Screen Debuts: Louise Brooks first film - The Street of Forgotten Men (1925)

This year, as it has in the past, the Louise Brooks Society blog is taking part in the Spring 2024 CMBA (Classic Movie Blog Association) blogathon. This year’s theme is Screen Debuts & Last Hurrahs -- a look at beginnings and endings of film careers. The Spring 2024 CMBA blogathon runs May 20-24. More information on the Spring 2024 CMBA blogathon, including a list of other participants and topics, may be found HERE. I encourage everyone to check it out.

Today's post looks at Louise Brooks first film, The Street of Forgotten Men (1925). On May 24, the blog will look at Louise Brooks' last film, Overland Stage Raiders (1938).

Besides marking Louise Brooks first screen appearance, The Street of Forgotten Men was also the subject of my 2023 book, The Street of Forgotten: From Story to Screen and Beyond. The book is a a deep dive into the history of a single film - its literary source, its making, exhibition history, critical reception, and, most surprising of all, its little known legacy. Few film titles become a catchphrase, let alone a catchphrase which remained in use for half-a-century and resonated throughout American culture. The Street of Forgotten Men (1925) is one such film. (Order your copy HERE.)

This provocative stab at realism was described as "strange" and "startling" at the time of its release. The Street of Forgotten Men was directed by Herbert Brenon, who is best known for Peter Pan, The Great Gatsby, Beau Geste, Laugh, Clown, Laugh and other early classics. The film was shot by Harold Rosson, one of the great cinematographers whose credits include Gone with the Wind and Singin' in the Rain. And, it features a stellar cast (Percy Marmont, Mary Brian, Neil Hamilton) which includes a future screen legend at the very beginning of her career (Louise Brooks).

The Street of Forgotten Men: From Story to Screen and Beyond tells the story of the film in rich, historical detail. As this book shows, this forgotten gem is exemplary of film making & film culture in the mid-1920s. Along with vintage clippings and unusual images - including rare production stills and location shots, this new book features all manner of historical documents including the short story on which the film was based, the scenario, a rare French fictionalization, newspaper advertisements, lobby cards, posters, and more. Among the book's many revelations:

-- Multiple accounts of the making of the film - suggesting what it was like on the set of a silent film.

-- A survey of the film's many reviews, including one by the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Carl Sandburg, another by a contributor to Weird Tales, and another by Catholic icon Dorothy Day, a candidate for sainthood.

-- Newly revealed identities of some of the film's bit players - a noted journalist, a future screenwriter, a soon to be famous actress, and a world champion boxer - which include accounts of their working on the film. There is also the story of Lassie's role in the film (no, not that Lassie, the first screen Lassie).

-- A look at the music associated with this silent film: the music played on set, the music depicted in the film, the music heard before the film was shown, and the music played to accompany the film itself (including the rare Paramount cue sheet and an alternative score).

-- And more... from the film's censorship records to its mention on the floor of Congress to its showing in multiple churches to its purchase by the United States Navy to a notice for the film's last documented public screening - at, of all places, a Y.M.C.A. in Shanghai, China in 1931 - six years after its release!

The Street of Forgotten Men: From Story to Screen and Beyond includes dozens of illustrations and images and features two forewords; one is by noted film preservationist Robert Byrne, whose restoration of  the film saved it from undeserving obscurity. The other, by acclaimed film historian Kevin Brownlow, is an appreciation of Herbert Brenon which reveals little known details about the movie drawn, in part, from his correspondence with Louise Brooks.

As this blog is meant to look at Brooks' first screen appearance, I thought I would run a few brief excerpts from the book which tells the story of how Brooks first entered films.

*****

"By mid-April, most of the cast had been chosen, as bits in newspapers and magazines reported the signing of various actors and actresses. Some were actors or crew with which Brenon had worked in the past. In early May, with filming well under way, Billboard magazine gave a near complete summary of where things stood. “Working under the direction of Herbert Brenon, who is making The Street of Forgotten Men at the Paramount Long Island Studios, are: Percy Marmont, Mary Brian, Neil Hamilton, Riley Hatch, Josephine Deffry, Dorothy Walters, John Harrington and Juliet Brenon, daughter of the late Algernon Brenon, music critic of The Telegraph and niece of Director Brenon. The cast also includes Lassie, canine movie star.” (5-9-1925) Not mentioned by Billboard was one of film’s uncredited players, Louise Brooks, who had only recently been given a screen test and assigned a small role. Beating Billboard to the punch, the screen notes column in the New York Herald Tribune gave the aspiring actress a shout-out, writing a week earlier, “Louise Brooks, one of the Ziegfeld beauties from Louis the 14th, will have a part in Herbert Brenon’s production of The Street of Forgotten Men.” (5-2-1925)"

 *****

"In early 1925, Brooks was a featured dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies. The Broadway revue was widely celebrated, and all manner of notables turned out to see shows. Some made a bee-line to the performer’s dressing rooms. Among those who visited Brooks was producer Walter Wanger, then a Paramount talent scout. According to various sources, Wanger had heard Edmund Goulding (the British-born screenwriter and director) rave about her, and so Wanger and Townsend Martin (a Paramount screenwriter and another dressing room visitor) arranged to test Brooks for a role in The Street of Forgotten Men, which was already filming at the Astoria Studios on Long Island. Brooks’ screen test was overseen by Allan Dwan. It went well, with the result being the Ziegfeld dancer was assigned a bit part in The Street of Forgotten Men, which was already in production.

