Rolled Stockings, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1927

Rolled Stockings, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1927. The film is a drama set among students at the fictional Colfax College. It was one of a number of similarly-themed films aimed toward the youth market of the 1920s. Besides Louise Brooks, who was then 20 years old, its cast included a few of Paramount's "junior stars" -- then up-and-comers Richard Arlen, James Hall, Nancy Phillips, and El Brendel. Brooks plays the love interest of two brothers, one a fop, the other an athlete. 

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

To add verisimilitude, Rolled Stockings was largely filmed on and around the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. It also includes footage of actual crew races between the University of California and the University of Washington.

A summer release, the film proved popular wherever it was shown. Harrison’s Reports, a film industry trade journal, described Rolled Stockings as "a light comedy drama of college life" that was "Pretty good entertainment for the hot weather." The Chicago Tribune named it one of the six best films of June, 1927. Not surprisingly, the film found a receptive audience in college towns across the country. The critic for the Ann Arbor Times News, for example, appreciatively stated "The three stars, Louise Brooks, James Hall and Richard Arlen are so thoroughly likable and the story so different from the usual line of college bunk, that Rolled Stockings proves to be a delightful bit of cinema entertainment."

Rolled Stockings was a cut above many of the other motion pictures about the younger generation. The Seattle Times praised the film, noting "Paramount’s ‘youth’ picture, which is now at the Coliseum Theatre, has everything -- a thrilling college crew race, some exciting automobile scenes, snappy comedy, a good love story and lots of pep." Regina Cannon of the New York American proclaimed, "This is another college story and it is realistic enough to be entertaining. . . . Louise Brooks is seen for the first time in a ‘straight’ role. This child is so smartly sophisticated that it has seldom been her lot to portray anything but baby vamps on the screen. She has an unusual personality which the camera catches and magnifies, dresses snappily and makes the most of her every movie moment.”

Critics were divided on Brooks, the star of the film. Some noted her "provoking presence" and "demure charm, with its tricky suggestion of mild sophistication." The Los Angeles Examiner wrote, "Louise Brooks is utterly adorable as Carol Fleming. She is exactly the type college boys swoon over. She displays a sincerity in her work that has been absent from her previous roles. Though this particular part offers little opportunity to show any great acting, she measures up splendidly in the few scenes that border on the emotional." Across town, the Los Angeles Daily Illustrated News stated "Louise Brooks, judging by this film, is destined to go a long way. She has some of Colleen Moore's qualities with a dash of Florence Vidor thrown in, and a lot of her own distinctive personality."

The New York Daily Mirror countered, stating "Louise Brooks looks remarkably like Clara Bow, though she lacks the famed pep of our national flapper." The Washington Times went even further, "The leading role is borne by Louise Brooks and the part could have been better cast. Miss Brooks has the bad habit of stalking through her screen parts like an automaton and her face is devoid of emotion under all circumstances." In a piece titled "Louise Brooks Shows Acting Ability in Rivoli Feature," Mark K. Bowman found middle ground in the Portland Oregonian, "In the past Miss Brooks has been accused of strutting instead of acting, but it is apparent in this latest picture that she is endeavoring to do less posing, which is a promising move."

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

-- The film was based on a topical story, "Sheiks and Sheibas," by Frederica Sagor. Along with raccoon coats, flagpole sitters, goldfish swallowers, hip flasks, and ankle watches, rolled stockings worn by women were one of the many fads of the Jazz Age.

-- Rolled Stockings was first called Sheiks and Sheibas, but the title was changed because it conflicted with a First National property. At different times, different trade journals reported that Monty Brice and then Frank Strayer would direct the film, with Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Sterling Holloway among the cast.

-- Sally Blane, who had an uncredited part in Rolled Stockings, was born Elizabeth Jane Young and was the sister of actress Loretta Young.

-- Grover Jones, a gag man, doubled as director while the Rolled Stockings  company was on location in Berkeley, California. Director Richard Rosson was summoned to Hollywood by the death of his mother and Jones took the microphone and directed shots of the California-Washington boat race.

-- Years later, in an interview, Brooks said director Richard Rosson didn't want to direct the film, and in fact, didn't even want to be a director. "He'd been Allan Dwan's assistant, and it was an assistant that he wanted to be. During [this picture] he sat sweating, with a trembling script. There wasn't enough Bromo-Seltzer to float him out of his chair."

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

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.   

Beggars of Life, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928

Beggars of Life, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928. Directed by William Wellman the year after he made Wings (the first film to win an Academy Award), Beggars of Life is a terse drama about a girl (Louise Brooks) dressed as a boy who flees the law after killing her abusive stepfather. With the help of a young hobo, she rides the rails through a male dominated underworld in which danger is close at hand. Picture Play magazine described the film as “Sordid, grim and unpleasant,” adding, “it is nevertheless interesting and is certainly a departure from the usual movie.”

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

Beggars of Life is based on the 1924 novelistic memoir of the same name by Jim Tully, a celebrated “hobo author” highly regarded by H.L. Mencken and other literati of the time. Though shot as a silent and released in that format, Beggars of Life has the distinction of being Paramount’s first sound film: a synchronized musical score, sound effects, a few lines of dialogue and a song were added to some prints at the time of the film’s release. Advertisements for the film boasted “Come hear Wallace Beery sing!” The gravel-voiced character actor and future Oscar winner plays Oklahoma Red, a tough hobo with a soft heart. Richard Arlen, who the year before had starred in Wings, plays a vagabond and Brooks’ romantic interest.

