A moment with the McCarthy Sisters

The McCarthy Sisters were a vaudeville team who specialized in “comedy-syncopated songs” which often had a blues or jazz feel. The act, composed of Margaret and Dorothy McCarthy, sported sharp, short Jazz Age bobs (just like Louise Brooks) and performed in the “George White’s Scandals” and “Greenwich Village Follies” and elsewhere. Among the performers with whom they played was Tom Patricola, who was in the “George White’s Scandals” alongside Louise Brooks.

Perhaps their best remembers recording is "Can't Your Friend Get a Friend For Me" (1925). Here is a YouTube video from the wonderful Desdemona202 channel. (If you like early jazz -- from the 1920s and 1930s -- check it out.)

And here is a caricature of the "cute" sister act, which suggests they were known for dancing the Charleston. 

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.  

Diary of a Lost Girl, starring Louise Brooks, screens in Denver

This just in .... 

Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), starring Louise Brooks, will be shown in Denver, Colorado on Sunday, September 14th. This late afternoon screening is one of a number of films being shown as part of the Denver Silent Film Festival. More information about this screening, which will feature live musical accompaniment, can be found HERE.

And here is what the festival has to say about the event. "Louise Brooks was far less than the international phenomenon she became when she first arrived in Germany in 1926  1928 to make the scandalous Pandora’s Box with Pabst. Diary mounted another serious attack on bourgeois German morality with its story of a young girl raped, and sent to a morally rigid “reform school” from which she escapes and eventually works in a brothel before finding a way to rise in social standing."

Musical accompaniment by Rodney Sauer.

Diary of a Lost Girl will be shown at the Sie Film Center, Denver's Only Independent Movie Theater, located at 2510 E. Colfax Ave., Denver, CO 80206

For more information about Diary of a Lost Girl, be sure and visit the Louise Brooks Society filmography page devoted to the film.

Want to learn even more? Back in 2010, the Louise Brooks Society published the "Louise Brooks edition" of Margarete Bohme's The Diary of a Lost Girl, the book the film was based on. It's a sensational read. Order your copy today at amazon.com

The 1929 Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl, is based on a controversial and bestselling book first published in Germany in 1905. Though little known today, it was a literary sensation at the beginning of the 20th century. By the end of the 1920s, it had been translated into 14 languages and sold more than 1,200,000 copies - ranking it among the bestselling books of its time.

Was it - as many believed - the real-life diary of a young woman forced by circumstance into a life of prostitution? Or a sensational and clever fake, one of the first novels of its kind? This contested work - a work of unusual historical significance as well as literary sophistication - inspired a sequel, a play, a parody, a score of imitators, and two silent films. The best remembered of these is the oft revived G.W. Pabst film starring Louise Brooks.

This corrected and annotated edition of the original English language translation brought this important book back into print after more than 100 years. It includes an introduction by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society, detailing the book's remarkable history and relationship to the 1929 silent film. This special "Louise Brooks Edition" also includes more than three dozen vintage illustrations.

REVIEWS OF THE LOUISE BROOKS SOCIETY EDITION:

"In today's parlance this would be called a movie tie-in edition, but that seems a rather glib way to describe yet another privately published work that reveals an enormous amount of research and passion." - Leonard Maltin 

"Long relegated to the shadows, Margarete Böhme's 1905 novel, The Diary of a Lost Girl has at last made a triumphant return. In reissuing the rare 1907 English translation of Böhme's German text, Thomas Gladysz makes an important contribution to film history, literature, and, in as much as Böhme told her tale with much detail and background contemporary to the day, sociology and history. He gives us the original novel, his informative introduction, and many beautiful and rare illustrations. This reissue is long overdue, and in all ways it is a volume of uncommon merit." - Richard Buller, author of A Beautiful Fairy Tale: The Life of Actress Lois Moran

"Read today, it's a fascinating time-trip back to another age, and yet remains compelling. As a bonus, Gladysz richly illustrates the text with stills of Brooks from the famous film." - Jack Garner, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle 

"Thomas Gladysz is the leading authority on all matters pertaining to the legendary Louise Brooks. We owe him a debt of gratitude for bringing the groundbreaking novel, The Diary of a Lost Girl, back from obscurity." --Lon Davis, author of Silent Lives