In his celebrated profile of Brooks in The New Yorker, Kenneth Tynan quoted Brooks on her time at the Astoria studio. “The stages were freezing in the winter, steaming hot in the summer. The dressing rooms were windowless cubicles. We rode on the freight elevator, crushed by lights and electricians. But none of that mattered, because the writers, directors, and cast were free from all supervision. Jesse Lasky, Adolph Zukor, and Walter Wanger never left the Paramount office on Fifth Avenue, and the head of production never came on the set. There were writers and directors from Princeton and Yale. Motion pictures did not consume us. When work was finished, we dressed in evening clothes, dined at The Colony or ‘21’ and went to the theater.”

Brooks, a dancer by training, was a newcomer to film acting when she appeared in The Street of Forgotten Men; during her short time on screen, she plays her bit part large, vamping over Bridgeport White-Eye (John Harrington) and then dashing across the screen once a fight breaks out between White-Eye and Easy Money Charlie. Brooks wrote in her diary, “I ran around like Carol Dempster, being very frightened and graceful and having a lovely time.”

In 1928, after she became an established star, film magazines carried a piece about her debut and her reaction to praise sent by a fan. “Louise Brooks must have been very satisfied when she received her first fan letter from a girl in Brooklyn who said she saw her in The Street of Forgotten Men, because after reading it, she immediately took a photograph of herself that she had hanging in her dressing room and sent it to the girl in thanks.”

*****

"Because of his attention to detail and involvement in most every aspect of a film, Brenon gained a reputation as a demanding director, someone who ruled over his sets and pushed his actors and crew. In a 1925 profile, Film Daily described Brenon as a studio “Svengali,” suggesting he was somehow able to manipulate others. While on-set reports from The Street of Forgotten Men intimate as much, they never go so far as to state Brenon was harsh, or that those working under the director resented his behavior.

However, all may not have been as depicted in the press at the time. In 1979, film historians Richard and Diane Kozarski interviewed Louise Brooks regarding her work at the Astoria studio. The Kozarskis noted that Brenon’s handling of actors favorably impressed the 18-year-old, then a newcomer to film. However, when Brooks saw a sandbag crash to the stage a few feet from where the director was standing, she suspected relations with the crew might not have been entirely positive.

In late April, 1925 Variety reported that Brooks, “one of the most popular members of Louie the 14th” (a Ziegfeld production) had “mysteriously disappeared from the cast of this musical comedy several days ago and her absence has been traced to the scouting agents of a moving picture company with studios on Long Island.” (4-25-1925) It was around then that Brooks was given a screen test. By the first week of May, various publications including the New York Herald Tribune and New York Evening Post reported Brooks had been cast in The Street of Forgotten Men.

Brooks’ screen test, held on a set at the Astoria studio, was overseen by director Allan Dwan. It went well, with the result being Brooks was assigned a bit part as a moll, a companion to Bridgeport White-Eye (John Harrington). John Russell’s notes describe her character as a “trull” or “doxie” with whom Whitey “plays the scene over the newspaper. Let her appear actually heavy: a hard-boney, sneering little rip of a woman, with a face like flint – frankly predatory, so that we hate her at sight.”

Sometime following her screen test, and with the film already in production, Brooks was introduced to Brenon. On May 16, she and the director attended the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky. A few days later, on May 20 according to some sources, Brooks’ brief scene was shot. The newcomer appears in only one scene near the end of the film in which there is a brawl in the saloon. Brooks is on screen for a couple of minutes, and though she vamps and acts somewhat melodramatically and dashes across screen like a dancer – she makes an impression.

Throughout her career, Brooks reportedly didn’t bother to see herself act on screen. The one exception may have been her brief appearance in The Street of Forgotten Men. In a 1928 interview with Pour Vous regarding Die Büchse der Pandora, Brooks told the French magazine that she had not seen the German film, as it was a principle for her “not to go see herself on the screen. ‘I did,’ she said confidently, ‘during my first film. I won’t do it again, though I can’t say why. Seeing myself gives me an uncomfortable feeling’.” (12-6-1928) Later in life, Brooks said little about her debut, except to acknowledge her role in the film. In Lulu in Hollywood, she dryly commented, “In May, at Famous Players-Lasky’s studio, in New York, under Herbert Brenon’s direction, I had played with no enthusiasm a bit part in Street of Forgotten Men.”

*****

"Such “drab” realism led the anonymous [Los Angeles] Times critic to also find fault with the acting of Mary Brian and Neil Hamilton, which the critic suggested was dull. However, favor was shown to others in the cast. “[T]he character work, in addition to the artistry of Marmont – who is a great enough actor to give conviction even to the maudlin ending, where the man who has sacrificed for love makes some time worn remarks on the eternal scheme of things – is excellent. As the ‘blind’ beggar, John Harrington is appallingly real, while Dorothy Walters, as the faithful old housekeeper is the final word in comfortable motherliness. Juliet Brenon and Josephine Deffry, ladies of the demi-monde, also merit commendation.”

The anonymous Times critic ended their review by highlighting the work of an uncredited, bit player in the film. It was the only publication to do so. “And there was a little rowdy, obviously attached to the ‘blind’ man, who did some vital work during her few short scenes. She was not listed.” (8-31-1925) That uncredited bit player was Louise Brooks, who received her one and only notice for her role in The Street of Forgotten Men. As such, it was her first film review."

