives a child, only to be sent to a home for wayward women before escaping to a brothel. Beneath its melodramatic surface, the film is a pointed social critique aimed at German society. The film was controversial enough to have been withdrawn from circulation and only re-released in Germany in January, 1930.

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

Diary of a Lost Girl is the second film Brooks made under the direction of G.W. Pabst. The first, Pandora’s Box, was also released in 1929. Like Pandora’s Box, this second collaboration was also based on a famous work of literature. Diary of a Lost Girl was based on the bestselling book of the same name by Margarete Böhme. At the time of its publication, one critic called it “the poignant story of a great-hearted girl who kept her soul alive amidst all the mire that surrounded her poor body.” That summation applies to the film as well.

Böhme’s book was nothing less than a literary phenomenon. First published in 1905, it was hugely popular, and continued to sell for many years. Though issued a quarter-of-a-century earlier, European movie goers in 1929 would have known its story. In fact, German, French and Polish ads for Pabst’s film emphasized its literary origins, some even noting that Böhme’s book had sold more than 1.2 million copies. Pabst’s 1929 film, in fact, was the third cinematic adaption of Böhme’s work.

Diary of a Lost Girl debuted in Berlin on October 15, 1929. By December 5, the film had been banned by the state censor and was withdrawn from circulation. After cuts were made, the ban was lifted on January 6, 1930, and the film re-released. Diary of a Lost Girl was poorly received, not only because sound was coming in and there was diminishing interest in the silent cinema, but because the film continued to be censored and cut wherever its was shown, leaving its already problematic story in shambles.

At the time of its release, the film received many negative reviews – but for reasons which sometimes had little to do with the movie. As Brooks’ biographer Barry Paris notes, some German film critics devoted their columns to savaging Böhme’s then 25 year old book. Siegfried Kracauer, a critic at the time of the film’s release, was among them. He commented on the film in his famous 1946 book, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film, writing about the Pabst film and its literary source — “the popularity of which among the philistines of the past generation rested upon the slightly pornographic frankness with which it recounted the private life of some prostitutes from a morally elevated point of view.”

The Berlin correspondent for Variety wrote something similar, but went further: “G.W. Pabst is among the best German directors still working here but has had atrocious luck with scenarios. This one, taken from a best seller of years ago, is no exception. . . . This time he has been unfortunate in his choice of his heroine. Louise Brooks (American) is monotonous in the tragedy which she has to present.”

Though screened across Europe and in Russia, the film faded from view — and film history. Diary of a Lost Girl was not shown in the United States until the 1950s, and did not receive a theatrical release in America until the 1980s. Recent restorations, however, have brought renewed attention, and in the eyes of some critics, Diary of a Lost Girl is now considered one of the last great silent films — and the near equal of Pandora’s Box.

Under its German title, documented screenings of the film also took place in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Danzig.

Outside Germany, Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen was exhibited under the title Tres páginas de un diario (Argentina); O diário de uma perdida and Diário de uma mulher perdida and Jornal de uma perdida and Jornal de uma garota perdida (Brazil) and Diário de uma Pecadora (Brazil, 1954); Dnevnik jedne izgubljene (Croatia); Deník ztracené (Czechoslovakia) and Denník ztratenej and Dennik padleho dievcafa (Slovakia); Diario de una perdida (Ecuador); Kadotetun päiväkirja (Finland); Journal d’une fille perdue and Trois pages d’un journal (France) and Three Pages of a Daybook (France, English-language press); ΤΟ ΗΜΕΡΟΛΟΓΙΟ ΜΙΑΣ ΠΑΡΑΣΤΡΑΤΗΜΕΝΗΣ (Greece); Egy perdita naplója (Hungary); Diario di una donna perduta and Diario di una perduta and Diario di una prostituta (Italy); Diary of a Lost Soul (Japan); Das Tagebuch einer Verfuhrten and Kritušas dienasgramata and Pavestas dienas gramata (Latvia); Diario de una mujer perdida and Diario de una muchacha perdida (Mexico); Dusze bez steru and Dziennik upadley dziewczyny and Pamiętnik upadłej (Poland); Jornal de Uma Perdida (Portugal); Jurnalul unei femei pierdute (Romania); Dnevnik izgubljenke (Spain); Tres páginas de’un diario and Diari d’una perduda (Spain – Catalonia); En fallen flickas dagbok and En förlorads dagbok (Sweden); Le journal d’une fille perdue and Trois pages d’un journal (Switzerland); Bir Kadinin Guniugu and Eczacinin kizi (Turkey); Tres páginas de un diario and Diario de una perdida (Uruguay); Дневник падшей  (U.S.S.R.); Diario de una joven perdida (Venezuela).

