Its the Old Army Game, with Louise Brooks, was released on this day 100 years ago in 1926

Its the Old Army Game, with Louise Brooks and W.C. Fields, was released on this day in 1926. The film is a comedy about a small town druggist (played by W.C. Fields) who gets involved with a real estate scam. Louise Brooks plays the druggist's assistant. The film was Brooks' fourth, and it reunited her with the Fields, the film's star. The two had worked together in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1925. 

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

In its review, the Newark Star-Eagle stated, “This picture not only affords a good deal of typical Fields comedy in a suitable story frame, but also reveals the possibilities of Louise Brooks, Follies girl who is making decidedly good in the cinema. . . . All told, Fields need not regret his first Paramount production. Louise Brooks, with a touch of piquancy, a good range of registration, and the conception of restraint, is pleasing as the heroine.”

It's the Old Army Game was originally announced as starring Fields and future "It girl" Clara Bow, but she was shooting Mantrap (1926), so the female lead fell to Brooks. Exhibitor’s Herald stated, “Louise Brooks is the other important person in the picture and, as insinuated rather bluntly on the occasion of her first appearance -- in The American Venus -- she’s important. Miss Brooks isn’t like anybody else. Nor has she a distinguishing characteristic which may be singled out for purposes of identification. She’s just a very definite personality. She doesn’t do much, perhaps because there isn’t much to do but probably because she hits hardest when doing nothing, but nobody looks away when she’s on screen. If Miss Glyn should say that Miss Brooks has ‘it,’ more people would know what Miss Glyn is raving about. But in that case she would not be raving.”

The Portland Oregonian noted “Louise Brooks, the pert young woman who will be remembered for her work in The American Venus and A Social Celebrity, the latter with Adolphe Menjou, has the lead role opposite Fields. She poses a bit. An excuse was found to get her into a bathing suit too, which wasn’t a bad move, on the whole.” 

It's the Old Army Game received mostly positive reviews, though some critics noted its rather thin plot. Algonquin Round Table playwright Robert E. Sherwood (who would go on to win four Pulitzer Prizes and an Academy Award) was then writing reviews for Life magazine. His pithy critique read, “Mr. Fields has to carry the entire production on his shoulders, with some slight assistance from the sparkling Louise Brooks.” Ella H. McCormick of the Detroit Free Press countered with "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."

Today, It's the Old Army Game is largely remembered as a starring vehicle for Fields -- a comedic great, It is also remembered for the fact that not long after the film wrapped, Brooks married the film's director, Eddie Sutherland.

 SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

 -- Clarence Badger was originally assigned to direct, but the film was soon turned over to Edward Sutherland, a onetime actor and Keystone Cop who began his directing career just a few years before with the help of Charlie Chaplin. The film was announced, at first, as starring W.C. Fields and future “It girl” Clara Bow, but as she was needed on the West Coast to shoot Mantrap (1926), the female lead fell to Brooks. It's the Old Army Game was the first of five Fields' films directed by Sutherland.

-- Outdoor scenes in Palm Beach, Florida were shot at El Mirasol, the estate of multi-millionaire investment banker Edward T. Stotesbury. In 1912, after having been a widower for thirty-some years, Stotesbury remarried and became the stepfather of three children including Henrietta Louise Cromwell Brooks (known simply as Louise Brooks), an American socialite and the first wife of General Douglas MacArthur. In her heyday, she was "considered one of Washington's most beautiful and attractive young women". Because of their names, the two women were sometimes confused in the press.

-- The late film historian John Bengston had written a series of posts on his Silent Locations website looking at various scenes from the film. Each are well worth checking out. They include "W.C. Fields in Palm Beach – It’s the Old Army Game" -- "It’s The Old Army Game – W.C. Fields and Louise Brooks Bring Magazines to Life" -- "It’s The Old Army Game – W.C. Fields and Louise Brooks in Ocala Florida – Part One".

-- It’s the Old Army Game was officially released May 25, 1926. The film opened in select cities on May 22, 1926, with the earliest showings taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, Hartford, Connecticut, and Indianapolis, Indiana. The film was advertised to open a few days earlier in Palm Beach, Florida (on May 18) and elsewhere, but was delayed.