If you are interested in reading more about Brooks' first film, be sure and check out my 2023 book, The Street of Forgotten Men: From Story to Screen and Beyond. It is a detailed, heavily illustrated, 380+ page immersive look at the film  and the silent film era. (Order your copy HERE.)

The Louise Brooks Society is a proud, longtime member of the CMBA (Classic Movie Blog Association). Back in 2018, the CMBA profiled the LBS. Check it out HERE.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2024. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Louise Brooks & Her Films as Seen in the Brazilian Magazines & Newspapers

The Louise Brooks Society blog is participating in the 2024 Luso World Cinema Blogathon. This blogathon celebrates the contributions of Portuguese-speaking peoples and their descendants to world cinema. This post is the third of three related posts. More information on the Luso World Cinema Blogathon, including a list of other participants and topics, may be found HERE. I would encourage everyone to check it out!

Before I post something about the bits and pieces I've found searching the internet, I want to mention that I recently came across a six part podcast all about today's topic - Louise Brooks and Brazil. This podcast, by Pedro Dantas, is titled "Louise Brooks, Garota Perdida" and dates to November 2021. Here is the series description in Portuguese: "Programa em homenagem ao legado artístico e cinematográfico de Louise Brooks (1906-1985), estrela do cinema mudo, ícone dos anos 1920 e mulher à frente de seu tempo (e do nosso tempo). Em 2021 se completam 115 anos de seu nascimento." And here it is in English translation: "Program in honor of the artistic and cinematographic legacy of Louise Brooks (1906-1985), silent film star, icon of the 1920s and woman ahead of her time (and our time). 2021 marks 115 years since her birth."

"Louise Brooks, Garota Perdida"

I don't speak Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese, so I cannot listen and understand. But if anyone does give it a listen, I would appreciate knowing your thoughts. BTW, the above mentioned series isn't the only Brazilian podcast I've come across about Brooks. Another, from ClickCiência, dates to january 2021 and is titled "Recepção da obra de Louise Brooks no Brasil é tema de pesquisa na UFSCar." In it, Tamara Carla dos Santos, a student in the Postgraduate Program in Image and Sound at the Federal University of São Carlos, talks about her research on the reception of the films of Louise Brooks in Brazil. Again, if anyone gives it a listen, I would appreciate knowing your thoughts. 

I am fortunate to have been able to dig into a few different Brazilian database archives and have acquired dozens and  dozens of newspaper and magazine clippings and advertisements about Louise Brooks and her films. My greatest find, a couplemof pieces about Louise Brooks and Pandora's Box in a 1930 Chaplin Club newsletter, were covered in my previous post. 

I have too many to post here, so instead I will post some highlights. Before I begin, I would like to point readers of this blog to a page on the Louise Brooks Society website devoted to the actress' South American Magazine Covers. The actress appeared on at least four covers from Brazil, three from Cinearte, and once on A Scena Muda.Reader's can seen them there in beautiful color.

A Scena Muda was one of Brazil's most popular film magazines. They often ran two page spreads on news films, including most all of Brooks' paramount productions. Here is a typical two page spread on Beggars of Life, which in Brazil was titled Os Mendigos na Vida.

Cinearte was another popular fan magazine.  Like A Scena Muda, it too ran one and two page spreads on newly released films. Here is the feature they ran on The Canary Murder Case, which in Brazil was titled O Drama De Uma Noite.

When we think of Brooks' three European films, we usually think of them in a European context. We don't necessarily think that they played in Latin American -- at least not around the time of their release. However, at least two of them did. Pandora's Box played in Brazil in 1929 (months before it played in the United States), and Prix de beaute played in Brazil in 1930 (decades before it played in the United States). The earliest screening of Diary of a Lost Girl in Brazil which I have been able to document dates to August 1954. The film was shown three times at the Filmoteca do Museu de Arte Moderna. That puts it on par with the Louise Brooks' revival just beginning to percolate in France and Italy! And, that predates its first shown in the United States by more than two decades.

Here is a single page piece on Pandora's Box from a magazine called Frou-Frou. in Brazil, the film was called Caixa de Pandora.

Of the three, I might guess that Prix de beaute made the biggest splash. I have come across magazine features about the French production, was well as a good deal of newspaper coverage. In fact, one newspaper, Diario Carioca, from Rio De Janeiro, ran significant articles about the film six days in a row! Here is one example of those pieces, shown within the context of the entire newspaper page.

In my previous post, I displayed a newspaper advertisement for Prix de beaute. I'll close this blog post with another. Uniquely so, it notes that Louise Brooks would be wearing, or modeling, clothes designed by Patou. I don't think I have ever come across an ad for this film -- even French ads -- which mentioned Patou.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2024. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Louise Brooks and Brazil - when Pandora's Box was featured in a 1930 Chaplin Club newsletter

The Louise Brooks Society blog is participating in the 2024 Luso World Cinema Blogathon. This blogathon celebrates the contributions of Portuguese-speaking peoples and their descendants to world cinema. This post is the second of three related posts. More information on the Luso World Cinema Blogathon, including a list of other participants and topics, may be found HERE. I would encourage everyone to check it out!

I have been researching Louise Brooks for a long time, ever since I launched the Louise Brooks Society website back in 1995. Over those 29 years, I have come across all kinds of interesting, unusual, and even surprising material. This particular find, however, left me gobsmacked.