Since the late 1950s, numerous screenings of the film have been taken place around the world, including first ever showings under the title Diary of a Lost Girl in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland), and elsewhere. The film was first shown in the United States in the late 1950s.

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— Pabst’s Diary of a Lost Girl was the third film adaption of Böhme’s bestselling book. The first was directed by Fritz Bernhardt in 1912. The second was directed by Richard Oswald in 1918. Both are considered lost films. The second version starred Erna Morena as Thymian, Reinhold Schünzel as Osdorff, Werner Krauss as Meinert, and Conrad Veidt as Dr. Julius. The film was well reviewed, but demands of the wartime censor led to cuts and even a change in its title. Once censorship was lifted after the end of WWI, scenes thought too provocative or critical of society were put back and its title restored.

— Along with Oswald’s Diary of a Lost Girl, the year 1918 also saw the release of a film based on the sequel to Böhme’s book, Dida Ibsen’s Geschichte. Also directed by Richard Oswald, the part of Dida Ibsen was played by the infamous German dancer, actress, and “performance artist” Anita Berber, with Krauss and Veidt reprising their roles. The film is extant, and was shown in Bologna in 2011.

— Elisabeth, the departing housekeeper, is played by Sybille Schmitz. She was a prominent German actress of the 30’s, and something of a tragic figure. She drank, had multiple affairs, struggled with addiction, and ended up committing suicide in 1955. The downward spiral her life took after the second World War inspired the Fassbinder film, Veronika Voss.

— The elder Count Osdorff is played by Arnold Korff. He was an Austrian stage and film actor who counted James Joyce among his friends. Korff also knew Frank Wedekind and Karl Krauss; one of Korff’s earliest roles was in the first stage production of Pandora’s Box in 1905.

— The tall blonde sitting with the young Count in the brothel is actress Elisabeth Schlichter, also known as “Speedy”. In life, she sometimes worked as a prostitute and was married to Rudolf Schlichter, an important Dada artist and key member of the New Objectivity movement — to which Pabst’s film-making was allied.

— The sausage vendor, who we first see out on the street and who leads Thymian to the brothel, is played by Hans Casparius. He had a bit part in Pandora’s Box, but is best known as a German photographer of the twenties and thirties who was noted for his street photography.

— Otto Stenzeel (1903-1989) is credited for the music for Diary of a Lost Girl. He composed music for films from 1926 through 1930; among his best known efforts is the music for Menschen am Sonntag / People on Sunday (1930). In the 1930’s under the name Otto Stenzel, he led the orchestra at the Berlin Scala, one of the largest revue theaters in Germany. He also led his own swing-style dance band and made a number of recordings, including a Tango with with the Spanish-born Juan Llossas, who has an uncredited role in Diary of a Lost Girl as the leader of the small combo playing in the corner of the nightclub.

— In 1961, John Huston was beginning work on a biopic about Sigmund Freud. In an archive of correspondence about the film, Huston’s longtime assistant Ernie Anderson wrote to the director that Sigmund Freud had no involvement with the making of Diary of a Lost Girl.

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

Now We're in the Air, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1927

Now We're in the Air, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1927. The film, once thought lost, is a comedy about two fliers (a pair of “aero-nuts” called “looney Lindberghs”) who wander on to a World War I battle field near the front lines. The film was one of a number of aviation-themed stories shot in 1927 (following Lindbergh’s historic solo flight across the Atlantic), as well as one in a popular series of “service comedies” pairing Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton. Louise Brooks plays the unusual role of twin sisters, one raised French and one raised German, named Griselle & Grisette, who are the love interest of the two fliers.

