Another BIG article about Louise Brooks and Pandora's Box on Eat Drink Films

Ahead of the May 6 screening of Pandora's Box in Oakland, California - the excellent multi-topic blog Eat Drink Films has a big new piece by yours truly titled "Lulu By The Bay." 

My recent Film International article, “'Sin Lust Evil' in America: Louise Brooks and the Exhibition History of Pandora’s Box (1929)", was a macro-look at the exhibition history of Pandora's Box in the United States. 

This new piece on Eat Drink Films is a micro-look at the exhibition history of the film in the San Francisco Bay Area. The two articles compliment one another. 

A reminder: Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks, will be shown at the Paramount theater in Oakland, California on Saturday, May 6. More about that special screening, which will feature live musical accompaniment by the Clubfoot Orchestra and members of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, can be found HERE. If you live in the Bay Area, don't miss this special event.

Also, there was a good article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the history of this particular restoration of Pandora's Box. The article, by Pam Grady, is titled "Diving into the archive: Film preservationists partner to restore an erotic drama from 1929." It is also well worth checking out.

If you attend this special screening, please do post a comment or send me an email. I would love to hear from you.

Pictured below is yours truly wearing a vintage Clubfoot Orchestra / Pandora's Box t-shirt obtained from the musical groups nearly 20 years ago. I also have a massive 3' x 5' poster depicting the same image. 

(Curiously, this very image of me was said to violate the intellectual property rights of the internet troll attacking the Louise Brooks Society who is also threatening to take down the LBS website. Despite the fact my wife took this photo, and despite the fact the shirt was manufactured by the Clubfoot Orchestra, and despite the fact this shirt is nearly 20 years old, and despite the fact the shirt doesn't even mention Louise Brooks by name, the troll claimed it violated his trademark on "Louise Brooks." That's a stretch..... )

For the record, here is a listing of all the documented screenings of Pandora's Box in Northern California.If you know of others or if I have missed some, please let me know so I can add them to the record.

Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey (between Aug. 2-5, 1962 as part of Peninsula Film Seminar); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Oct. 5, 1972 as part of Women's Works); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Oct. 21, 1972 special matinee); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco (Nov. 21, 1972); Cento Cedar Cinema in San Francisco (February 1-7, 1973 with Threepenny Opera); Surf  in San Francisco with The Last Laugh (Jan. 22-23, 1974 “new print”); Pacific Film Archive (Wheeler Auditorium) in Berkeley (July 24, 1974); Cento Cedar Cinema in San Francisco (Sept. 18-20, 1975 with The Blue Angel); Wheeler Auditorium in Berkeley (Nov. 9, 1975 with L’Age D’Or); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco (Nov. 7, 1976); Noe Valley Cinema (James Lick Auditorium) in San Francisco with Oskar Fischinger’s Composition in Blue (May 21, 1977); KTEH Channel 54 – San Jose television broadcast (Dec. 18, 1977 and Dec. 24, 1977 and Dec. 25, 1977); KQEC Channel 32 – San Francisco television broadcast (Dec. 24, 1977 and Dec. 25, 1977); KVIE Channel 6 – Sacramento television broadcast (Dec. 18 and Dec. 24 and Dec. 25, 1977); Wheeler Auditorium in Berkeley (Feb. 10, 1978 with L’Age D’Or); Sonoma Film Institute in Sonoma State University (Feb. 28, 1979 with The Blue Angel); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley as part of “Tapes from the Everson Video Revue” (Jan. 20, 1980); U.C. in Berkeley with The Threepenny Opera (March 10, 1980); Roxie in San Francisco with The Blue Angel (Mar. 31, 1980); Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco (April 11, 1980 with Un Chien Andalou); Castro in San Francisco with A Girl in Every Port (May 2-3, 1980); Rialto in Berkeley with The Threepenny Opera (May 14-20, 1980); Castro in San Francisco with The Threepenny Opera (Aug. 28, 1980); Strand in San Francisco with The Threepenny Opera (December 15, 1980); Rialto in Berkeley with The Threepenny Opera (December 17-23, 1980); Roxie in San Francisco with A Girl in Every Port (Feb. 17-19, 1981); Showcase Cinema in Sacramento with Foolish Wives (Mar. 3, 1981); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco (March 6, 1981); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Mar. 7, 1981 as part of the series “Starring Louise Brooks” with Organ Accompaniment By Robert Vaughn); Rialto in Berkeley with Salome (June 24-27, 1981); Rialto in Berkeley with A Girl in Every Port (Feb. 12-16, 1982); Electric in San Francisco with The Blue Angel (Mar. 10-11, 1982); Avenue in San Francisco with She Goes to War (May 6, 1982); York in San Francisco with Threepenny Opera (June 22, 1982); Roxie in San Francisco with A Girl in Every Port (Oct. 17-18, 1982); UC in Berkeley with A Girl in Every Port (Oct. 25, 1982); Darwin / Sonoma Film Institute at Sonoma State University (Jan. 20, 1983); Showcase Cinema in Sacramento with M. (Feb. 1, 1983); Castro in San Francisco with Diary of a Lost Girl (Oct. 26 – Nov. 3, 1983); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley with Kameradaschaft (Dec. 7, 1983); Santa Cruz Film Festival in Santa Cruz with A Conversation with Louise Brooks (Jan. 19, 1984); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Jan. 27-28, 1985 with M.); U.C. in Berkeley (Sept. 18, 1985); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Oct. 13, 1985 as part of the series “A Tribute to Louise Brooks (1906-1985),” accompanied on piano by Jon Mirsalis); Castro in San Francisco with The Threepenny Opera (Nov. 29, 1985); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Oct. 29, 1986); San Francisco Public Library (main branch) in San Francisco (Dec. 18, 1986); Castro in San Francisco (Feb. 26, 1987 as part of “Vamps” series); Castro in San Francisco (Jan. 7, 1988); U.C. in Berkeley (June 30, 1988); Castro  in San Francisco (Nov. 8, 1988); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Nov. 17, 1988); Red Vic in San Francisco (Feb. 13-14, 1990); Castro  in San Francisco (Aug. 7, 1990); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Dec. 4, 1990 as part of the series “Surrealism and Cinema”); Castro  in San Francisco (Apr. 29, 1991); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Apr. 5, 1992 as part of the series “Silent Film Classics”);  Castro in San Francisco (May 11, 1992 with Diary of a Lost Girl); Castro in San Francisco (May 5-8, 1995 accompanied by the Club Foot Orchestra, as part of the San Francisco Film Festival); Castro in San Francisco (Dec. 16-17, 1995 accompanied by the Club Foot Orchestra); Castro in San Francisco (Apr. 2, 1996 with Wings, accompanied on organ by Robert Vaughn); Towne Theatre in San Jose (June 28, 1996 accompanied on organ by Robert Vaughn); Castro in San Francisco (May 18, 1998 as part of Femme Fatale Festival); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (May 28, 2000); Stanford in Palo Alto (Sept. 5, 2001); Jezebel’s Joint in San Francisco (Feb. 10, 2003); Castro in San Francisco (July 15, 2006 as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, with introductions by Thomas Gladysz and Bruce Conner); Rafael Film Center in San Rafael (Nov. 11, 2006 introduced by Peter Cowie); California in San Jose (Mar. 9, 2007 as part of Cinequest); Castro in San Francisco (July 14, 2112 as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival); Niles Essanay Film Museum in Fremont (Sept. 12, 2015); Stanford in Palo Alto (Sept. 23, 2016); Niles Essanay Film Museum in Fremont (March 23, 2019); Paramount in Oakland (May 6, 2023).

 

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 © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited.

Lulu by the Bay: Louise Brooks and Pandora's Box in the San Francisco Bay Area

On Saturday May 6th, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival will show Pandora's Box (1929) at the Paramount Theater in Oakland. This special live cinema event, featuring a restored print, will feature live musical accompaniment by the Club Foot Orchestra and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. More information about the event can be found HERE. Ticket are on sale.

In honor of this forthcoming event, I'm posting a recent snapshot of yours truly wearing a vintage Clubfoot Orchestra Pandora's Box t-shirt. I likely obtained this shirt in the late 1990s, probably around the same time I purchased a massive poster depicting the same image found on the shirt. I may not look my best, but the shirt is still cool.

 
The upcoming Oakland screening is significant for a couple of other reasons. One is that it marks the first ever showing of the film in Oakland, California - at least as far as I could tell. The May screening is also significant as it marks something of homecoming for the character of Lulu, whose creator, Frank Wedekind, was almost born in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

As film goers likely know, Pandora’s Box is loosely based on two plays, Earth Spirit (1895) and Pandora’s Box (1904), by the German writer Frank Wedekind (1864–1918). Today, he is best known as the author of Spring Awakening (1891), which was turned into a hugely popular Broadway musical few years back.

What’s little known is that Wedekind’s parents were one-time residents of San Francisco in the years following the 1849 Gold Rush. Wedekind's German father was a physician and progressive democrat whose participation in the Revolutions of 1848 (in what would become Germany) led him into exile. Wedekind’s Swiss mother was an attractive singer and Gold Rush actress / entertainer twenty-three years his junior. This unlikely and unconventional union has led some scholars to speculate that the relationship between Wedekind’s parents could have served as a model for the similar, unconventional relationship between the older and respected Dr. Schon and the much younger showgirl Lulu in Pandora’s Box. 

Of course, such things are open to interpretation. However, what we do know is that Friedrich Wedekind and Emilie Kammerer’s second child—the future writer—was conceived in San Francisco, and later born in what is now Hanover, Germany. According to the future writer's biography, early in the pregnancy the homesick couple risked a return to Europe and Friedrich Wedekind's homeland, and stayed. And that’s where Benjamin Franklin Wedekind, named for the free-thinking American writer, was born in 1864. Fast foreword....

 
Controversial, censored, cut, and critically disregarded when it first debuted, Pandora’s Box is today  considered one of the great films of the silent era, largely in part because of the stunning performance given by Louise Brooks in the role of Lulu. However, that wasn't always so. 

Pandora’s Box had its world premiere in February of 1929 at the Gloria–Palast theater in Berlin. Reviews at the time were mixed, even dismissive. Some months later, in December of 1929, when Pandora’s Box opened at a single theater in New York City, American newspaper and magazine critics were similarly ambivalent, and even hostile. In its now infamous review, the New York Times critic stated, “In an introductory title the management sets forth that it has been prevented by the censors from showing the film in its entirety, and it also apologizes for what it termed ‘an added saccharine ending’.” Adding salt to the wound, the Times critic noted, “Miss Brooks is attractive and she moves her head and eyes at the proper moment, but whether she is endeavoring to express joy, woe, anger or satisfaction it is often difficult to decide.” 

Yikes!

Despite poor reviews, the film drew crowds. The New York Sun reported that Pandora’s Box “ . . . has smashed the Fifty-fifth Street Playhouse’s box office records,” and was held over for another week. With its brief run completed, Pandora’s Box fell into an obscurity from which it barely escaped. Though the film was shown sporadically in the United States in the early and mid 1930s, it was hard to be a silent film at the beginning of the talkie era. Few film goers cared. (For a detailed account, see my earlier 2018 blog, The Lost History of Pandora's Box in the United States.)

Things have changed, and the reputation of Pandora’s Box has grown steadily. The film has been screened numerous times in the last few decades, and perhaps nowhere more often in the United States than in the San Francisco Bay Area. Chances are if you are still reading this piece, you saw an earlier print at the Castro Theater in San Francisco or the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, where between those two venues the film has been shown nearly two dozen times since the mid-1970s.

As far as I have been able to document, the first screening of Pandora’s Box in the City of San Francisco took place at the old Surf Theater in January of 1974, as part of a double bill with The Last Laugh. A couple of years earlier, in October of 1972, the Pacific Film Archive screened it in Berkeley in what was one of the film’s earliest East Bay screenings. 

One of the early Berkeley screenings was likely prompted by film critic Pauline Kael, who was then living in the Bay Area and had a hand in local film exhibition. At that time, Kael was also corresponding with Louise Brooks, who was living in Rochester, New York. On at least one occasion in their exchange of letters, Kael implored Brooks to come to the Bay Area to be present at a screening of Pandora’s Box. But Brooks, who was reclusive, wouldn’t budge. (Louise Brooks even had family in the area.... but still she wouldn't budge.)

But before that, in all likelihood, the very first screening of Pandora’s Box in the greater Bay Area took place in 1962, when the Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey screened a print of Pandora’s Box as part of its Peninsula Film Seminar. The event was organized around a visit by Brooks’ early champion and friend James Card, who brought with him a small collection of rare films, including a messy, unrestored version of the Pabst masterpiece. 

At the time, Card’s print of Pandora’s Box was probably one of the very few prints of the film in the United States. And in all likelihood, Pandora’s Box and the other films shown at the Seminar were works the attendees had only heard of but not seen. 

According to newspaper reports of the time, the Peninsula Film Seminar was a big deal in local film circles. And notably, it was attended by Bay Area cognoscenti like Pauline Kael, future San Francisco poet Laureate Jack Hirschman, a few East Bay film promoters involved with the Berkeley Film Guild, and others. And there, in Monterey, the seeds were first sown for the film’s now large reputation in the Bay Area.   

