New DVD of Beggars of Life starring Louise Brooks

On January 16th, Grapevine Video released Beggars of Life (1928), a new digital transfer of the acclaimed silent film starring Louise Brooks, Wallace Beery and Richard Arlen.

Directed by William Wellman following his work on Wings (the first film to win an Academy Award), this new version looks good, and is a big improvement on previously available VHS, DVD, and online versions of the movie (which have often looked dark). The Grapevine release is a DVD-R running 83 minutes with tinting and an all new orchestra score by Jack Hardy.

 
Without a doubt, Beggars of Life is worth watching as the best surviving American film starring Louise Brooks.

Upcoming event: On May 4th, Film Forum in New York City is set to screen Beggars of Life with actor William Wellman Jr., author of a forthcoming biography of his father, Wild Bill Wellman: Hollywood Rebel (Pantheon), providing the introduction.

New DVD features 1931 Louise Brooks' film Windy Riley Goes Hollywood

Alpha Video has released volume 3 in its DVD series devoted to "Ultra Rare Sound Shorts." This installment, which retails for only $7.98, is described as a "collection of hilarious sound shorts from the vaults of Hollywood."

I haven't seen this recent release yet, though I hope to get a copy sometime soon. The three films found on this budget release are:

Love Your Neighbor (1930): Mrs. Brown is admitted into a leading social club whose motto is "Do A Good Deed A Day." During her acceptance speech she manages to make mortal enemies with the wife of her husband's biggest client. Starring Charlotte Greenwood, Lloyd Hamilton, Wilfred Lucas and Dot Farley. Directed by William Watson.

One Yard To Go (1930): Red Gable All-American sits on the sideline during the big game because his coach thinks he's too love sick over his recent romantic break-up to play. With the game on the line, coach relents and sends in Red to save the day. Rushing for the winning touchdown he suddenly fumbles the ball when over the loudspeaker comes the voice of the very girl who broke his heart! Starring Bobby Vernon, Marjorie Beebe, Frank Eastman, Cyril Chadwick and Dot Farley. Directed by William Beaudine.

Windy Riley Goes Hollywood (1931): Race promoter Windy Riley kidnaps a movie star to create a publicity scandal and win himself a job in a Hollywood studio. His ill-conceived scheme goes terribly wrong. Starring Louise Brooks and Jack Shutta. Directed by William Goodrich (Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle).

Please note: This product is made-on-demand by the manufacturer using DVD-R recordable media. Almost all DVD players can play DVD-Rs (except for some older models made before 2000) - please consult your owner's manual for formats compatible with your player. These DVD-Rs may not play on all computers or DVD player/recorders. To address this, the manufacturer recommends viewing this product on a DVD player that does not have recording capability.

Diary of a Lost Girl on Blu-Ray

The 1929 Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl, has just been released on Blu-ray by Eureka in the UK. This is the film's first ever Blu-ray release. I haven't seen it yet, so can't speak to the quality of the film's presentation nor its accompanying booklet. [An extensive critique can be found here.] The following text comes from the Eureka website.

"A masterwork of the German silent cinema whose reputation has only increased over time, Diary of a Lost Girl [Tagebuch einer Verlorenen] traces the journey of a young woman from the pit of despair to the moment of personal awakening. Directed with virtuoso flair by the great G. W. Pabst, Diary of a Lost Girl represents the final pairing of the filmmaker with screen icon Louise Brooks, mere months after their first collaboration in the now-legendary Pandora’s Box [Die Büchse der Pandora].

Brooks plays Thymian Henning, an unprepossessing young woman seduced by an unscrupulous and mercenary character employed at her father’s pharmacy (played with gusto by Fritz Rasp, the degenerate villain of such Fritz Lang classics as Metropolis, Spione, and Frau im Mond). 

After Thymian gives birth to his child and rejects her family’s expectations for marriage, the baby is stripped from her care, and Thymian enters a purgatorial reform school that seems less an institute of higher learning than a conduit for fulfilling the headmistress’s sadistic sexual fantasies. 

The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present this glorious restoration of an iconic German film for the first time anywhere on Blu-ray."

• New high-definition 1080p presentation of the film on the Blu-ray
• Original German intertitles with optional English subtitles
• Piano score of Javier Pérez de Aspeitia
• New and exclusive video essay by filmmaker and critic David Cairns
• 40-PAGE BOOKLET including writing by Louise Brooks, Lotte Eisner, Louelle Interim, Craig Keller, and R. Dixon Smith

Louise Brooks Society :: shop for books and movies and more

Canary Murder Case released on DVD in Italy

Yesterday, I reported on the forthcoming release of Overland Stage Raiders (1938). Louise Brooks last film will be released on DVD and BluRay in early October. The release of Overland Stage Raiders by Olive Films marks the first time this B-western starring John Wayne will be available on DVD.