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

Arguably, Now We’re in the Air was the most popular American silent in which Brooks appeared. Generally liked by the critics, the film did big box office where ever it showed. In New York City, it enjoyed an extended run, as it did in San Francisco, where it  proved to be one of the biggest hits of the year. At a time when most new releases played only one week, Now We’re in the Air ran for more than a month in San Francisco, where it was extended due to robust ticket sales. In Boston, it also did well, opening simultaneously in five theaters in the area. The Boston Evening Transcript noted, “most of the audience at the Washington Street Olympia this week were so moved by mirth that they were close to tears. Presumably the experience has been the same at the Scollay Square Olympia, the Fenway, the Capitol in Allston and the Central Square in Cambridge.” Newspapers in other large cities like Atlanta, Georgia and St. Louis, Missouri reported a similar reception.

The New Orleans Item noted, “The added feature of Now We’re in the Air is the presence of Louise Brooks as the heroine. One of the cleverest of the new stars, she has immense ability to appear ‘dumb’ but like those early Nineteenth Century actresses, commended by Chas. Lamb, she makes the spectators realize that she is only playing at being dumb.” Radie Harris of the New York Morning Telegraph wrote, “Louise Brooks is seen as the feminine lead. She essays the role of twins. Which, if you know Louise, is mighty satisfactory. She is decorative enough to admire once, but when you are allowed the privilege of seeing her double, the effect is devastating.” The Boston Post added, “You see there are pretty twin sisters, Grisette and Griselle, both played by the fetching Louise Brooks, who marry Wally and Ray, who cannot tell their wives apart except by their dogs, one a poodle, one a dachshund.”

The dual role played by Brooks made the film for many critics. Curran D. Swint of the San Francisco News stated, “Both the hulking and ungainly Beery and the cocky little Hatton give goofingly good accounts of themselves. Then there is Louise Brooks. She’s the girl — or the girls — in the case, for Louise is twins in the story, and about this fact much of the comedy is woven.” Across town, A. F. Gillaspey of the San Francisco Bulletin added, “Louise Brooks is the leading woman of this picture. She appears as the twin sisters. This results in some remarkable and very interesting double exposures.”

Mae Tinee, the Chicago Tribune critic who seemed to always champion Brooks, put it this way, “Louise Brooks as twins, is — are — a beautiful foil for the stars and if you think she doesn’t marry both of them before the picture ends, why, cogitate again, my darlings.”

In America’s non-English language newspapers and magazines, Now We’re in the Air was generally advertised under its American title. However, in the Spanish-language press of the time, including the New York City-based Cine-Mundial, as well as the Paramount Spanish-language house organ Mensajero Paramount, the film was promoted under the title Reclutas por los Aires. In Portuguese-language newspapers in the United States, the film was advertised under the title Agora Estamos no Ar.

Under its American title, Now We’re in the Air, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, India, Ireland, Jamaica, New Zealand, South Africa, and the British Isles (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, and Scotland). Elsewhere, this motion picture was known to have been shown under other-language titles including Deux Braves Poltrons (Algeria); Dos tiburones en el aire (Argentina); Riff und Raff als Luftschiffer (Austria); Nous sommes dans les air (Belgium); Dois aguias no ar (Brazil); Reclutas por los Aires (Chile); Ted my jsme ve vzduchu and Rif a Raf, Piloti (Czechoslovakia) and Riff a Raff strelci (Slovakia); To muntre Spioner (Denmark); Nüüd, meie oleme õhus and Riffi ja Raffi õiged nimed (Estonia); Sankareita Ilmassa and Hjaltar i luften (Finland); Deux Braves Poltrons (France); Riff und Raff als Luftschiffer (Germany); O Riff kai o Raff aeroporoi (Greece); Megfogtam a kemét! or Riff és Raff (Hungary); Katu Njosnararnir (Iceland); Nou Vliegen We (Dutch East Indies / Indonesia); Aviatori per forza and Aviatori … per forza and Ed eccoci aviatori (Italy); Yagi and Kita in the Air and 弥次喜多空中の巻 (Japan); Reclutas por los aires (Mexico); Hoerawe vliegen and Hoera! We Vliegen (Netherlands); Luftens Spioner (Norway); Riff i Raff jako Lotnicy (Poland); Recrutas Aviadores (Portugal); Riff es Raffal a foszerepekben (Romania); Reclutas por los Aires (Spain); Hjältar i luften (Sweden); Deux Braves Poltrons (Switzerland).