 

That's me again, with my Clubfoot orchestra shirt. To my right is a large poster for the 2006 San Francisco Silent Film Festival showing of the film, which not only took place during the Louise Brooks centenary, but which I and artist / filmmaker Bruce Conner introduced.

In honor of the May 6, 2023 screening of Pandora's Box (1929) at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, here is a list of all known theatrical showings of the film in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. If you know of others, please send an email. Or, if you attended any of the early screenings of the film, especially those marked in bold, I would love to hear your memories.

1960s - 1970s: Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey (between Aug. 2-5, 1962 as part of Peninsula Film Seminar); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Oct. 5, 1972 as part of Women's Works); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Oct. 21, 1972 special matinee); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco (Nov. 21, 1972); Cento Cedar Cinema in San Francisco (February 1-7, 1973 with Threepenny Opera); Surf in San Francisco (Jan. 22-23, 1974 a “new print,” with The Last Laugh); Pacific Film Archive (Wheeler Auditorium) in Berkeley (July 24, 1974); Cento Cedar Cinema in San Francisco (Sept. 18-20, 1975 with The Blue Angel); Wheeler Auditorium in Berkeley (Nov. 9, 1975 with L’Age D’Or); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco (Nov. 7, 1976); Noe Valley Cinema (James Lick Auditorium) in San Francisco with Oskar Fischinger’s Composition in Blue (May 21, 1977); Wheeler Auditorium in Berkeley (Feb. 10, 1978 with L’Age D’Or); Sonoma Film Institute in Sonoma State University (Feb. 28, 1979 with The Blue Angel); 

1980s: Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley as part of “Tapes from the Everson Video Revue” (Jan. 20, 1980); U.C. in Berkeley with The Threepenny Opera (March 10, 1980); Roxie in San Francisco with The Blue Angel (Mar. 31, 1980); Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco (April 11, 1980 with Un Chien Andalou); Castro in San Francisco with A Girl in Every Port (May 2-3, 1980); Rialto in Berkeley with The Threepenny Opera (May 14-20, 1980); Castro in San Francisco with The Threepenny Opera (Aug. 28, 1980); Strand in San Francisco with The Threepenny Opera (December 15, 1980); Rialto in Berkeley with The Threepenny Opera (December 17-23, 1980); Roxie in San Francisco with A Girl in Every Port (Feb. 17-19, 1981); Showcase Cinema in Sacramento with Foolish Wives (Mar. 3, 1981); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco (March 6, 1981); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Mar. 7, 1981 as part of the series “Starring Louise Brooks” with Organ Accompaniment By Robert Vaughn); Rialto in Berkeley with Salome (June 24-27, 1981); Rialto in Berkeley with A Girl in Every Port (Feb. 12-16, 1982); Electric in San Francisco with The Blue Angel (Mar. 10-11, 1982); Avenue in San Francisco with She Goes to War (May 6, 1982); York in San Francisco with The Threepenny Opera (June 22, 1982); Roxie in San Francisco with A Girl in Every Port (Oct. 17-18, 1982); UC in Berkeley with A Girl in Every Port (Oct. 25, 1982); Darwin / Sonoma Film Institute at Sonoma State University (Jan. 20, 1983); Showcase Cinema in Sacramento with M. (Feb. 1, 1983); Castro in San Francisco with Diary of a Lost Girl (Oct. 26 – Nov. 3, 1983); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley with Kameradaschaft (Dec. 7, 1983); Santa Cruz Film Festival in Santa Cruz with A Conversation with Louise Brooks (Jan. 19, 1984); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Jan. 27-28, 1985 with M.); U.C. in Berkeley (Sept. 18, 1985); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Oct. 13, 1985 as part of the series “A Tribute to Louise Brooks (1906-1985),” accompanied on piano by Jon Mirsalis); Castro in San Francisco with The Threepenny Opera (Nov. 29, 1985); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Oct. 29, 1986); San Francisco Public Library (main branch) in San Francisco (Dec. 18, 1986); Castro in San Francisco (Feb. 26, 1987 as part of “Vamps” series); Castro in San Francisco (Jan. 7, 1988); U.C. in Berkeley (June 30, 1988); Castro in San Francisco (Nov. 8, 1988); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Nov. 17, 1988); 