Now come word that another hard-to-come-by Brooks' film, The Canary Murder Case (1929), will be or already has been released on DVD in Italy.

Some books and DVDs

Spin the carousel!

Wishing and hoping

Happy Holidays to Louise Brooks' many fans all over the world!

We all wish for things - especially around the holidays. That's why I posted a new article at examiner.com about just that - what we all wish for, what we all want - more DVD's featuring Louise Brooks!

It seems to me that too many of her best films have not been properly restored and released on DVD. Some of my "fantasy" releases are detailed at this new article at http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-7605-SF-Silent-Movie-Examiner~y2009m12d23-What-we-want-for-Christmas---  Please check it out if you have a chance. And maybe, just maybe, someone at some company like Kino, or Milestone, or Criterion, or Flicker Alley, or Facets or wherever will read this piece and issue a new DVD with lots of good bonus material.

I think Louise Brooks deserves to have all of her films released on DVD. Don't you?

Lately, I have spent some time tinkering with this blog. I have added a whole bunch of related links to other websites and other blogs of interest. I also added a nifty widget so fans of the Louise Brooks and the LBS can listed to RadioLulu while they read this blog or surf the net. The new RadioLulu widget is located in the left hand column of this page.

There are now, as well, links to other worthwhile internet radio stations which play vintage music - as well as an rss feed to my articles on silent film from examiner.com.

Cheers! And lets all hope that 2010 will be a good year for new releases featuring Louise Brooks!

Best DVDs of 2009

For those interested, I posted an article on examiner.com highlighting what I consider the "Best DVD's of 2009." Of course, I focused the list on films originally issued during the silent era - or there about. If you care to take look, the article can be found at http://www.examiner.com/x-7605-SF-Silent-Movie-Examiner~y2009m12d21-Best-DVDs-of-2009

Secrets of a Soul

Secrets of a Soul, a G.W. Pabst film made just three years before Pandora's Box, is coming to DVD in February. Kino will release the film around mid-month. Here is the product description:

A Psychoanalytic Thriller Restored by the Munich Film Museum and the F.W. Murnau Foundation. In the 1920s, film studios around the world sought to capitalize on the public s curiosity about the newborn science of psychoanalysis. In 1925, Hans Neumann (of Ufa s Kulturfilm office) contacted members of Sigmund Freud s inner circle with a plan to make a dramatic film that explores the mystifying process of the interpretation of dreams. With the help of noted psychologists Karl Abraham and Hanns Sachs, and under the direction of G.W. Pabst (Pandora s Box), SECRETS OF A SOUL was completed. Werner Krauss, who had played the deranged Dr. Caligari six years earlier, stars as a scientist who is tormented by an irrational fear of knives and the irresistible compulsion to murder his wife. Driven to the brink of madness by fantastic nightmares (designed by Ernö Metzner and photographed by Guido Seeber in a brilliant mix of expressionism and surrealism), he encounters a psychoanalyst who offers to treat the perplexing malady.

New Louise Brooks DVD

It looks like Diary of a Lost Girl will be released on DVD in the UK. The releasing company - Eureka Entertainment Ltd - has set a release date of May 21st. The run time is 115 minutes - pretty much the same length as the American DVD release on Kino. The package includes a 16 page booklet featuring an essay by R. Dixon Smith, vintage photographs, and more. I haven't seen it yet - this is info I found on the internet. [ An essay by R. Dixon Smith - "The Miracle of Louise Brooks" - can be found here. ]

Pandora's Box makes the Top 10

Pandora's Box was listed among the top 10 DVD's of 2006 by Jeremy Osgood in the Chattanooga Pulse, (the alternative weekly serving Chattanooga, Tennessee). The Pulse noted, "Louise Brooks is utterly seductive as Lulu in this film from 1929, proving you don’t need sound to be sexy." This disc has sure been getting a lot of reviews.

I have also heard from an individual that the two copies of the DVD that he bought on-line were defective. Has anyone had a similar problem ?

Audiophile Audition

A review of the new Criterion DVD of Pandora's Box has appeared on the Audiophile Audition website. The review can be found here. The review starts by noting that G.W. Pabst's masterpiece of sexual suggestion "May be both most important film of the black-helmeted screen vixen as well as the most important German silent film."

Movie review: 'Pandora's Box'

Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune gave Pandora's Box four stars in his review of the film in today's paper. Interestingly, the article also noted the film's "implied perversion."