"It was such a pleasure to come upon your well documented and beautifully presented edition." -- Elizabeth Boa, University of Nottingham

 

REVIEWS OF THE ORIGINAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDITION:

"The saddest of modern books." - Nelson Evening Mail (1909)

The "poignant story of a great-hearted girl who kept her soul alive amidst all the mire that surrounded her poor body." - Hall Caine (1907)

"There are many readers, however, who find it very shocking, and Mr. Bram Stoker, the advocate of book censoring . . . would ban it promptly." - New York Times (1907)

"The fact that one German critic asserted the impossibility of a woman herself immune from vice having written such a book, is proof that besides truth of matter there was compelling art in Margarete Böhme's book." - Percival Pollard (1909)

"The moral justification of such a publication is to be found in the fact that it shrivels up sentimentality; the weak thing cannot stand and look at such stark degradation." - Manchester Guardian (1907)

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.   

Louise Brooks Society blog revamped (pun intended)

The Louise Brooks Society blog has been revamped - pun intended. Specifically, new functionality and new content has been added to the right hand column. A translate menu can now be found at the top of the column for the blog's many international visitors. Also newly added are linked lists for "Key Pages on the LBS Website" and "More Key Pages on the LBS Website," as well as a list for "Popular Posts" here on the LBS blog.

Along with half-a-dozen other little refinements, the "Other Early Film Blogs", "Other Early Film Websites", "Podcasts", and "Festival / Venues" linked lists have also been updated. The Louise Brooks Society and its blog are part of the film community, and these linked lists are meant to serve as resources for individuals who wish to explore early film across the world wide web. I expect to add a few more small and not so small refinements in the coming weeks. 

The Louise Brooks Society™ has been blogging about the actress, silent film, and the Jazz Age, as well as fashion, dance, books, music, art, and other related topics for a long time. 

 

As a matter of fact, the Louise Brooks Society started blogging in 2002, first on LiveJournal and then on Blogger beginning in 2009. Between the two forums, there are more than 3800 posts, most all of which now reside on the LBS blog at louisebrookssociety.blogspot.com. At last count, the LBS blog has been visited / read well more than 2.8 million times.

 

 It is a longtime member of various affiliations, including the CMBA (Classic Movie Blog Association), CMH (Classic Movie Hub), and LAMB (Large Association of Movie Blogs). In 2018, the CMBA profiled the LBS, and in 2023, the CMH named the LBS one of the 5 best early film blogs.

 

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Read the 2018 Profile of the LBS

Visit the LBS page on the Large Association of Movie Blogs

 Classic Movie Hub

 

The Louise Brooks Society is a cinephilac blog. It is written on a regular basis by Thomas Gladysz, with occasional guest contributors. When you visit the LBS blog, be sure to like, share and subscribe. And, please leave a comment if you are so inclined. 

 

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.  

Screen Deco series begins at Film Forum in NYC ( includes Pandora's Box )

Film Forum in New York City has announced the launched of a weekly series devoted to "Screen Deco." The series, which starts today, runs every Monday through January 1. And what's more, the series will include a Louise Brooks film exemplifying the deco aesthetic, God's Gift to Women (1931) directed by Michael Curtiz (oops I mean) Pandora's Box (1929), directed by G. W. Pabst. The screening for the 1929 German classic will take place on November 4th and it will feature an in-person introduction by author Daniel Kehlmann, whose recent novel,  The Director, was inspired by the life of G.W. Pabst. (Louise Brooks is a character in the novel as well.) More information about this new series can be found HERE. 

“If movies promised life, liberty, and the pursuit of riches,
then Art Deco provided the perfect setting.” 
– Howard Mandelbaum and Eric Myers, Screen Deco: A Celebration of High Style in Hollywood

Here is what the Film Forum website has to say about this new series.

"Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs and Industriels Modernes in Paris, which introduced this revolutionary new design movement to the world, the festival includes over 25 films from the 1920s and 1930s, all stellar examples of movies designed in the style now known as Art Deco, a term not coined until the 1960s.