1990s: Red Vic in San Francisco (Feb. 13-14, 1990); Castro in San Francisco (Aug. 7, 1990); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Dec. 4, 1990 as part of the series “Surrealism and Cinema”); Castro in San Francisco (Apr. 29, 1991); Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (Apr. 5, 1992 as part of the series “Silent Film Classics”);  Castro in San Francisco (May 11, 1992 with Diary of a Lost Girl); Castro in San Francisco (May 5-8, 1995 accompanied by the Club Foot Orchestra, as part of the San Francisco Film Festival); Castro in San Francisco (Dec. 16-17, 1995 accompanied by the Club Foot Orchestra); Castro in San Francisco (Apr. 2, 1996 with Wings, accompanied on organ by Robert Vaughn); Towne Theatre in San Jose (June 28, 1996 accompanied on organ by Robert Vaughn); Castro in San Francisco (May 18, 1998 as part of Femme Fatale Festival); 

2000s: Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (May 28, 2000); Stanford in Palo Alto (Sept. 5, 2001); Jezebel’s Joint in San Francisco (Feb. 10, 2003); Castro in San Francisco (July 15, 2006 as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, with introductions by Thomas Gladysz and Bruce Conner); Rafael Film Center in San Rafael (Nov. 11, 2006 introduced by Peter Cowie); California in San Jose (Mar. 9, 2007 as part of Cinequest); Castro in San Francisco (July 14, 2112 as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival); Niles Essanay Film Museum in Fremont (Sept. 12, 2015); Stanford in Palo Alto (Sept. 23, 2016); Niles Essanay Film Museum in Fremont (March 23, 2019).

Notably, Pandora's Box was also shown on local PBS broadcast television in Northern California. Here are some early instances, which include Christmas eve and Christmas day showings. I wonder how viewers felt watching this film over the Holidays and seeing the murderous Jack the Ripper scene at the film's end - a scene which takes place around Christmas: KTEH Channel 54 – San Jose television broadcast (Dec. 18, 1977 and Dec. 24, 1977 and Dec. 25, 1977); KQEC Channel 32 – San Francisco television broadcast (Dec. 24, 1977 and Dec. 25, 1977); KVIE Channel 6 – Sacramento television broadcast (Dec. 18 and Dec. 24 and Dec. 25, 1977). Incorrectly, the PBS promo image shown below incorrectly identifies Lulu as a London streetwalker. A Berlin showgirl is more like it.

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 © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited.

The Louise Brooks Society, a statement, something to get off my chest

At one of my San Francisco Public Library exhibits

I launched the "Louise Brooks Society" website in 1995. I did so because I had recently "discovered" the actress and was enthused about connecting with others of like-mind, sharing not only information and images but also the small discoveries which came from my ongoing research into Brooks' life and career. For me, the Louise Brooks Society is a labor of love to which I have given a fair amount of my time.

Over the years, a handful of other Louise Brooks websites and fan pages have come and gone. With the launch of Facebook, even more groups have sprung up, including one similarly called the "Louise Brooks Appreciation Society." I figured the more interest in Brooks the better.... I would do my thing, and others could do their thing. Live and let live.... And that's the way it was for a good number of years. I never felt I had "ownership" over Louise Brooks, and never tried to control how others expressed their interest or passion in the actress. "It's all good," as they say. I have, as well, on numerous occasions, supported and promoted other's projects, be it another fan's art, video, article, novel, documentary, or webpage. There was plenty of Louise Brooks to go around.

However, not everyone feels the way I do. The petty internet trolls who have attacked the Louise Brooks Society and its social media accounts are a nuisance who are, in effect, trying to control Louise Brooks. Just today, they had Etsy remove a 25 year-old t-shirt I had for sale by claiming this vintage piece of clothing, lawfully manufactured by a third party decades ago, somehow infringed upon their intellectual property rights. Bull, shit. They have also managed to get the Louise Brooks Society Instagram account suspended, and now, its 5300 followers no longer get their daily dose of our Miss Brooks via the LBS. My apologies to those 5300 Louise Brooks-loving Instagramers, but my appeals have gone nowhere. The same thing happened to the Louise Brooks Society fan page on Facebook, which had gained a similar number of followers and has also disappeared. [For the record, the LBS LinkedIn, Patreon, CafePress, POST and LinkTree accounts have also been attacked on the grounds of alleged infringement of intellectual property.]