Few movie goddesses can break your heart like saucy, black-banged Louise Brooks, whose centennial comes this year and whose best film and performance, as Lulu in G.W. Pabst's "Pandora's Box," plays this weekend at the Music Box Theatre, in a new print.

If you've never seen Brooks--or "Pandora's Box"--you've missed one of the most extraordinary personalities and films of the silent movie era. Brooks' life story is remarkable in itself. She was an American actress and dancer from Kansas who had starred for directors Howard Hawks and William Wellman by the time she was 22, then became famous and scandalous in Germany for her two films with Pabst ("Pandora's Box" and "Diary of a Lost Girl"), only to see her Hollywood star career collapse at the dawn of the sound era. A few decades later, when her career was over and the films were revived, she achieved and then held her present legendary status. She died in 1985.

How did Brooks survive the buffets of fate and fame? She was no careerist obviously. But she was a stunner--one of those personalities who can explode off the screen, with a piquant energy and dazzling smile that, in the end, broke down all defenses. As Lulu, the girlish, wanton temptress of Pabst's 1929 picture--a playful German seductress who casually enslaves and destroys good men while arousing and provoking bad ones--Brooks radiates a sexuality and flawed humanity so potent that one never questions why the males around her so easily fall apart.

One look at Brooks' curving helmet-like bangs, soft dark eyes and hyperactive dancer's body, and you know why the well-respected editor Peter Schoen (Fritz Kortner) sacrifices himself to pursue her, and why his son, Alwa (Franz Lederer, who became "Francis Lederer" when he emigrated to Hollywood), throws away his life to flee with Lulu when she's convicted of manslaughter in his father's death. You know also why she enslaves women like the chic lesbian Countess Anna Geschwitz (Alice Roberts), and why even London's Jack the Ripper (Gustav Diessl) falls for her.

"Pandora's Box," showing Friday and Sunday, was regarded in its day as shocking and immoral. But it's actually one of the most socially acute, sophisticated films of its era, a prime example of the urbane, knowing German-Austrian film tradition that also produced Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder. With his brilliant staging and visual mastery of the rich, shadowy blacks and whites that would later mark American film noir, Pabst re-creates the rigid, mercenary society around Lulu. Then he shows how her impish beauty throws open its doors.

In life, beauty is ephemeral. But in the movies, it can become seemingly immortal. Brooks lost a career--due, it's said to sound, to American dismissal of her foreign stardom and to her refusal of some key Hollywood mogul advances. But she won a legend afterward comparable to that of '30s superstars Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich (Pabst's second choice for Lulu)--and Henri Langlois, master film collector of the French Cinematheque, ranked her above the latter two, insisting: "There is no Garbo! There is no Dietrich! There is only Louise Brooks!" Watching "Pandora's Box" now, one can see why bad-girl Lulu remains in our eyes and hearts, why Louise Brooks still lives.

Pandora's Box

Directed by G.W. Pabst; written by Ladislaus Vajda, based on Franz Wedekind's plays "Erdgeist" and "Pandora's Box"; photographed by Gunther Krampf; edited by Joseph Fliesler; art direction by Andrei Andreiev; produced by George S. Horsetzky. A Kino International release; opens Friday at the Music Box Theatre. Running time: 1:50. "Pandora's Box" will be accompanied on the theater organ by Dennis Scott at 8:30 p.m. Friday and by Jay Warren at 2 and 5 p.m, Sunday. No MPAA rating (parents cautioned for implied sexuality and perversion, drug use and violence).

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A second big article about Louise Brooks and Pandora's Box appeared in the newpapers today. This one, by Kenneth Turan, ran in the Los Angeles Times.

'Lulu,' eternally bewitching
Louise Brooks' acting career was brief but incandescent.
By Kenneth Turan
Times Staff Writer

LOUISE BROOKS was not just a Jazz Age actress, she was a drug that went right to your head, a performer of phenomenal presence who jumped to icon without a lengthy stay at earthbound stardom. The written word cannot convey her qualities, but to see her is to immediately understand.

Because 2006 is the centenary year of Brooks' birth on Nov. 14 in Cherryvale, Kan., celebrations are in order. A lushly illustrated biography, "Louise Brooks: Lulu Forever" by Peter Cowie, is being published by Rizzoli, and starting tonight the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is offering a rare chance to experience her work on the big screen over the next two weekends.

On view will be the Howard Hawks-directed "A Girl in Every Port," one of Brooks' most highly regarded Hollywood films; G.W. Pabst's "Diary of a Lost Girl"; and the little-seen French-made "Prix de Beauté."