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— Early on, William Wellman, James Cruze and even Mauritz Stiller were announced as the director for Now We’re in the Air. Among cast members who were announced but did not appear in the film were Ford Sterling and Zasu Pitts. An outline (by Tom J. Geraghty) and a treatment (by John F. Goodrich) for the film were completed as early as February 2, 1927.

— Frank R. Strayer (1891 – 1964) who was assigned as director, was an actor, film writer, and producer. He was active from the mid-1920s until the early 1950s. Strayer is credited with having directed 86 films, including 13 movies in the series based on the Blondie and Dagwood comic strip.

— Now We’re in the Air cinematographer Harry Perry also worked on two other notable aviation pictures, Wings (1927) and Hell’s Angels (1930). He was nominated for an Academy Award at the 3rd Academy Awards for his work on the latter.

— Fifteen airplanes were hired for the making of the film, including a 76-foot Martin bomber which was deliberately wrecked for one of the film’s “big thrill scenes.”

— Though a silent, Now We’re in the Air continued to be shown into the early sound era. In January, 1930 it was screened in Fairbanks, Alaska and in December, 1931 it was screened in the Darwin in Northern Territory, Australia.

— The first ever book on the film, Now We're in the Air: A Companion to the Once Lost Film, was published by the Louise Brooks Society in 2017. The book is authored by LBS Director Thomas Gladysz, and features a foreword by film preservationist Robert Byrne.  (Purchase on amazon.)

 
More about Now We're in the Air can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its Now We're in the Air (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 content copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

Pandora's Box, starring Louise Brooks, screens with classical music accompaniment

Pandora's Box, the sensational German silent starring Louise Brooks, will be shown on October 29th at Muziekgebouw in The Netherlands with classical music accompaniment featuring Olga Pashchenko at the piano. More about this event can be found HERE.

This special screening is part of a series, Film and Live Music, which offers new live score for classic and modern films. The musical accompaniment, compiled by Jed Wentz, will feature musical selections from Fréderic Chopin, Louis Durey, César Franck, Charles Gounod, Edvard Grieg, Gustav Holst, Arthur Honegger, Franz Liszt, Bohuslav Martinů, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Albert Roussel, Erik Satie, Erwin Schulhoff and Germaine Tailleferre. 

The event description reads: "Old or young, man or woman: whoever meets the unconventional, free-spirited Lulu falls for her disarming charm. Her impulsive behaviour not only brings ruin to those who love her, but ultimately seals her own doom. Louise Brooks delivers a stunning performance as the enigmatic Lulu in Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora’s Box), the film that catapulted her to international stardom and cemented her status as a silent film icon. 

Brooks’ natural acting style, unusual at the time, made her ideal for the role of Lulu. In this performance, her spontaneous energy is mirrored by the passionate piano playing of Olga Pashchenko. She performs a score compiled by Jed Wentz from works by composers popular at the time of the film’s release. Director Georg Wilhelm Pabst based the film on Frank Wedekind’s two-part play Erdgeist / Die Büchse der Pandora that also served as the inspiration for Alban Berg’s opera Lulu."

This is an event not to be missed. 

SOME MUSICAL TRIVIA:

— When Pabst’s Pandora’s Box debuted in Berlin in 1929, an orchestra accompanied the film. This musical accompaniment — in the form of either a formal score or informal arrangement of pre-existing compositions, was attributed to Willy Schmidt-Genter in at least a couple of publications, namely Lichtbild-Buhne (on February 16) and Reichsfilmblatt (on February 23). Each expressed reservations concerning Schmidt-Genter’s overall approach. Besides it being an orchestral accompaniment, little else is known about the music except that it included musical passages from two noted German composers, Richard Strauss (the third main theme from Don Juan) and Gottfried Huppertz (a passage from the music for Fritz Lang’s Der Nibelungen).