I found two articles focusing on Pandora's Box, the 1929 German-made, G.W. Pabst directed film starring Louise Brooks. It wasn't so much that I found two articles that were unknown to me - but where I found them. They appeared in the June 1930 issue of O Fan - the official newsletter of the Chaplin-Club. (More on this remarkable group below.) What astonished me was that something like a local film club printed a newsletter back then, and that copies survived to this day. And what's more, this group was based not in the United States or Europe, but in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

Here is the table of contents for the June 1930 issue, with Pandora's Box referred to under its Portuguese title, A Caixa de Pandora.

As can be seen above, one article on the film is by Octávio de Faria, and the other is by Annibal Nogueira Jr. Each were noted Brazilian writers. (Octavio de Faria was also the editor of O Fan.) The first article runs seven and a half-pages. It is subtitled -- "ensaaio para um estudo sobre G. W. Pabst" -- or "essay for a study on G. W. Pabst." Instead of posting images of each page of this  piece, I will instead LINK TO THE ARTICLE so that those who wish to read it may do so. 

The second article runs seven pages. Again, instead of posting images of this second article, I will instead LINK TO THE ARTICLE so those who wish to read it may do so.

The last entry on the table of contents pictured above is "Sessões do Chaplin-Club," a record of the group's sessions or meetings at which they viewed and likely discussed films. Did the Chaplin-Club have their own access to prints of the films they wrote about, or did they rely on theatrical screenings? It is hard to say. But, in announcing the publication of the two articles shown above, the prior issue of O Fan referred to a "special presentation" they had of A Caixa de Pandora.

If that is the case, WOW. If not, then the only public showing of A Caixa de Pandora in Rio de Janeiro prior to June 1930 that I haveso far  come across took place in December, 1929 at Rio's Primor theatre, which is pictured below in an earlier image from the 1920s.

This old theater may still stand. James N. Green's 2001 book, Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil (University of Chicago Press), refers to the Primor as "a large old movie theatre in downtown Rio... [and] a popular place for anonymous sexual liaisons."

As well as the two articles, the sessões record in the June 1930 issue of O Fan contains a brief evaluation of A Caixa de Pandora by an author credited only as "A.C." (That author may be Almir Castro.)

 My rough, computer assisted translation from the Portuguese reads:

"A major film by Pabst. It is a drama begun in dark tones, charged, morbid. Typically Pabst, it's deeply imbued with his directorial temperament. They are five or six different and equally tragic scenes, which evolve around a young woman, leading to a progressive and almost unconscious fall.

Scenario is well built, few inter-titles, drawing from the artist everything he can give. Symbolism. Great staging, great ambience, great characters, great detail, great sensuality - obsessive sensuality. All of it is compressed, dense, compact ...

Pandora's Box ... and Louise Brooks."

Notably, this issue also contains a still from the film, which I have improved because the original scan was poor.

What was Chaplin-Club? Founded in 1928 by Octavio de Faria and three others, the Chaplin-Club was the first cine-club in Brazil; it's main objective was to study cinema as art rather than as a popular form of entertainment. It should be noted that though they revered Charlie Chaplin and took their name from the actor, the club's interests went beyond the comedian and his films. And, it should also be noted, the club's perspective looked beyond Hollywood and instead looked to ideas about film then percolating in Europe, especially in France, and to a lesser degree, the Soviet Union.

Since the group's founding, it issued O Fan as a means to spread its ideas. The group's newsletter, which ran between 1928 and 1930, marked the beginning of "serious" Brazilian film criticism. All together, I believe, there were nine issues. The first seven issues, which resemble a professional newsletter of today, ran between four and eight pages, while the last two, which looked like a less professional 'zine of today, ran approximately 100 pages. Check out the first issue (pictured below) as well as later issues of the publication starting HERE.

Unlike Cinearte, Brazil's leading film-fan magazine (which will be discussed in the next post), O Fan had no advertisements, printed few photographs, and seemingly had little interest in Hollywood and its stars. It newsletter was instead filled with serious, sometimes technical considerations of European and American silent films. It printed articles on directors such as Abel Gance, Erich von Stroheim, King Vidor, Buster Keaton, E. A. Dupont, D. W. Griffith, F. W. Murnau and G. W. Pabst. Below is a typical first page, featuring articles on Charlie Chaplin and Ernst Lubitsch. Other issues critiqued films like City Lights, Fazil, Sunrise, The Patriot, Moulin Rouge, and Broadway Melody. There were also short write-ups of Erotikon, Variety, Piccadilly and other films.

Even with the emergence of sound films, the Chaplin-Club considered silent film the pinnacle of cinematic achievement. According to Maite Conde's 2018 book Foundational Films: Early Cinema and Modernity in Brazil (University of California Press), the Brazilian group, "decried the talkies as attacking the purity of film's visual discourse, and, worse still, as taking the medium back to its popular origins in the theater.... O Fan knew that it was read by almost no one and that it had no influence in the future of film, but it was not troubled by this."

What film could achieve was an idea whose time had come. Just a couple of months after the two articles about Pandora's Box appeared in O Fan, another of Brooks' European films, the French made Prix de beaute (aka Miss Europa) opened in Rio at the Alhambra, where it proved to be a big hit. That film was one of Brooks' first sound films, but more than that, it is a film very much concerned with the visual depiction of sound.