More about the film can be found on the recently updated Louise Brooks Society website 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 © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.   

Windy Riley Goes Hollywood, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1931

Windy Riley Goes Hollywood, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1931. The film is a short comedy which centers on Windy Riley, a cocky blow-hard who attempts to revamp the publicity department of a Hollywood studio. The film was Louise Brooks’ first after returning from Europe, the first to feature her actual voice (Brooks’ earlier sound films, The Canary Murder Case and Prix de Beauté, had been dubbed), and her first and only short. More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society website filmography page.

The film was directed by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, who was working under the name William B. Goodrich; a blacklist on the comedian's employment in Hollywood was still in effect. Windy Riley Goes Hollywood was promoted as a behind the scenes look at the movie capital. The film’s press sheet overstated its case when it proclaimed “One of the first pictures ever showing the interior of a sound stage and the actual operation of talking pictures. . . . The actual cameras, microphones, etc., used in picture production will be shown in some of the big scenes.”

At times, story details surrounding character Betty Grey (played by Brooks) curiously parallel Brooks’ own career. Near the beginning of the film, Grey is set to star in The Box Car Mystery, a title of which calls to mind Brooks’ role in Beggars of Life. Later, while at lunch at the Montmarte (a famous Los Angles café once frequented by Brooks and others in Hollywood), Riley boasts he was responsible for the successful advertising campaign mounted by Klux Soap. In real life, Brooks was among a handful of actress who regularly appeared in print ads for Lux Soap. And, at the end of the film, it is announced that Grey will wed the director The Box Car Mystery. A few years earlier, Brooks married Eddie Sutherland, who directed her in It’s the Old Army Game.

The film's few reviews were largely negative, and the film suffered from a lack of exhibitor interest. Consequently, few likely saw Windy Riley Goes Hollywood at the time of its release. Except for a three-month period in mid-1931 when it played in Toronto, there are few records of this short film having been shown in any large cities. What exhibition records have been found suggest the film was shown as program filler in mostly smaller markets.

 In the United States and Canada, the film was on a few occasions promoted under the title Windy Riley Goes to Hollywood, and once reviewed as Windy Riley Goes into Hollywood. Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Canada, The Philippines, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (England and Scotland).

Elsewhere, Windy Riley Goes Hollywood was shown under the title The Gas Bag (United Kingdom, including England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland) and as Windy Rileyová jde Hollywood (Czechoslovakia).

 SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

-- Windy Riley Goes Hollywood, based on an original story by Ken Kling, was adapted from Kling’s comic strip Windy Riley. The New York cartoonist started the strip about a wisecracking braggart in 1928. At the time of the film's release, the strip ran in some 170 newspapers across the country.

-- Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, depressed and still working under a pseudonym because he was under an industry blacklist, directed the film. Years later, Brooks told Kevin Brownlow, "He made no attempt to direct this picture. He sat in his chair like a man dead."

-- Dell Henderson started as an actor in 1908, and was a frequent associate of director D.W. Griffith, and less so, with producer Mack Sennett. Henderson also directed nearly 200 silent films between 1911 and 1928. In the late 1920s, he returned to acting and played important supporting roles in King Vidor's The Crowd (1928) and Show People (1928). The advent of sound stalled his career, and he was thereafter cast in small parts. In the 1930s, Henderson appeared as a comic foil for W. C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy, and The Three Stooges.

-- The group of dancers seen in Windy Riley Goes Hollywood were recruited from the chorus of George Olsen’s Culver City nightclub. Olsen was a popular bandleader and recording artist married to Ethel Shutta. Her brother Jack Shutta, a stage performer making his screen debut in the title role of Windy Riley, managed Olsen's nightclub. Along with Ethel Shutta and Louise Brooks, Olsen and his orchestra performed at the Ziegfeld Follies of 1925.

-- In 1935, the Bell and Howell Company of Chicago offered Windy Riley as a Filmosound rental subject.

-- Windy Riley Goes Hollywood was the first Louise Brooks film shown on television likely anywhere in the world. The film was shown under the title Windy Riley Goes to Hollywood on November 18, 1948 on WJZ (Channel 7) in Asbury Park, New Jersey. (LINK)

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 © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.