Admittedly, these attacks have left me feeling a bit discouraged, but not undaunted. I still have my Louise Brooks Society website and blog, and I still have pride in the fact that the Louise Brooks Society helped bring both the Barry Paris biography and Louise Brooks' own Lulu in Hollywood back into print. I am also proud of the considerable research I have done, of the many articles I have written, the four books I have published, the various events I put on or participated in, the exhibits I curated, the books and documentary films I have helped inspire, and the films I have helped restore. I did all this, and more, for one simple reason -- to bring greater awareness to the life and films of someone I find endlessly fascinating.

One thing that I am proud of is the acknowledgement given me by the estate of Louise Brooks, with whom I have worked on a project (the retrieval of some rare material from an archive). They thanked me for placing that material in their hands, and for all that I had done.

Someone once said, "living well is the best revenge." The Louise Brooks Society will go on. At present I am working on a new book, with another in the works. (To get the latest news from the Louise Brooks Society, please subscribe to this blog or the LBS Twitter account.)

Also, a BIG THANK YOU to those who made a donation to my GoFundMe campaign towards the publication of my forthcoming book about Louise Brooks' first film, The Street of Forgotten Men: From Story to Screen and Beyond. It is full of rare images, including a handful of Louise Brooks. Find out more HERE.

The Louise Brooks Society is a pioneering silent film website. And, I think it has made its mark. Not more than a few years after I started the site, I met the much loved film critic Roger Ebert, who told me he had used the LBS to research the actress and her films. I was thrilled. I also felt I was doing something right.

A few years after that, Ebert tweeted about an article I had written for the Huffington Post about the 1928 film, Beggars of Life. In his tweet, Ebert encouraged Kino Lorber to release the film on DVD, and they did, a few years later. (You can hear my audio commentary on the DVD/Blu-Ray!)

I would love to see this nearly-lost Louise Brooks film! Kino! Get on the case! http://t.co/nbPqdQdI

— Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) February 20, 2012

Others, like Louise Brooks fan (and 8th Doctor Who) Paul McGann have praised my website, as have others both in and outside the world of silent film and film history. What follows is some of the press and praise the site has received in magazines and newspapers from around the world. This first clipping shown here, from May 23, 1996, came as a big surprise. It also reveals the ugly old URL of the site before I secured www.pandorasbox.com (Otherwise, here is the earliest Wayback Machine capture of the site at pandorasbox.com, from April 11, 1997.) If you are out there Sam Vincent Meddis, "thank you."

 

PRESS & PRAISE FOR THE LOUISE BROOKS SOCIETY

Meddis, Sam Vincent. "Net: New and notable." USA Today, May 23, 1996.
-- "Silent-film buffs can get a taste of how a fan club from yesteryear plays on the Web. The Louise Brooks Society site includes interview, trivia and photos. It also draws an international audience."

Silberman, Steve. "Fan Site Sparks Biopic." Wired News, April 10, 1998.
-- "The Louise Brooks Society is an exemplary fan site."

Evenson, Laura. "Lovely Lulu Lives Again." San Francisco Chronicle, May 3, 1998.
-- "Hugh Munro Neely, director of "Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu," credits Gladysz's site with helping to sell the idea for the documentary." (alternative archive link)

Garner, Jack. "Movie buffs can find trivia, reviews online." Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, September 12, 2000.
-- "A fine example of a fan page, a thoughtful, artful site devoted to the life and times of a fabled silent movie legend." 

Anderson, Jeffrey M. "Thirteen great film sites." San Francisco Examiner, November 29, 2001.
-- "This San Francisco-run site pays tribute to one of the greatest and most under-appreciated stars of all time."

Pattenden, Mike. "An era of glamour." London Sunday Times, April 27, 2003.
-- "With her sculpted dark bob and rebellious lifestyle, Louise Brooks was perhaps the ultimate flapper icon. A screen star to rank with Bacall and Hepburn, Brooks' career straddled the silent era and early talkies. She bucked the system to make movies in Europe, notably Pandora's Box, which lends its name to www.pandorasbox.com, dedicated to her remarkable life and including some of her more risque poses - a reminder that the 1920s were as much about sex and style as any era since."

Maltin, Leonard. "Links We Like: Louise Brooks Society." Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy, August 1, 2005.
-- "Not many sites of any kind can claim to be celebrating a tenth anniversary online, but that’s true of the Louise Brooks Society, devoted to the life and times of the magnetic silent-film star and latter-day memoirist. Thomas Gladysz has assembled a formidable amount of material on the actress and her era; there’s not only a lot to read and enjoy, but there’s a gift shop and even a 'Radio Lulu' function that allows you to listen to music of the 1920s. Wow!"

Matheson, Whitney. "Happy birthday, Louise!" USA Today, November 14, 2006.
-- "My favorite Louise Brooks site belongs to the Louise Brooks Society, a devoted group of fans that even keeps a blog." 

SiouxWire. "Interview: THOMAS GLADYSZ, founder of the LOUISE BROOKS Society." SiouxWire, April 5, 2007.
 
Garner, Jack. "Get hard-to-find films on custom DVD's." Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, September 10, 2010.
-- "But it's not everyday that a 1929 film generates a reissue of a book, yet that's the case with Margarete Bohme's The Diary of a Lost Girl, which was originally published in 1905. The surprising reissue in 2010 is the brainchild of Thomas Gladysz, a San Francisco journalist and director of the Louise Brooks Society."  

Blackburn, Gavin. "Forgotten book by Margarete Boehme to be revived in US." Deutsche Welle, November 3, 2010.

LaSalle, Mick. "Diary of a Lost Girl to be screened at main library." San Francisco Chronicle, November 12, 2010.

Toole, Michael T. "Reopening Pandora’s Box in San Francisco." Film International, August 22, 2012.

Marcus, Greil. "Where the Song Leaves You." BarnesandNobleReview, January 19, 2015.
-- a 2012 LBS blog about Bruce Conner and Louise Brooks is singled out by the well known critic 

Brady, Tara. "Louise Brooks: ‘I was always late, but just too damn stunning for them to fire me’." Irish Times, June 2, 2018.
-- "She has super-fans. An online tribute site, the Louise Brooks Society, contains an extraordinary day-by-day chronology of her life."

(Above) With Louise Brooks biographer Barry Paris in the year 2000. The publisher was appreciative of my efforts in helping bring the acclaimed biography back into print, so-much-so they arranged for an exclusive event at the San Francisco bookstore where I once worked, flying Barry Paris from his home in Pennsylvania to the West Coast. The book has remained in print ever since, and, I am told, it was among the publisher's best selling back-list titles for a few years running. Pictured below, my copy of an original edition of the biography, which reads, "For Thomas - who resurrected me & LB, the way Tynan did in the New Yorker!"

This blog is a middle finger to the internet trolls trying to damage the Louise Brooks Society. The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited.

A milestone for the Louise Brooks Society blog

A rare portrait from the 1930s

Recently, I was tidying up the Louise Brooks Society blog (I hope you like what I have done with the place) when I noticed it was coming up on a milestone. Today's post marks the 3400th blog.

I started blogging back in August 2002, first on LiveJournal, and then on Blogger starting around 2009. I managed to transfer the most interesting pieces from LiveJournal to Blogger, and have been writing and blogging and posting all along. Admittedly, those very early pieces were infrequent and sometimes slight. In 2006, however, during the Louise Brooks centennial, I posted 290 times. There was a lot to report. In 2011, I posted only 69 times. The best year was 2014, when I posted 306 times. I can't imagine how I did it. The pandemic has certainly slowed things down, as there are fewer screenings and news items to write about. My goal these days is to focus on more substantive pieces and newly found material, and to post about 100 times a year. I figure it all adds up.

The LBS blog has hundreds of followers. IF YOU ARE NOT ONE, SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE IN THE COLUMN ON THE RIGHT. Since 2009, according to my hit counter, the Louise Brooks Society blog has been viewed more than 1,665,000 times by individuals from all around the world. That is pretty cool. Check the flag counter below or in the right hand column to see if your country is represented. Not surprisingly, English speaking countries lead the roll call of visitors. And of course, France and Germany (where LB made a few films) also show many visitors. It pleases me that Russia and countries in Latin America also show up, as does India. But come on New Zealand, you can do better! And so can you, Poland!

 

As many longtime readers of this blog know, my other online writings about Louise Brooks have appeared on examiner.com, Huffington Post, SFGate (website of the San Francisco Chronicle), Open / Salon, Pop Matters, and recently Film International. And what's more, my articles have been tweeted about by the likes of Roger Ebert (twice!), Neil Gaiman, and others. That is really cool. In 2018, I collected a number of my best articles and blogs into an illustrated, 296 page book, Louise Brooks, the Persistent Star. Why not ORDER a copy today! 

Just recently, I noticed one of my past blogs caught the attention of Greil Marcus back in 2015. Writing on BarnesandNobleReview, the famous critic and author singled out a 2012 blog I penned on Louise Brooks and the Kansas-born artist Bruce Conner. Here is a screen capture of Greil Marcus' blog about my blog.

