Research notes

There were five boxes of microfilm waiting for me at the library this morning. Such excitement . . . . I spent four hours looking through the Cincinnati Enquirer (found reviews and articles on four films) and Phildadelphia Inquirer (found a couple of brief articles and advertisements for Denishawn performances). One of the articles in the Philadelphia newspaper told how the Denishawn performance was cancelled because a train wreck had prevented the costumes for the dance company from arriving at the same time as the dancers themselves. (Apparently, the costumes and the dancers travelled on different trains.) "There was a dissapointed audience hanging about the doors," the article stated. Tickets had to be refunded. And the performance was rescheduled for a month later.

Also looked through the Muskogee Daily Phoenix (found lots of Denishawn material and an advertisement for American Venus in this Oklahoma newspaper), theCedar Rapids Republican (found Denishawn articles and advetisements, as well as a few film reviews in this Iowa newspaper), and Pittsfield Advertiser (this small town weekly newspaper from Maine did not yield any Denishawn material).

Some time in the next few years, I plan on writing a narrative history of Louise Brooks' two seasons spent with the Denishawn dance company. This account will be based on the hundreds of articles and reviews I have already collected (and will collect) covering the hundreds of performances Brooks and Denishawn gave across the United States. This account will follow their two tours of the United States and Canada.

Broadway: The American Musical

Tonight, I watched the first two hours of "Broadway: The American Musical" on PBS. It was great to hear recordings and see film clips from the late 1920's and early 1930's. (Or were all the film clips from the early 1930's? It was hard to tell. Were any of the Ziegfeld Follies stage shows of the 1920's ever filmed?) I have also taken a look at the companion book, Broadway: The American Musical, in hopes of finding at least a reference to Louise Brooks and her time with the George White Scandals and Ziegfeld Follies. But, alas, there were none. Except, perhaps, for the image on the back of the book which depicts the Follies of 1925. Is Brooks included in that shot?

New DVD release in France

Various news sources, including Le Monde, have recently mentioned the upcoming release in France of a 3-DVD box set featuring Loulou (aka Pandora's Box),Diary of a Lost Girl, and Prix de beauté. This set from Carlotta Films will also offer the documentary Looking for Lulu and considerable bonus material (commentary by film critics, etc....), along with musical accompaniment. This looks like a must have. Two sources for purchase include fnac.com and amazon.fr

                             

Online photo archives

New to the web is an archive of images from the New York Times. "The New York Times Photo Archives contains historic images carefully preserved over the past 100 years - one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of photographs in the world." Obviously, only a fraction of the images from this collection are online. Nevetheless, it's worth a look. The archives are searchable by keyword or browsable by category. No Louise Brooks images turned up, but I did come across interesting results searching under "Chaplin," "Fairbanks," "Valentino," etc.... This new site is set up as a store, but its still fun to browse.

Also online, courtesy of the Library of Congress, is an archive of images from the Chicago Daily News. "This collection comprises over 55,000 images of urban life captured on glass plate negatives between 1902 and 1933 by photographers employed by the Chicago Daily News, then one of Chicago's leading newspapers. The photographs illustrate the enormous variety of topics and events covered in the newspaper . . . . In addition to many Chicagoans, the images include politicians, actors, and other prominent people who stopped in Chicago during their travels . . . ." Again, no Louise Brooks images turned up, but other interesting (silent film) search results did! 

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 . . . .