Despite their belief that their group had little influence, the ideas put forth by the Chaplin-Club seeped into Brazil's film culture. The Chaplin-Club dissolved in 1930, and its members went on to be film critics, writers, and teachers whose followers and students would in turn go on to form their own film clubs, societies, and groups. When Orson Welles visited Brazil in the early 1940s, he met with members of the disbanded Chaplin-Club and even debated the use of sound and image in film. In the mid-1950s, important national institutions like the Brazilian Cinemateca, and later the Cinemateca of the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, were founded. Both, in part, can trace their origins to the intellectual cinephilia seeded by the Chaplin-Club.

Interestingly,as well, in 1959, Enrique Scheiby, assistant curator of the Brazilian Cinemateca, visited the United States under the State Department's international educational exchange service. He visited for five months, to "study the American film industry." According to an August, 1959 article in a Brazilian newspaper, Correio do Parana, among the various places he visited was the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York -- and among the prominent stars he came into contact with were George Cukor, Otto Preminger, Marlene Dietrich, Gloria Swanson and .... Louise Brooks. (My research confirms that Scheiby dined with Brooks and James Card on May 14, 1959.) According to Carlos Roberto de Souza's A Cinemateca Brasileira e a preservação de filmes no Brasil, Scheiby was intent on meeting Brooks, "muse of silent cinema, who signed photographs for the select members of an informal club of Louise Brooks admirers, whose headquarters was the Cinematheque." For a time, one of those autographed photographs would hang in the meeting room of the Cinematheque.

Three years later, French film archivist Henri Langlois also visited Rochester, and was interviewed by Henry Clune of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. He confirmed Brazil's continuing affection for Brooks.

Some of the above material will be included in my forthcoming two volume work, Around the World with Louise Brooks, a transnational look at the career and films of the actress. It is due out later sometime in 2025, or so. For more interesting, unusual, and even surprising material, stay tuned to this blog. And consider subscribing. 

And be sure and tune-in tomorrow for another Louise Brooks Society installment in the 2024 Luso World Cinema Blogathon. Tomorrow's post returns to Brazil to look how Louise Brooks & her films were seen in Brazilian magazines and newspapers.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2024. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Louise Brooks & Her Films as Seen in the Portuguese-American Press

The Louise Brooks Society blog is participating in the 2024 Luso World Cinema Blogathon. This blogathon celebrates the contributions of Portuguese-speaking peoples and their descendants to world cinema. This post is the first of three related posts. More information on the Luso World Cinema Blogathon, including a list of other participants and topics, may be found HERE. I would encourage everyone to check it out!

In the United States, stories about the movies and film stars weren’t limited to the country’s mainstream, English language press. In fact, in the 1920s and 1930s, there were as many as a thousand non-English language publications in America. Most were newspapers, and most focused on the interests of their respective communities; however, a few of these ethnic and / or émigré publications acted akin to the mainstream press in reporting the general news of the day – albeit in German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Yiddish, or some other language -- including Portuguese.

Notably, this broader coverage occasionally included entertainment news along with bits about whichever movies were playing locally. And occasionally, this broader coverage put a spotlight on Louise Brooks. This entry in the 2024 Luso World Cinema Blogathon looks at Louise Brooks & Her Films as Seen in the one Portuguese-language newspaper, Diario de Noticias.

New Bedford is a historic port city in Massachusetts. During the first half of the 19th century, it was one of the world's most important whaling ports. (The city even served as a setting in Herman Melville's 1851 novel, Moby-Dick.) Later in that same century, immigrants from Portugal and its colonial possessions in the Atlantic — namely Cape Verde, the Azores, and Madeira — began settling in New Bedford and the surrounding area, attracted by jobs in the still active whaling industry.

Diario de Noticias (or Portuguese Daily News) was a Portuguese-language newspaper in New Bedford which served the area's Portuguese-language readers. During the silent film era, it covered the movies and ran advertisements for local screenings just like other local English-language papers. But interestingly in a different language.... and sometimes with a cultural twist.

In New Bedford, the Empire theater ran most every new Paramount film. The clipping and two newspaper advertisements above promote local screenings of Brooks' first two films. Notably, the titles of Brooks' films were translated, with The Street of Forgotten Men becoming A Rua dos Homens Esquecidos, and The American Venus becoming A Venus Americana. 

Translating the title of a film in order to make it more relatable to non English-language readers was something many ethnic newspapers practiced, but not always consistently.

More clippings from Diaro de Noticias. Onthe left,  Brooks is featured in a studio-supplied piece promoting A Social Celebrity, which here retains its English-language title in an article which has been translated from English. On the right are three film advertisements in which the Paramount films retain their original English-language titles: A Social Celebrity is advertised as an “interesting film.”  It’s the Old Army Game features “the beautiful actress Louise Brooks.” While The Show Off is described as a “magnificent film”.

Diario de Noticias returned to translating the titles of American films into Portuguese. Ama-O E Dexia-O is the Portuguese title of Love Em and Leave Em, the film showing at the Empire theatre on New Year’s Eve, 1926. Twinkletoes, starring Colleen Moore, followed on New Year’s Day. Just Another Blonde is titled in this Portuguese ad without an “e” -- and they even left off Brooks’ name!

Louise Brooks is pictured far left in the publicity still shown above; here, Diario de Noticias identifies the actress' 1927 film The City Gone Wild as A Cidade que Enlouqueceu, which literally translates as  the slightly different “The City That Went Crazy.” Unlike her other Paramount films, this screening was not held at the Empire, but instead was shown at the local Olympia theatre. Perhaps, distribution agreements had changed in New Bedford.