Again, I was pleased by the attention. The Louise Brooks Society blog is a proud member of the CMBA (the Classic Movie Blog Association). I was also heartened back in 2018 when the Classic Movie Blog Association profiled the LBS blog and even interviewed yours truly. That is certainly another highlight in the life of the Louise Brooks Society blog. The recognition is nice, and so is the feedback. 

My sincere thanks to the blogs which link to the LBS blog (some are linked in the right hand column), and to the bloggers (including Immortal Ephemera), online publications (including Shelf-Awareness), and websites (including Columbia University Press) which have written about its various entries. I will end this pat on the back with another little seen portrait of Louise Brooks from the 1930s. Long live Lulu!

Another little seen portrait of Brooks from the early 1930s

A Louise Brooks musical tribute from Rick Gallego & Cloud Eleven

Recently, I received a CD in the mail from independent recording artist Rick Gallego. His latest record is titled Pandora's Box (Kool Kat Musik). Rick enclosed a brief note that read, "Hi Thomas, thought you might find this interesting, since this was inspired by Louise!" Rick is right. I liked it a lot.

Pandora's Box is a melodic joy ride whose retro power pop influences include the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), Todd Rundgren, Pet Sounds era Beach Boys, early solo Paul McCartney, and latter-day XTC. Rick has been putting out music since 1996. In short, he has a number of recordings to his credit, either as a solo artist or as part of Jiffipop and/or Cloud Eleven. He and his bands have received rave reviews, and had his music featured in TV shows on ABC, NBC and elsewhere. For more on the songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Rick Gallego and Cloud Eleven, be sure and visit his website and / or his Facebook page.

Some of the linear notes, which are printed over an image of Louise Brooks, explain how this, his latest effort, came about: "Pandora’s Box isn’t so much a ‘new’ album than a collection of previously unfinished song fragments that had been buried on old cassette tapes, plus some outtakes from other albums, and a few covers. During the lockdown of 2020, I would discover a stray chorus here, a verse there, and commence to completing the songs, then record them. In some ways, Pandora’s Box is Terrestrial Ballet part deux. Sometimes it just feels good to clean out that old junk drawer."

I emailed Rick about his new CD, and he wrote back, saying "I already had the song called "Pandora's Box" (dedicated to Lulu), so I decided to name the album that too." I asked Rick the question I ask everyone. How did you first hears about Louise Brooks? Rick answered, "In January 2020 I was doing a YouTube search for anything 1920's, as I have always been fascinated with that decade. I landed on a video (don't really remember who posted it) that reviewed various cultural attributes of the '20s, and it mentioned Louise Brooks as an icon of the period. I had never heard of her before and was really taken by her look, so did a Google search. It kind of snowballed from there into wanting to know everything about her. After seeing a couple of her movies (swoon!) and getting the Barry Paris book (the University of Minnesota Press 2000 paperback version - I ended up buying the first edition hard cover from you later on!), I was pretty much a big fan of hers by then. Since then, I joined your LBS page on Facebook, bought all of her movies on DVD/Blu-ray, and bought every book I could get my hands on, including of course, Lulu In Hollywood. There's a certain magical quality about Louise Brooks that just draws you in, kind of like the movie Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, where everyone is compelled with this 'thing' (Devil's Tower), but they don't know why. Louise Brooks is truly a fascinating person, not only beautiful, but intelligent and witty too. So very happy I found her!

The first track on Rick's new CD is titled "Pandora's Box (Schöne Lulu)." The linear notes for this track read, "This song began as a sort of Rundgren-esque synth jam and evolved into what we have here. Basic tracks were recorded in 2018 and completed in 2020. At the time of completion, I was absorbed into all things 1920s, including art deco, silent films, and specifically actress/writer/icon Louise Brooks. Her most memorable role was that of Lulu, in the classic 1929 German film Pandora's Box. This, my first ever instrumental (silent!) track, is dedicated to the lovely Lulu." Here is the video for that track. Just turn off your mind, relax, and float down stream.

And here is the video of the CD's second track, "Row Row Row," Cloud Eleven's version of the children's nursery rhyme. I really like this gorgeous recording. The song features a homage to the Beatles, while this video features a homage to a couple of Kansas icons. You can likely guess which ones.

And lastly, here is the video for one of my very favorite tracks on Pandora's Box, a mock garage rock cover titled "I Can Do Anything I Want!" I think Kansas-born artist Bruce Conner, a Louise Brooks devotee, would have liked this.