— The jazz combo playing during the wedding scene was an actual group known as Sid Kay’s Fellows. Founded in 1926 and led by Sigmund Petruschka (“Sid”) and Kurt Kaiser (“Kay”), Sid Kay’s Fellows were a popular ten member dance band based in Berlin. Notably, they performed at the Haus Vaterland (a leading Berlin night-spot) between 1930 and 1932. And in 1933, they accompanied the great American jazz musician Sidney Bechet during his recitals in the German capitol. Sid Kay’s Fellows also accompanied various theatrical performances and at various times played in Munich, Dresden, Frankfurt, Vienna, Budapest, Barcelona and elsewhere. The group’s inclusion in Pandora’s Box predates their career as recording artists. In 1933, when the Nazis came to power, Sid Kay’s Fellows were forbidden to perform publicly. They disbanded, and transformed themselves into a studio orchestra and made recordings for the Jewish label Lukraphon. For more about the group, see the April 29, 2012 Louise Brooks Society blog “Music in Pandora’s Box: Sid Kay’s Fellows” and the October 20, 2012 blog, “More on Sid Kay’s Fellows“. [Notably, director G.W. Pabst included a different jazz combo, lead by Juan Llossas, in his next film, The Diary of a Lost Girl.]

— Pandora’s Box was shown now and then in Germany in the early 1930s. In particular, it was shown in Frankfurt am Main in September, 1933 at a screening attended by the composer Alban Berg, who would go on to write an opera, Lulu, based on Wedekind’s plays. (read more) 

— While living near the George Eastman House, Brooks researched various movies, including Pandora’s Box. She also watched the film, likely for the first time. Sometime later, Brooks created a  “score” for Pandora’s Box when she compiled a list of 78 rpm recordings of classical music selected to accompany the film.   

For more about Pandora's Box, please visit the newly revised Pandora's Box filmography page on the 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 content copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Kevin Brownlow series at Film Forum

Film Forum in New York City has scheduled a two week series of films honoring Kevin Brownlow, the great silent film historian, filmmaker and archivist. The series will include live musical accompaniment, multiple special introductions, and more -- including a screening of Brownlow's 5 1/2 hour restoration of Abel Gance's Napoleon (1927) -- the first in New York City in 40 years! This is an event not to be missed. More about the series, which runs October 24 through November 6, can be found on the Film Forum website HERE.

Kevin Brownlow (far left) with silent film star Baby Peggy, film archivist
David Shepard and film historian Leonard Maltin in 2010.
Photo © by Thomas Gladysz

Without a doubt, Kevin Brownlow is the single most important person in the history of the history of silent film. He is also the only film historian to be given an Honorary Oscar. Martin Scorsese described Brownlow as "A giant among film historians... you might say Mr. Brownlow is film history." It's true. Here is what the Film Forum says about this very special event. 

At 30, filmmaker and editor Kevin Brownlow revolutionized film books with The Parade’s Gone By, a pathbreaking history of silent movies, soon followed by other important works, including the greatest of all cinema documentaries, among them the multi-award-winning television series Hollywood and Cinema Europe, and unsurpassed profiles of Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Griffith, Garbo, et al. A passionate collector and restorer of lost silents—most famously, Abel Gance’s 5½ hour epic NAPOLEON—Brownlow, with partners David Gill and Patrick Stanbury, has presented “Live Cinema” events, featuring new orchestral scores composed and conducted by close collaborator Carl Davis. In 2010, Mr. Brownlow was given a special Academy Award® for his “wise and devoted chronicling of the cinematic parade,” and, in 2018, TCM’s Robert Osborne Award, “for keeping classic films alive and thriving for generations to come.” This series includes Mr. Brownlow’s own films, those he was instrumental in restoring, and some that influenced and inspired him. Selected screenings will be followed by excerpts from his documentaries.

Presented with generous support from The Robert Jolin Osborne Endowed Fund for American Classic Cinema of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s and The Ira M. Resnick Foundation

Among the films to be shown as part of this series is Pandora's Box (1929), starring Louise Brooks. The film will be screened twice, on Wednesday, October 29 and Saturday, November 1. Besides being a unsurpassed champion of silent film, Kevin Brownlow has also been a long time champion of Louise Brooks.  He befriended her in the late 1960’s, they corresponded for many years (reportedly some 200 letters), and she was included (somewhat prominently) in three of Brownlow’s most significant works -- the groundbreaking book The Parade’s Gone By (1968), the seminal 13 part filmed history of the American silent cinema, Hollywood (1979), and the also remarkable 3 part history of European silent film, Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (1996). Be sure to track down whatever books and documentaries you can. Each is a gem.

