The Louise Brooks Society page devoted to coming attraction slides has been updated. I've added a bit of new information, re-arranged a couple of slides, and added a link to a must view video, which I have also embedded below.
What are coming attraction slides? The answer, simply put, is that they were the equivalent of today's previews or trailers. During the silent and early sound era era, glass slides were projected in theaters as a means of alerting the audience to a venue’s future offerings, or coming attraction.
The Louise Brooks Society page devoted to coming attraction slides collects examples of slides for every one of the actress' American silent and sound films -- except It Pays to Advertise and Windy Riley Goes Hollywood. There are 38 slides shown. There are also scans of placeholder images for Evening Clothes (variant slide), as well as God's Gift to Women and When You're in Love. I don't know if there were slides created for any of Brooks' three European films. As of today, none have turned up.
If you are interested in coming attraction slides, the one site you simply MUST VISIT is Robert Byrne's Starts Thursday. It is an amazing site which contains an informative history of coming attraction slides, as well examples of more than 11,000+ beautifully scanned slides. One could spend days looking at the many different slides. And yes, these are a number of examples of Louise Brooks related slides, including some not pictured here. The history of glass slides was surveyed by Byrne in 2026 in an video talk presented by the San Francisco Film Preserve. It can be found on YouTube HERE. Also well worth a visit is the Coming Attraction Lantern Slides (W. Ward Marsh collection) at the Cleveland Public Library. Though a smaller collection, it is a treasure trove of imagery collected by Marsh, a Cleveland newspaper critic who also happened to have reviewed a number of Brooks' film for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. And for a little more background, there is this 2014 article on SLATE.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment