Now on DVD

Two Louise Brooks films are now available on DVD-R through Sunrise Silents. They are Love 'Em and Leave 'Em (1926) and The Canary Murder Case (1929). If you haven't seen Love 'Em and Leave 'Em - in which Brooks plays the 'bad' younger sister - you should! Brooks was only 20 years old when she made this delightful dramatic comedy. And she is terrific!

Research notes

Weekly trip to the San Francisco Public Library. No microfilm had arrived, so I spent an hour surveying Variety for additional material on Louise Brooks' appearances as a nite club dancer. I already had one citation - from April 17, 1934 - but managed to find another, an excellent short review from November 13, 1934!

Heard back regarding my inter-library loan request for the Sioux Fall Press. The South Dakota State Historical Society will loan microfilm of this publication, but charges the curious amount of $6.36 per reel. That's kinda steep. Most libraries don't charge the individual who makes the request. Other libraries charge $3.00 per roll; one or two charge $5.00 per roll. Nevertheless, I will go ahead with this request as I am attempting to track down articles and reviews for each of the Denishawn performances while Brooks was a member of that dance company. So far, I have more than one-hundred, as well as scores of newspaper advertisements and other miscellaneous clipping.

My ILL requests for two other newspapers came back negative. I was not able to get copies of the January 27, 1923 Evening Reporter-Star (from Orlando, Florida), nor the December 15, 1923 Daily Kentucky New Era (from Hopkinsville, Kentucky). Seemingly, no Florida universities nor the Florida Newspaper Project (an archive) have copies of the Evening Reporter-Star from the month when Denishawn performed in Orlando. The only holder of the Daily Kentucky New Era from late 1923 is the Hopkinsville Community College Library, and they apparently don't do inter-library loan.  I would really appreciate hearing from anyone who lives near Hopkinsville, Kentucky and would be willing to spend an hour at the library looking for Denishawn clippings. The same goes for anyone who lives in Orlando, Florida - as I would suspect the local city library has the local papers available on microfilm.

Meredith Lawrence

Today, here in San Francisco, I had the pleasure of meeting longtime LBS member and supporter Meredith Lawrence. Meredith, who lives in England, is here in California on vacation. We spoke of many things, of cabbages and kings . . . .

More Treasures from American Film Archives 1894-1931

Have heard that the recently released DVD, More Treasures from American Film Archives 1894-1931, contains a trailer from the now lost 1926 Louise Brooks film,The American Venus. I have not yet seen this for myself. Here is the description of the DVD.

"Like the first Treasures from the American Film Archives produced by the National Film Preservation Foundation, More Treasures takes as its starting point the preservation work of our nation's film archives. More Treasures covers the years from 1894 through 1931, when the motion pictures from a peepshow curio to the nation's fourth largest industry. This is the period from which fewest American Films survive. Five film archives have made it their mission to save what remains of these first decades of American film: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, George Eastman House, The Library of Congress, The Museum of Modern Art and the UCLA Film and Television Archive. More Treasures (made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities) reproduces their superb preservation work-fifty films follwed by six previews for lost features and serials."

Somewhere in Time

Christopher Reeve has died. And as I write this entry I am watching, for perhaps the tenth time, his 1980 film Somewhere in Time. I know this film is sentimental, and some of the acting in it akward. And I know that some will balk at the notion that Reeve's character can, literally, will himself back into the past. But how I love this film. It has long been one of my favorites. I feel that if time travel ever does become feasible, it will be achieved not through some mechanical device, but as a result of sheer will power. Wishful thinking . . . .

New play about Kenneth Tynan

Amanda sent word about a new play based on the life of the acclaimed British critic Kenneth Tynan. (Tynan had interviewed Louise Brooks, and wrote the famousNew Yorker essay "The Girl in the Black Helmet.") An article appeared in Guardian newspaper.

"Kenneth Tynan has inspired one play in Smoking With Lulu. Now he is the subject of a one-man show, adapted from his diaries by Richard Nelson and Colin Chambers, and immaculately performed by Corin Redgrave. Presented as part of the RSC's New Work Festival, it reminds us that, even when overcome by ennui, melancholy, and emphysema, Tynan wrote with a precision and grace that most journalists would give their eye-teeth for."

There was a review in the Guardian a few days later. As well as this article in the Telegraph. Thank you Amanda.