Festival highlights include silents OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS, with Joan Crawford, the first Hollywood movie with extensive Deco production design; A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS, with Greta Garbo; PANDORA’S BOX, with Louise Brooks; and the insanely Deco French film L’INHUMAINE. Pre-Code movies in the festival include Michael Curtiz’s FEMALE; Edgar G. Ulmer’s THE BLACK CAT, with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi; William Wyler’s COUNSELLOR AT LAW, with John Barrymore; GRAND HOTEL, with Garbo and Barrymore; Ernst Lubitsch’s ONE HOUR WITH YOU and TROUBLE IN PARADISE; the Busby Berkeley musical FOOTLIGHT PARADE, with James Cagney, Ruby Keeler, and Dick Powell; INTERNATIONAL HOUSE, with W.C. Fields, Burns & Allen, and Cab Calloway; and TOP HAT, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and many others. 

Says festival curator Bruce Goldstein, Film Forum’s Repertory Artistic Director, “Art Deco was introduced to Hollywood movies with a vengeance by MGM’s supervising art director Cedric Gibbons – the only studio designer to have attended the Paris exhibition – in the Joan Crawford silent OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS, the opening film in our series. ‘Moderne’ remained a predominant style in Hollywood until World War II. But it’s the racy Pre-Code era that fits it like a silver lamé gown.”

In their book Screen Deco: A Celebration of Hollywood High Style, co-authors Howard Mandelbaum and Eric Myers write, “Art Deco encompasses everything from the ornate zigzags of the movement’s infancy in the early 20s through the stripped-down, streamlined geometric forms of 30s Moderne. It was closely allied to the fantasies of wealth and elegance in America between the wars. Naturally, it was right at home in Hollywood.” As part of the festival, Mr. Mandelbaum and Mr. Myers will present a 50-minute illustrated presentation on the history of Art Deco in movies on Monday, November 24 at 7:30.

Other special guests in the festival include author and film critic Molly Haskell; Scott Eyman, author of a new biography of Joan Crawford; author and playwright Gray Horan, great niece of Greta Garbo; Casey Lalonde, grandson of Joan Crawford; Daniel Kehlmann, author of The Director, a new novel inspired by PANDORA’S BOX director G.W. Pabst; Kim Luperi and Danny Reid, co-authors of a new TCM book on Pre-Code movies; pianist and musicologist Peter Mintun, a specialist of music of the 1920s and 30s; Linda Zagaria of the Art Deco Society of New York; and Shane Fleming, a 21-year-old film historian, collector and archivist, who recently discovered a lost film featuring Ginger Rogers in her debut. 

Two presentations by Goldstein, originally delivered at editions of the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, will accompany the Thursday, November 27, 7:00 screening of FOOTLIGHT PARADE and the Sunday, December 7, 3:40 screening of INTERNATIONAL HOUSE.

SCREEN DECO is presented in association with the Art Deco Society of New York."

Pictured above is a publicity still of Louise Brooks in her most deco film, God's Gift to Women, which was directed by Michael Curtiz. It's a talkie from 1931, and enjoyable to watch. And, it features the adorable "Sisters G". God's Gift to Women is available on DVD.

 

If you don't live in New York City or can't make the series, be sure and check out the schedule of films as it makes for a worthwhile list of films to track down and see! 

 

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. 

Louise Brooks, tariffs, and eBay -- It's a sign of the times

I was scrolling through eBay listings looking for Louise Brooks related material -- something I've been doing for decades -- when I noticed a copy of Australian TV Week. 

The magazine, dating from June 2001, carried an article about Louise Brooks. That's what caught my attention.

I have a lot of Louise Brooks material from Australia in my "collection" -- which is both digital and physical in format, but this piece was something I hadn't seen before. 

What also caught my attention was the fact that an eBay notice banner popped up stating "Due to US policies, import fees for this item will need to be paid to customs or the shipping carrier on delivery. Learn More." Ouch! 

I suppose it's a sign of the times.... And it looks like Trump's tariffs will negatively impact even small-time movie memorabilia collectors like me. I imagine fewer and fewer overseas items related to the actress will be making their way into the United States. That's sad.

 Well, anyways, here's that anonymous article. It's titled "Movie Legends: Louise Brooks."

 

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.  

A NEW Louise Brooks Blu-ray is in the works

Sometime before the end of the year (fingers crossed), there will be a NEW Louise Brooks Blu-ray featuring never before released films -- some of it material not seen or shown in nearly 100 years! We won't say more about this disc at this time, except that the Louise Brooks Society is intimately involved and this is no April fools day joke.... and anyways, it ain't April first. Stay tuned to this channel for further details.

When this new disc is released, it will join the Louise Brooks Society page of Physical Media, which contains more than 125 different examples of  Louise Brooks VHS, Laser Disc, DVD and Blu-rays. Check it out. 

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.  

On Second Thought: Louise Brooks and Jay House

Jay E. House (1868-1936) was a nationally known newspaper columnist in the 1920s. Early on, he wrote for the Topeka Daily Capital and other small town Kansas papers. Beginning in 1919, his column "On Second Thought" began running in the Philadelphia Public Ledger and then the New York Evening Post. He wrote, as well, for the Saturday Evening Post and other publications, authored books, and once even served as mayor of Topeka, where he first got his start.

I wasn't familiar with House, but just recently I ran across a couple of clipping in the Hutchinson News (a small town Kansas newspaper) which both piqued my interest and referenced Jay House and Louise Brooks.

Apparently, House mentioned Brooks in one of his Philadelphia Public Ledger columns, which in turn led the Hutchinson News to respond in an article on December 18, 1926. The Hutchinson News response was occasioned by the local showing of Love Em and Leave Em, the latest Louise Brooks' film. 

House's reference seemingly ruffled a few feathers, because a few days later, he responded to this tempest in a teapot. On December 21, the Hutchinson News ran House's column, which read in part.

This all may be nothing more than ballywho and local boosterism, but still, it shows that Brooks was kinda famous in Kansas even in 1926.

[I haven't been able to get a hold of House's original column -- nor access the archives of the Philadelphia Public Ledger for the period in question in order to track down the House column that started it all. Can anyone help?]

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.  

Peter Cowie's new memoir Flashbacks: A Passion for Film features Louise Brooks

Every Louise Brooks fan should know the name of Peter Cowie. He is a highly regarded film critic, film historian, publisher, and biographer, a longtime friend of Louise Brooks, and, he is the author of the gorgeous 2006 pictorial, Louise Brooks: Lulu Forever. It is a book that belongs on the shelf of every Brooks' fan. Find out more about Cowie's new book HERE.

Cowie has just published a memoir which I am excited to get my hands on. It is titled, Flashbacks: A Passion for Film, and it has just been released. (I just ordered a copy, as September 1st is its publication date.)

The publisher description reads, "In Flashbacks, Peter Cowie tells his story with the same clarity, curiosity and quiet authority that have made him one of cinema's most respected chroniclers. From his postwar childhood in the English countryside to decades spent in screening rooms, studios and film festivals around the world, Cowie reflects on a life shaped by cinema, and a career that has shaped how cinema is remembered, written about and understood. Along the way, he draws vivid portraits of the filmmakers and actors who left their mark on his life and work, including Ingmar Bergman, Alain Resnais, Orson Welles, Francis Ford Coppola, Louise Brooks, and a host of others. Flashbacks doubles as cultural history and personal meditation, on how a passion became a vocation - Sight and Sound declared that Cowie's Tantivy Press, which he acquired from his parents in 1963, "put film publishing on the map" - and fueled a lifelong conversation with the moving image. From the moment Bergman's The Seventh Seal first seized his imagination as a teenager, in 1959, Peter Cowie has been a significant force behind the way we watch and think about film."

And here is something about the author: "Peter Cowie lives in Switzerland. He is the author of more than 30 books on film, including Ingmar Bergman: A Critical Biography (1982), Coppola (1989); The Godfather Book (1997), Revolution! The Explosion of World Cinema in the Sixties (2004), Louise Brooks - Lulu Forever (2006) and God and The Devil: The Life and Work of Ingmar Bergman (2023). At the Tantivy Press from 1963 to 1981 he commissioned and published more than 70 books on film and film-making. From 1993 to 2000, he was International Publishing Director for Variety. For the Criterion Collection, he has contributed audio commentaries and essays for more than 40 releases. He has been a consultant to Dolby Laboratories and on the Main Competition jury at the Berlin Festival, the Caméra d'Or jury at the Cannes Festival, and the Opera Prima jury at the Venice Festival."

Peter Cowie's Flashbacks: A Passion for Film is 332 pages and is published by Sticking Place Books. More info HERE.

I hope to blog more about this book in the coming months. Stay tuned.

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.