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.
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