The City Gone Wild likely proved popular, because the film came back to New Bedford as The City Gone Wild six months later for a encore showing at the Orpheum at the same time that the then newly released 1928 Brooks' film, A Girl in Every Port, was showing at The State theater.

In the 1930's, Brooks film career went into decline. She was cast in lesser roles in lesser films which more often then not were poorly distributed. One of the last of Brooks' films to screen in New Bedford was God's Gift to Women (1931), a Warner Bros. production.

This Portuguese-language newspaper ad notes God’s Gift to Women is playing at the State (as O Presente de Deus Para as Mulheres) along with The Public Enemy (as O Inimigo Publico), another Warner Bros. film in which Brooks was cast but did not appear.

++++++

Compared to the the mainstream big city or even small town newspapers, accessing ethnic or émigré publications can be challenging. Many don't seem to be well archived or made available, and of those that are, many of them kept focused on the immediate concerns of their readers and left mainstream cultural coverage to others.

I did manage to access one other Portuguese-American newspaper, A Colonia Portuguesa, from Oakland, California. In August of 1931, this community newspaper ran this cluster of advertisements. It notes that on Wednesday and Thursday the local Premier theater would be showing another of Brooks lesser 1930's films,  It Pays to Advertise (1931), along with Utah Kid, a 1930 Western which starred Boris Karloff.

Some of the above material will be included in my forthcoming two volume work, Around the World with Louise Brooks, a transnational look at the career and films of the actress. It is due out later sometime in 2025, or so. For more interesting, unusual, and even surprising material, stay tuned to this blog. And consider subscribing. 

And be sure and tune-in tomorrow for another Louise Brooks Society installment in the 2024 Luso World Cinema Blogathon. Tomorrow's post ventures to Brazil to look at the time when Pandora’s Box was featured in a 1930 Chaplin Club newsletter from Rio!

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2024. 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. 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 contents copyright © 2024. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Coming in May on the Louise Brooks Society blog

The Louise Brooks Society blog is pleased to announce it will participate in two blogathons in the month of May.

The first is the 2024 Luso World Cinema Blogathon. This blogathon celebrates the contributions of Portuguese-speaking peoples and their descendants to world cinema. This fourth edition of the blogathon launches on Saturday, May 4, 2024. The heart of the event is Sunday, May 5, which is World Portuguese Language Day.  (UNESCO recognized the holiday in 2019.) The blogathon runs through Monday, May 6, 2024. 

The Louise Brooks Society blog plans to post on each of the three days of this blogathon. The proposed topics include

1. Louise Brooks & Her Films as Seen in the Portuguese-American Press
2. Louise Brooks and Brazil – when Pandora’s Box was featured in a 1930 Chaplin Club newsletter
3. Louise Brooks & Her Films as Seen in the Brazilian Magazines & Newspapers

There are other topics I could cover, like those having to do with Portugal itself, and Angola, but I will save those for next year. 

The Luso World Cinema Blogathon was begun by Brazilian film writer Letícia “Le” Magalhães and American film writer Beth Ann Gallagher. Beth is a longtime friend and supporter of the LBS. As a matter of fact, we met over the internet through our mutual interest in Louise Brooks. Later, when she moved to Northern California, we got to meet in person. She is a great person, and I would encourage everyone to check out her website / blog Spellbound with Beth Ann. 

More information on Luso World Cinema Blogathon, including a list of other participants and topics, may be found HERE.

The Louise Brooks Society is a longtime member of the CMBA -- the Classic Movie Blog Association. Their banner is represented in the right hand column of this blog. (If you are a serious blogger, you should consider joining. It is a community of film buffs and movie lovers.)

The second blogathon in which the Louise Brooks Society blog will participate is the Spring 2024 CMBA blogathon. This year’s theme is Screen Debuts & Last Hurrahs -- a look at beginnings and endings of film careers. The Spring 2024 CMBA blogathon will run May 20-24, 2024.

The LBS blog plans to participate twice, on Monday, May 20 and Friday, May 24.

Louise Brooks debut - The Street of Forgotten Men (1925)
Louise Brooks last film - Overland Stage Raiders (1938)

More information on Spring 2024 CMBA blogathon, including a list of other participants and topics, may be found HERE.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2024. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Pandora's Box, starring Louise Brooks, screens 4 times in London in May

Pandora's Box (1929), the sensational German silent film starring Louise Brooks, will be shown four times in London during the month of May. It is not explicitly stated which print will be shown, but as the  stated running time is 135 minutes and the musical accompaniment is noted as being the Peer Raben score, I will assume the print is the recently released restoration which is recently making the rounds. Further details about this mini-series can be found HERE. 

This screening of the German film will be shown with English subtitles. The film comes with a PG certificate. The screenings will take place:

Saturday 04 May 2024 15:10  Studio  with the Peer Raben pre-recorded score

Friday 17 May 2024 18:00 NFT2  with the Peer Raben pre-recorded score

Saturday 25 May 2024 13:10 NFT3   with live piano accompaniment by Costas Fotopoulos

Friday 31 May 2024 14:30 NFT3  with the Peer Raben pre-recorded score

 

According to the BFI website: "Louise Brooks dazzles as the iconic showgirl who leaves a trail of destruction in her wake, in one of the great silent films of the Weimar era." A second note, by Ruby McGuigan, states, "Pabst’s startlingly modern adaptation of Wedekind’s Lulu plays follows the downward spiral of a vivacious showgirl, brought vibrantly to life by a live-wire Louise Brooks, wreaking casual havoc on all she encounters through the sheer power of charisma. Brooks’ irresistible charm and pathos made her a star, and anchored this sexually frank melodrama of lust, greed and violence."