(left) The Parade's Gone By --- (right) Thomas Gladysz and Kevin Brownlow

As noted, The Parade’s Gone By is widely considered the single most important history of silent film. And thus, it’s a notable that this book contains a note of thanks by Brownlow which reads, “I owe an especial debt to Louise Brooks for acting as a prime mover in this book’s publication.”

Kevin Brownlow has, as well, been a longtime friend to the Louise Brooks Society. I have met him a number of times, and been to his London apartment. He has also answered questions and provided notes and information on a number of occasions, and, he wrote the foreword to the 2023 Louise Brooks Society publication, The Street of Forgotten Men: From Story to Screen and Beyond. He is always generous, always helpful.

But enough about me. Here is the line-up of films for the Kevin Brownlow series at the Film Forum in New York City, courtesy of the Film Forum program.

 

Search this blog (in the upper left hand corner) for more about Louise Brooks and Kevin Brownlow. 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Reminder, Pandora's Box screens in Wichita, Kansas on October 14

A reminder that the classic 1929 silent film, Pandora's Box, will be shown in Wichita, Kansas on Tuesday, October 14th at 7 pm. This special screening will be accompanied by Donnie Rankin on the Mighty Wurlitzer. This event is sponsored by the Tallgrass Film Festival and Wichita Wurlitzer. More information HERE.

The film will be screened at the Century II Exhibition Hall. Tickets are on sale and may be purchased HERE.   

UPDATE: A local TV news story about the organ at cab be found HERE. 

More information about the celebrated G. W. Pabst film can be found on the acclaimed and recently expanded Pandora's Box (filmography page) on the 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 content copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Beggars of Life, starring Louise Brooks, screens in the UK with live musical accompaniment by The Dodge Brothers

Beggars of Life, starring Louise Brooks, will be shown on Thursday November 6th at the York Theater Royal in York, England with live musical accompaniment by the one and only Dodge Brothers! This special event is part of the Aesthetica Film Festival. More information about this event can be found HERE.

And here is a piece which appeared in the Ryedale Gazette & Herald. 

“Never has a film and a band been more perfectly matched than Beggars of Life and
the Dodge Brothers – deep dish Americana, rail-riding hoboes and Louise Brooks –
 they were made for each other.” – Bryony Dixon, British Film Institute.

 

“I thought the Dodge Brothers were terrific, and Beggars of Life could hardly have been
received more enthusiastically.” – Kevin Brownlow, Oscar honoree

Here is what the venue says about the event: "Experience a dazzling collision of classic cinema and live music as The Dodge Brothers bring their acclaimed live score to Beggars of Life (1928), a landmark American silent film starring Louise Brooks.

With renowned film critic and BBC presenter Mark Kermode on double bass and harmonica, and joined by the extraordinary Neil Brand – celebrated silent film accompanist and star of BBC Four’s Sound of Cinema – on piano, this electrifying ensemble transforms a black-and-white masterpiece into a full-blooded cinematic event.

Rounding out the lineup are Mike Hammond, a gifted Alabama-born guitarist and vocalist with deep roots in Southern Americana traditions, and Alex Hammond, whose percussion brings the rhythm of jug band, skiffle, and rockabilly roaring into the present. The band also features Aly Hirji on rhythm guitar and mandolin, adding even more richness to the sound.

Fusing blues, bluegrass, gospel, jug band, and rockabilly with infectious energy and razor-sharp timing, The Dodge Brothers breathe thrilling new life into this gritty tale of train-hopping outsiders and Depression-era America. Whether performing at Glastonbury, Latitude, or on screen via BBC Radio 2, The Culture Show and The One Show, The Dodge Brothers have built a cult following for their foot-stomping sound and genre-defying performances. Their live scores are hailed by critics as “a revelation,” combining academic insight and raw musical power. This is silent cinema as you’ve never experienced it — urgent, raw, loud and alive." 

The Dodge Brothers have accompanied Beggars of Life on a number of occasions, including most famously, at the Glastonbury music festival, where the group was the first to play live music to accompany a silent film. For more on the Dodge Brothers, check out this 2014 Huffington Post article by Thomas Gladysz on the group's historic performance appearance -- "A Glastonbury First."