In 1928, Beggars of Life was named one of the six best films for October by the Chicago Tribune; it also made the honor roll for best films of the year in an annual poll conducted by Film Daily. Musical Courier called Beggars of Life ” . . . one of the most entertaining films of the littered season.” And Photoplay thought it “good entertainment.” Nevertheless, it is not especially well known today, and its grim story set among the desperate and the downtrodden drew mixed reviews upon release. One Baltimore newspaper said it would have limited appeal, quipping, “Tully tale not a flapper fetcher for the daytime trade.”

Louella Parsons, writing in the Los Angeles Examiner, echoed the sentiment when she stated, “I was a little disappointed in Louise Brooks. She is so much more the modern flapper type, the Ziegfeld Follies girl, who wears clothes and is always gay and flippant. This girl is somber, worried to distraction and in no comedy mood. Miss Brooks is infinitely better when she has her lighter moments.” Her cross-town colleague, Harrison Carroll, added to the drumbeat of disdain when he wrote in the Los Angeles Evening Herald, “Considered from a moral standpoint, Beggars of Life is questionable, for it throws the glamour of adventure over tramp life and is occupied with building sympathy for an escaping murderess. As entertainment, however, it has tenseness and rugged earthy humor.”

Critics in New York were also divided on the merits of Beggars of Life, and many of them instead focused on Brooks’ unconventional, cross-dressing appearance. In the New York Times, Mordaunt Hall noted, “Louise Brooks figures as Nancy. She is seen for the greater part of this subject in male attire, having decided to wear these clothes to avoid being apprehended. Miss Brooks really acts well, better than she has in most of her other pictures.” The New York Morning Telegraph stated, “Louise Brooks, in a complete departure from the pert flapper that it has been her wont to portray, here definitely places herself on the map as a fine actress. Her characterizations, drawn with the utmost simplicity, is genuinely affecting.” While Quinn Martin of the New York World wrote, “Here we have Louise Brooks, that handsome brunette, playing the part of a fugitive from justice, and playing as if she meant it, and with a certain impressive authority and manner. This is the best acting this remarkable young woman has done.”

Also getting attention for their role in Beggars of Life was Edgar “Blue” Washington. The Afro-American newspaper wrote, “In Beggars of Life, Edgar Blue Washington, race star, was signed by Paramount for what is regarded as the most important Negro screen role of the year, that of Big Mose. The part is that of a sympathetic character, hardly less important to the epic of tramp life than those of Wallace Beery, Louise Brooks and Richard Arlen, who head the cast.”

Girls dressed as boys, pastoral life gone wrong, the mingling of races, desperation depicted among the glitz and glamour of the twenties — there is a lot happening in Beggars of Life. It is, arguably, Brooks’ best American silent.

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), France, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland and Scotland). In the United States, the film was presented under the title Mendigos de la Vida (Spanish-language press) and Il Mendicante di Vita (Italian language press).

Elsewhere, Beggars of Life was shown under the title Les mendiants de la vie (Algeria); Bettler des Lebens (Austria); Meias indiscretag and Mendigos da vida (Brazil); Mendigos de la Vida (Chile); Mendigos de la Vida (Costa Rica); Mendigos de la Vida (Cuba); Žebráci života and Žebráky živote (Czechoslovakia); De Lovløses Tog (Denmark); Menschen Zijn Nooit Tevreden (Dutch East Indies – Indonesia); Elu wõõraslapsed and Eluvõõrad hinged (Estonia); Les mendiants de la vie (France); Az élet koldusai and Az orszagutak angyala (Hungary); I mendicanti della vita (Italy); Bettler des Lebens and Dzives ubagi (Latvia); Bettlers des Lebens (Les Mendiants de la Vie) (Luxembourg); Mendigos de vida (Mexico); Menschen Zijn Nooit Tevreden and Zwervers (The Netherlands); Ludzie bezdomni (Poland); Mendigos da Vida (Portugal); Strada cersetorilor (Romania); Mendigos de vida and Los mendigos de la vida (Spain) and Captaires de vida (Spain, Catalonian language); and Les mendiants de la vie (Switzerland).

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— Beggars of Life was under consideration by Paramount as early as September of 1925. 

— With an added musical score, sound effects, and a song sung by Wallace Berry (either “Hark the Bells” or “Don’t You Hear Them Bells?” or “I Wonder Where She Sits Tonight”), Beggars of Life is considered Paramount’s first sound film. In Baltimore, Beggars of Life was the first “talking sequence picture” to play in the Century Theater.

— “Beggars of Life” by J. Keirn Brennan and Karl Hajos was recorded by The Troubadours, Scrappy Lambert and other artists and released as a 78 rpm recording. The label of these recordings describe it as “Theme Song of the Motion Picture production.”

— Edgar Washington (1898 – 1970) was a prizefighter and noted semi-pro baseball player (in the Negro Leagues) before entering films in the late Teens. He was a pioneer among African-American actors, and was given the nickname “Blue” by friend Frank Capra. Also in the film in a bit part was Michael Donlin, an outfielder whose Major League career spanned from 1899 to 1914.

— In 1965, director William Wellman wanted to bring Louise Brooks to San Francisco and screen Beggars of Life as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival, but it never came to be. Instead, he screened Wings for a packed house at the local Masonic auditorium.

— The first ever book on the film, Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film, was published by the Louise Brooks Society in 2017. The book is authored by LBS Director Thomas Gladysz, and features a foreword by author and actor William Wellman Jr.  (Purchase on amazon.)

More about Beggars of Life can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its Beggars of Life (filmography page). 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.