But the highlight of the festival, playing at 7:30 tonight, Friday and Saturday in a new 35-millimeter print, is the film that defined and encapsulated the essence of Brooks' image. That would be G.W. Pabst's 1929 silent "Pandora's Box," a brooding, erotic and claustrophobic work starring Brooks as Lulu. Franz Wedekind, who wrote the play the film was based on, said Lulu was "the personification of primitive sexuality who inspires evil unaware."

Brooks began in entertainment as a dancer, working for both the avant-garde Denishawn company and the Ziegfeld Follies in Manhattan, where she caught the eye of Hollywood and did a series of mostly light comedies with names like "Rolled Stockings." It was the Hawks film, however, that caught the eye of Pabst and led him to bring her to Berlin to star in "Pandora's Box," even though she was all of 21 and spoke not a word of German.

Lulu begins the film as a kept woman in a fancy apartment, the mistress of newspaper tycoon played by Fritz Kortner. He wants to leave her to make a socially advantageous marriage, but she won't hear of it: "You'll have to kill me," she says, "if you want to get away from me."

Not that Lulu herself is the soul of constancy. Far from it. During the course of the film she intoxicates not only the tycoon but also his son, a lesbian countess, a muscular trapeze artist, an ancient roué, a man who wants to sell her into prostitution and, finally, Jack the Ripper.

Yet to relate all this is to risk getting the wrong impression about Lulu. Yes, she bewitches and ruins countless individuals, including herself, but she does it not through calculation or guile but simply by existing, by being who she is.

More to the point, when Lulu says at one juncture, "This is who I am," Brooks manages to simultaneously radiate innocence and experience. In fact, the ability to actually bring innocence to experience might be the heart of the actress' appeal.

For while the other performers in "Pandora's Box," even top people like Kortner, look and act very much of the silent period, Brooks' extremely natural and unaffected work has dated not at all. An actress who defines timeless, she doesn't make you guess how people reacted to her in her prime, she is incandescent enough to allow you to feel it for yourself.

Brooks' gifts start with a matchless vivacity. She makes good use of the dancer's classic freedom of motion, glowing with showgirl enthusiasm during "Pandora's Box's" key backstage scenes. And she joins that to a quite modern freedom of emotion, an alive spirit that no man or woman can resist.

Though Brooks, who died in 1985, was most famous for her helmet-like, jet-black bobbed hair, it's the way quicksilver emotions play across one of the most alive faces in cinema history that makes her memorable.

For hers is a visage bright with promise and never daunted. It's a face that pops off the screen and draws you in, a face that makes you want to meld with the image on the screen. "Everyone wants my blood, my life," she says at one point in "Pandora's Box," and to see this singular screen actress is to inevitably add your name to that list.

`A Centenary Tribute to Louise Brooks'

"Pandora's Box," 7:30 p.m. today through Saturday 

•  "A Girl in Every Port" and "Diary of a Lost Girl," 7:30 p.m. Oct. 20 

•  "Prix de Beauté," 7:30 p.m. Oct. 21 

Where: Bing Theater, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.

Legendary Sin Cities

I recently rented a DVD documentary, Legendary Sin Cities, which I want to recommend.  This three-part Canadian CBC documentary focuses on the most notoriously decadent cities in modern history: Berlin, Paris and Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s. I was especially impressed with the uncommon film clips, intelligent commentary, and interesting line-up of experts offering perspective and opinion.

Plot Synopsis: Of all the remarkable events of this century perhaps the most fascinating has been the spontaneous growth, flowering and then decay of a handful of great cities. These cities were places where art, culture and political liberties co-mingled with corruption, brutality and decadence. Everything and just about anyone could be bought and sold. The immigrant would struggle beside the artist. Gamblers, thieves and prostitutes co-habited with soul-savers, the rich and the powerful. The exhilarating combination of the seamy with the sublime made these places a magnet for all the lost souls and refugees of the world. Pushing the limits of tolerance and freedom, they defined the social, political and sexual culture of the 20th century.

Contemporary footage mixed with rare and richly evocative archival films, stock shots and stills give resonance to the stories of an extraordinary cast of characters: novelists and artists, musicians and journalists, rogues and sinners. Added to the mix are excerpts from feature films, married with the music of those remarkable times. What results is a richly drawn portrait of a time and place that helped define our century. Contains nudity :) but no mention of Louise Brooks, who briefly inhabited both Berlin and Paris in their decadent heyday.

Review of Pandora's Box DVD

A review of the new Pandora's Box DVD appears in Sunday's New York Times. The article notes that the DVD will be released on November 10th.