Also, the Louise Brooks Society blog includes a short 2011 interview with the band, "Talking with The Dodge Brothers."

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

Diary of a Lost Girl with Louise Brooks + Book Signing with Daniel Kehlmann at MoMi

Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), starring Louise Brooks, will be shown in at the Museum of the Moving Image on Saturday October 19th. This early afternoon screening is being shown as part of the MoMi's ongoing Silent, Please series.  More information about this screening, which will take place at the Redstone Theater and which will feature live musical accompaniment, can be found HERE.

Diary of a Lost Girl + Book Signing with Daniel Kehlmann
Sunday, Oct 19, 2025 at 1:00 p.m.
Featuring live piano accompaniment by Makia Matsumura 

Here is what the venue had to say about this event: "Like American star Louise Brooks and German director G. W. Pabst’s previous collaboration Pandora’s Box, this sensational and dazzling melodrama is one of the great German films of the silent era. The ever-incandescent Brooks plays the innocent pharmacist’s daughter, Thymian, who experiences corruption and abuse before finding spiritual and social liberation. The screening will be followed by a discussion and book signing with best-selling Daniel Kehlmann, whose acclaimed new book The Director (Summit), was inspired by the life of Pabst, who later would flee to Hollywood to resist the Nazis only to return to his homeland to create propaganda films for the German Reich. Kehlmann’s The Director was a Late Show with Stephen Colbert Book Club Pick and was called “nothing short of brilliant” by The Wall Street Journal."

Director G. W. Pabst. 1929, 110 mins. Germany. 35mm. 
With Louise Brooks, Fritz Rasp, André Roanne, Josef Rovensky.  

For more information about Diary of a Lost Girl, be sure and visit the Louise Brooks Society filmography page devoted to the film. Otherwise, here is a bit of trivia about this classic film.

— Pabst’s Diary of a Lost Girl was the third film adaption of Margarete Böhme’s bestselling book. The first was directed by Fritz Bernhardt in 1912. The second was directed by Richard Oswald in 1918. Both are considered lost films. The second version starred Erna Morena as Thymian, Reinhold Schünzel as Osdorff, Werner Krauss as Meinert, and Conrad Veidt as Dr. Julius. The film was well reviewed, but demands of the wartime censor led to cuts and even a change in its title. Once censorship was lifted after the end of WWI, scenes thought too provocative or critical of society were put back and its title restored.

–– Diary of a Lost Girl made its German debut in Berlin on October 15, 1929. By December 5, the film had been banned by the German state censor and was withdrawn from circulation. After cuts were made, the ban was lifted on January 6, 1930. In this censored form, it played across Europe and the Soviet Union. One cine-club in Madrid screened it as late as 1933. Diary of a Lost Girl was not screened in the United States until the 1950s.

— Otto Stenzeel (1903-1989) is credited for the music for Diary of a Lost Girl. He composed music for films from 1926 through 1930; among his best known efforts is the music for Menschen am Sonntag / People on Sunday (1930). In the 1930’s under the name Otto Stenzel, he led the orchestra at the Berlin Scala, one of the largest revue theaters in Germany. He also led his own swing-style dance band and made a number of recordings, including a Tango with with the Spanish-born Juan Llossas, who has an uncredited role in Diary of a Lost Girl as the leader of the small combo playing in the corner of the nightclub. 

 

The 1929 Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl, is based on a controversial and bestselling book first published in Germany in 1905. Though little known today, it was a literary sensation at the beginning of the 20th century. By the end of the 1920s, it had been translated into 14 languages and sold more than 1,200,000 copies - ranking it among the bestselling books of its time.

Was it - as many believed - the real-life diary of a young woman forced by circumstance into a life of prostitution? Or a sensational and clever fake, one of the first novels of its kind? This contested work - a work of unusual historical significance as well as literary sophistication - inspired a sequel, a play, a parody, a score of imitators, and two silent films. The best remembered of these is the oft revived G.W. Pabst film starring Louise Brooks.

Want to learn even more? Back in 2010, the Louise Brooks Society published the "Louise Brooks edition" of Margarete Bohme's The Diary of a Lost Girl, the book the film was based on. It's a sensational read. Order your copy today at amazon.com 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.