A chronological confusion: Isn't it common practice to date a film to its year of release? As in The Godfather (1972) and Star Wars (1977) and Pulp Fiction (1994).

On the above referenced BFI page, Pandora Box is dated to 1928. That was the year it was made. It was released in 1929. 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2024. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

God's Gift to Women, with Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1931

God's Gift to Women, with Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1931. The film is a pre-code musical comedy whose musical numbers were cut and whose humor and suggestive scenes are largely tempered by the tepid presence of star Frank Fay. He plays the Parisian descendant of a Don Juan who vows to stop philandering in order to win the hand of a virtuous young lady with a disapproving father. Louise Brooks plays one of a handful of women irresistibly drawn to Fay's character. More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society website filmography page.

Film Daily described the film as a "Merry French farce with amusing plot and deft comedy work by Frank Fay, fine feminine support and good direction." Edward Churchill, writing in Motion Picture Herald, stated “Frank Fay is the whole show in this broadly sophisticated story of Parisian love and Parisian life. Fay has all the women in the world after him, so it seems, and they are all good-looking. In fact, some of them are very beautiful, and they seem to like Fay. . . . Jane Hinton hasn’t given the picture much of a story as far as the plot is concerned, but the situations are excellent. Jackson and [Raymond] Griffith have tossed in some rare gags and some excellent dialogue and the costume department at Warners has been busy. . . . Michael Curtiz has built a snappy, laughable and highly entertaining picture around Fay and the preview audience laughed plenty. Photography is good, settings are in perfect keeping with the vehicle and the sound is clear.”

The movie, indeed, belongs to Fay, who was a popular Broadway star of light comedies. Casting the not-quite leading man as a Casanova was a stretch, but his delivery is mildly amusing at times. The plot line is predictable, and there's a twist in the final scenes. The San Francisco Chronicle thought "The picture is a bit of fluff, but it is amusing and is well produced."

Harry Mines of the Los Angeles Daily Illustrated News thought "All the girls in the cast have the opportunity to wear beautiful clothes and look their vampiest. They are Laura LaPlante, Marguerite Livingston, Yola D'Avril, Louise Brooks, Joan Blondell, Ethelyn Claire and the Sisters 'G'." Not surprisingly, Jerry Hoffman of the Los Angeles Examiner considered the film little more than "album of Hollywood's beautiful women." Harry Evans of Life magazine quipped "These few amusing moments are the film's total assets -- unless you haven't seen Louise Brooks, Joan Blondell and Yola D'Avril in their underwear."

All were not so forgiving. Variety called God's Gift to Women "no gift to audiences." Richard Watts Jr. of the New York Herald Tribune called it a "thin farce."  Thonton Delehanty of the New York Post was less generous, "The humor is in the style of the hackneyed French farce, so hackneyed that it is paralyzingly awful."

Unfortunately, the film is nowhere near a star turn for Brooks. And her second consecutive supporting role left some critics surprised. As with her small part in It Pays to Advertise, some including W. Ward Marsh of the Cleveland Plain Dealer could only wish for more.... "Louise Brooks (returning to the screen in a comparatively minor role)...."

Next to Windy Riley Goes Hollywood, God's Gift to Women was one of the least shown films in which Brooks' appeared. Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Canada, England, New Zealand, The Philippines, Sweden, and possibly Brazil and France. In the United States, the film was also promoted under the title O Presente de deus para as Mulheres (Portuguese-language press).

Elsewhere, God’s Gift to Women was shown under the title Dar boha k ženám (Czechoslovakia); Gotten Geschenk au die Frauen (Germany); Bóg dal za duzo kobiet (Poland); and Tantas veo… (Spain). The film was also shown in South Africa and the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) under the title Too Many Women.

 SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

 -- The film was originally completed as a musical. Due to audience distaste for musicals, however, all the songs were cut in American prints. The complete film was released intact in other countries, where there was no such decline in popularity. Cut from the version released in the United States was a theme song sung by Frank Fay, then a major Broadway star. The theme song, which is heard over the credits, is underscored several times in the film. Also cut was an elaborate dance number by the Sisters "G" which appeared in the film during its nightclub sequence. The complete film was released intact outside the United States, but only the American print is known to have survived.

-- During the film’s April, 1931 showing in New York City, star Frank Fay made a personal appearance at the Strand Theater. (Fay was married at the time to Barbara Stanywck).

--  Leading lady Laura La Plante played Magnolia in the first film version of Show Boat (1929); Charles Winninger, who plays her father in God's Gift to Women, would play Cap'n Andy Hawks in the 1936 version of Show Boat.

-- Fay's character enjoyed a different lover each night of the week. Brooks – “brunette, bad and bold” – was assigned Thursday night.

 -- God's Gift to Women is available on DVD. Get it before it goes out of print. Purchase HERE.

 THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2024. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

King of Gamblers, almost featuring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1937

King of Gamblers was released on this day in 1937. The film is a stylish low-budget crime drama about a slot-machine racket and the crusading reporter who uncovers it. Though a "B" picture, this almost noir was given an "A" treatment by director Robert Florey. More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society website filmography page.