G. W. PABST’S tragic fable, from two plays by Frank Wedekind about a prostitute whose love for — and conquest of — a married man begins her spiral of decline, is one of the most beautifully filmed of all silent movies. Pabst’s unobtrusive but masterly compositions and disarmingly delicate lighting effects are the stuff of rapture. Then again, when Louise Brooks is your star, it’s your duty to place her in a context of perfection. Brooks plays the doomed, exquisite Lulu, who, with her sable bob and mischievous, calculating smile, became an enduring symbol of jazz-age freedom and joyousness. If beauty and saucy charm were all Brooks had to offer, she would have ended up a caricature. But this performance is so vital and so infinitely shaded that it inspires wonder each time you see it.

Brooks’s Lulu is an image of relaxed modernity: she may be willful, petulant and manipulative, but she is also a woman striding toward an uncertain future in a world that doesn’t provide easy comforts.

On the night of her disastrous wedding to the rich Dr. Schön (Fritz Kortner), who believes he adores her but really wants to possess her, she stands in front of the mirror, preparing to remove her wedding finery. The first thing to come off is a new strand of pearls, which represent the safe, pampered life she has been striving for. She lets the glowing beads pool in the palm of her hand, and we see her face in the mirror, an ivory moon framed by darkness. The faint smile that crosses her lips is not one of greed or catlike satisfaction but of quiet relief: she has set herself up for a life without worry and strife, not yet knowing that such a life is impossible. We have seen how frivolous and thoughtless she can be, and we have witnessed her gentle treachery, but judging her is unthinkable. We can’t trust Lulu; we can only believe her.

In addition to a new, restored transfer of the film, this two-disc set has four different musical scores (two of which were commissioned for this release) and a booklet that includes an essay by J. Hoberman, the Village Voice film critic, and Kenneth Tynan’s essential Brooks profile, “The Girl in the Black Helmet.” (Criterion Collection, Nov. 10, $39.95.)     STEPHANIE ZACHAREK

Criterion DVD of Pandora's Box

The Criterion Collection website has announced the following information regarding their forthcoming release of Pandora's Box. This version - the first ever on DVD in the United States - will run 133 minutes. Expectations are high. And I think this forthcoming release should satisfy. We shall see. Among the bonus material is the first ever DVD release of now hard-to-find documentary, Lulu in Berlin. (No release date is given. The suggested retail price is $39.95)



SPECIAL FEATURES

-- New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the definitive Munich Film Museum restoration
-- Four different musical scores, each with its own unique stylistic interpretation of the film
-- Audio commentary by film scholars Thomas Elsaesser and Mary Ann Doane
-- Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu, a 1998 documentary
-- Lulu in Berlin (48 minutes), a rare 1971 interview with Brooks by verite documentarian Richard Leacock
-- A new video interview with Leacock
-- A new interview with G. W. Pabst's son, Michael
-- New and improved English subtitle translation
-- PLUS: A book including Kenneth Tynan's famous essay "The Girl in the Black Helmet," a chapter from Louise Brooks's evocative memoir discussing her relationship with Pabst, and a new essay by film critic J. Hoberman

ABOUT THIS TRANSFER
-- Pandora's Box is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right of the image to maintain the proper screen format. This new high-definition digital transfer was created from a 35mm composite print provided by the Munich Film Museum. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, and scratches were removed using the MTI Digital Restoration System. To maintain optimal image quality through the compression process, the picture on this dual-layer DVD-9 was encoded at the highest-possible bit rate for the quantity of material included. The Gillian Anderson score is presented in both Dolby 5.1 surround and stereo mixes. The three other scores are presented in Dolby 2.0 stereo.

Pandora's Box DVD

This week, I received an email from Criterion, the company which will release Pandora's Box on DVD here in the United States. I had emailed them asking when the disc would arrive, and whether or not there would be any bonus material. The fellow who wrote to me stated that he could only say that Criterion was working on it, and couldn't say when it might be released (because they were still working on it) nor if any bonus material would be included (because they were still working on it). So, that's the non-news!

New DVD on the way!

I have heard from a couple of sources that a new DVD - most likely featuring Pandora's Box - will be issued in the United States sometime in the Fall. At last ! And what's more, this new release may be a double disc, or box set. I am awaiting confirmation . . . . and will let everyone know more when I find out something concrete.

Prix de beauté review

A review of the new KINO release of Prix de beauté has turned up on-line at dvdtalk.com. "The script by Pabst and Rene Clair repeats the tale of beauty entrapped by possessive men, a pattern almost identical to the Dorothy Stratten tragedy told in Bob Fosse's Star 80." More from the review by Glenn Erickson can be found here.