More on It's the Old Army Game in Boston in 1926

As noted in the previous post, It’s The Old Army Game (1926), starring W.C. Fields & Louise Brooks, will be shown at the Somerville Theater in Somerville, Massachusetts (northwest of Boston, and north of Cambridge) on Sunday, April 6th at 2:00 pm. This rare 35mm screening will feature live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapis. More information about this event can be found HERE.

I couldn't determine if or when It’s The Old Army Game was first shown in Somerville (the April 6th screening may be its first ever), but I did find that the film debuted in nearby Boston in July, 1926. (Somerville is less then 5 miles from Boston.) In fact, it debuted on Saturday, July 3, 1926 at the Metropolitan theater. And, it was the first film shown under a new exhibition policy of opening films on Saturdays instead of Sundays. (As someone who is interested in tracking the exhibition history of films, this is a fascinating detail.)

Here is a selection of the entertainment listings for July 3, which includes the Metropolitan advertisement for It's the Old Army Game. It's worth noting that the first showing was not in the evening, but rather a 11:15 morning matinee. Also notable is the fact that Blanche Ring -- a one time vaudeville star -- was given third billing with her name as prominent as Brooks. I don't think I have ever noticed that before in an ad for the film. [Not mentioned in this particular ad was that the theater was air conditioned. "IT'S COOL / The Ice Plant Does It" proclaimed subsequent ads at a time when most people did not have air-conditioning.] Also remarkable is the small article noting that Arthur Fiedler would be conducting the Boston Pops. As a kid growing up, I remember him conducting the Pops on PBS!

On the day the film opened, the local Boston Globe ran a pictorial feature titled "Players Who Hold Attention on Stage and Screen." Louise Brooks received top billing, if not the largest image.

  

It's the Old Army Game was written up in the Boston Globe on Tuesday, July 6th. The anonymous article opined that "Fields is very funny in every scene, but he is particularly amusing in his efforts to eliminate the various noises which keep him awake when he tries to snatch a few minutes' sleep on the back porch." The article, which is a typical "review" of the time, went on to describe Louise Brooks as the "perfect flapper" -- which considering societal attitudes towards youth in the Jazz Age, may be an uncertain compliment. The article also stated that "William Gaxton doest excellent work as the young promoter... Blanche Ring wins many laughs. So do Mary Foy as the nagging sister and Mickey Bennett as her horribly spoiled son." For me, what stands out is the unusual usage of the word "doest".

Following its week long run at the Metropolitan, It’s the Old Army Game returned to Boston at the very end of July, where it played another limited run at the Olympia theater on Scollay Square. (The weather must have been warm, as ads for this theater boasted "Our cooling plant is the Talk of New England.") In a short write-up titled "W.C. Fields in Scollay Picture" which accompanied the engagement, the Boston Globe stated, "A compilation in his love affairs, also a case of fraud in which he becomes involved and several other troubles make up a laughable romance in which Louise Brooks as the heroine has a prominent share."

And again, the Boston Globe ran a pictorial feature highlighting some of the many performers appearing locally either on stage or screen. This time, Clara Bow took "center stage".

Back in the 1920s, new releases usually played for a week in larger cities or towns, before closing and moving on. They might return, just a few weeks or a month or two later and play at second run or neighborhood houses. That was the history of It's the Old Army Game in Boston. A week after showing at the Olympia theater on Scollay Square, the film moved over to the Central Square Theater in nearby Cambridge for another limited run beginning August 12. (Coincidentally, when It's the Old Army Game opened at the Central Square Theater, another film featuring Louise Brooks, The Show-Off, opened at the Metropolitan to positive reviews.)

And on August 16, the W.C. Fields - Louise Brooks film circled back to Boston where it was shown as one-half of a double bill at two theaters -- the Lancaster (with the Hoot Gibson film, The Man in the Saddle) for one day only, and the Exeter (with Love Mary, starring Bessie Love and William Haines). On August 25-27, the "picture attraction" at the Fenway Theater was It's the Old Army Game and a flicker called The Golden Web, with Lillian Rich and Huntley Gordon. And on August 27 it played at the Codman Square Theater as well as the Fields Corner Theater, with the latter screening being a double bill which included The Frontier Trail.

And that was the end of the trail for It's the Old Army Game in Boston, at least until 1978, when the film was screened at the Museum of Fine Arts as part of a double bill along with It, starring Clara Bow. I haven't found any other indications that the film has been shown in the greater Boston area since 1978, so that makes the Somerville screening something special. 

[The theater hosting It’s The Old Army Game, the Somerville Theater, first opened in 1914 as a vaudeville house and movie theater. Though notable, it is not the only historic venue in the area. In fact, in the course of putting together this blog post, I came across a webpage devoted to the Lost Theaters of Somerville on the Somerville Museum website. It's worth checking out.]

More about It’s the Old Army Game can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on the It’s the Old Army Game (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 contents copyright © 2025. 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.

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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.

Norwood Public Library hosts The Chaperone reading group on June 19

The Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts will host a reading group on June 19 to discuss The Chaperone. More information can be found HERE.

Turn the Page Book Group - The Chaperone
Wednesday, June 1910:00—11:00 AM Simoni Room Morrill Memorial Library 33 Walpole St., Norwood, MA, 02062

The Morrill Memorial Library’s monthly Turn the Page Book Group will meet on Wednesday, June 19 at 10 am and 7 pm to discuss The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty. The library describes the book as "A novel about the friendship between an adolescent, pre-movie-star Louise Brooks, and the 36-year-old woman who chaperones her to New York City for a summer, in 1922, and how it changes both their lives."

A New York Times bestseller and the USA Today #1 Hot Fiction Pick, The Chaperone is a captivating account of the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in the summer of 1922. It was recently made into a feature film starring Elizabeth McGovern by the creators of Downton Abbey.

Copies of the book in a number of formats will be available to pick up at the Circulation Desk. Light refreshments will be served.

To sign up for either the morning or evening session, led by Patty Bailey and first-time guest host Geri Harrold, please call 781-769-0200, x110, or stop by the library Reference or Information desk. Well more than half of the seats are taken for this highly anticipated event.

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On a not unrelated note, author Laura Moriarty was recently on "One on One with Victor Hogstrom," a television show on the local PBS affiliate (KPTS Channel 8) in Wichita, Kansas. In the thirty minute show, Moriarty discusses the mission of her novels. She also talks about The Chaperone, the novel she wrote about a certain Kansas-born film star that has been made into a new movie.