Louise Brooks' role in the film, a minor part, was cut from the production shortly before release.  An opening sequence with "Jim Adams" (Lloyd Nolan) being jilted by "Joyce Beaton" (Louise Brooks) was shot but eliminated from the final cut. Prints of the film which include Brooks' may have been sent overseas, as Brooks is included in advertisements for the film in at least two countries.

Robert Florey with Louise Brooks, Akim Tamiroff & Evelyn Brent

The film was part of an unofficial Paramount series based on crimes and criminals suggested by the J. Edgar Hoover book, Persons in Hiding. Despite its source material, the film's gritty realism shocked some. The Christian Science Monitor stated “Sociological aspects of the theme are quite overshadowed by melodramatics which may prove too violent for the more sensitive.” Fox West Coast Bulletin said the film was “Not wholesome. Waste of time.” Motion Picture Review wrote “Such a picture as this has no constructive social value.” The Kansas City Star added “. . . the subject hardly can be recommended to the attention of the youth and future glory of the land.” While Mae Tinnie, the onomatopoeically named film critic of the Chicago Tribune, suggested “If you like a grisly little programmer, King of Gamblers is that.”

Though considered a mere B-movie (which were typically shown as part of a double bill), the film received very good notices from both exhibitors and the public alike. The manager of the Cory Theater in Winchester, Indiana stated, “I thought when I showed Night Key I had given my patrons the best picture ever made, but this King of Gamblers is even better than that. Played last two days of week to big business.” Other exhibitors agreed: comments published in Motion Picture Herald included “Excellent entertainment in any spot. Well liked by all,” and “Was afraid of this one, but found it packed with suspense and action.”

In reviewing the film's New York City opening, Irene Thirer of the New York Post wrote “Criterion goers are clutching their chairs these days, because this is probably the most blood-thirsty picture in several seasons. . . . Supporting the principals (and Lloyd Nolan’s job as the reporter is corking), are Larry Crabbe, the late Helen Burgess (who strangely met her untimely death immediately after she had died in this picture via script requirements), Porter Hall, Harvey Stephens, a couple of walloping shots of the capable Evelyn Brent, and others. Robert Florey directed – which accounts for the picture’s unusual camera angles.” 

The Washington Post had a similar sentiment. “The cold chills and icy thrills of King of Gamblers make the Metropolitan air-conditioning quite superfluous. If you are one for hard-boiled homicides mixed in with your entertainment, this show will give you a good time and a half.”

The film reunited Brooks with Evelyn Brent. The two actresses had first appeared together in Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em (1926), when each were emerging stars. For the then two fading stars, King of Gamblers was seen as a comeback opportunity. And indeed, studio publicity promoted their appearance as such. Around the time of the film’s release, the Los Angeles Times ran a picture of Brooks and Brent under the headline, “Two actresses resume screen career.” The caption noted their “return to the silver sheet.”

Remarkably, Brooks name is included in the cast listing in the studio's campaign book, which suggests she was cut from the film only at the last minute. 

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, Canada, China, Dutch Guiana (Surinam), Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, The Philippines, and the United Kingdom (including England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, and Scotland). On a few occasions, the film was shown in the United States under the title Czar of the Slot Machines. In the United States, the film was also promoted about under the title El Rey de los Jugadores (Spanish-language press).

Elsewhere, King of Gamblers was shown under the title L’homme qui terrorisait New-York (Algeria); O Amor é como Jogo (Brazil); El Rey de los jugadores (Cuba); Král hazardních hrácu (Czechoslovakia); Storbyens sjakaler (Denmark); El Rey de los Jugadores (Dominican Republic); L’homme qui terrorisait New-York (France); O tromokratis tis Neas Yorkis (Greece); Rándyr stórborgarinnar (Iceland); 犯罪王 or Hanzai-ō (Japan); L’homme qui terrorisait New-York (Morocco); Król graczy (Poland); El Rey de los jugadores (Spain); L’homme qui terrorisait New York and Der König der Spieler (Switzerland); NewYorku' Titreten Adam (Turkey); and El Rey de los jugadores (Uruguay).

*The film was banned in Sweden.

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

-- The working titles for the film were The Kid from Paradise and King of the Gamblers. The film's alternate title (and sometimes subtitle) was Czar of the Slot-Machines.

-- Director Robert Florey had hoped to use Louise Brooks in an earlier film, Hollywood Boulevard (1936), but it didn't work out.

-- Helen Burgess, a promising 18 year old actress who had the second female lead in the film, died shortly after its completion on April 7, 1937 (and just five days before this film's preview). Discovered by Cecil B. De Mille, the demure actress was cast by the famous director in his epic western The Plainsman (1936). While working on her fourth film, Night of Mystery (1937), Burgess caught a chill that resulted in a serious cold, which in turn developed into pneumonia. An article at the time of her death noted that the Hollywood High School graduate had recently been picked for stardom by a vote of the Paramount film editors.

-- The film was previewed at the Alexander theater in Glendale, California. This first ever showing took place on April 12, 1937. King of Gamblers was paired with Swing High, Swing Low - a romantic drama starring Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray. Advertisements in the local paper noted stars of the unnamed preview film would be in attendance. Motion Picture Herald reported “The audience, which had been watching Swing High, Swing Low, found in the added attraction a contrast that caused it to pay strict attention. Several times it broke into applause.”

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2024. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.