Weekly trip to the library

Weekly trip to the library to go over newly arrived inter-library loan material. . . . Today, I looked at the Baltimore Post, and managed to turn up a Denishawn review, and a review of the Ziegfeld Follies production of  "Louie XIV." (Louise Brooks was in the company of each of these productions at the time of their Baltimore appearance.) Also found a review of The Street of Forgotten Men at the time it was screened in Baltimore in August, 1925. I was lucky to find what I did, as theBaltimore Post was one of the worst big city newspapers I have ever encountered. It was little more than a tabloid, and an uninteresting and un-fun one at that.

Also went through a couple months of the Chicago Daily News from 1934, where I managed to find an article and some advertisements for the dance team of Dario & Brooks and their appearance, along with torch song singer Helen Morgan, at the Chez Paree - "Chicago's Smartest Supper Club." There was no cover charge - and dinner was only $2.50. Can you imagine?

[ BTW: If you are not familiar with Morgan, do check her out - she is terrific: "Her small, pale appearance and her sweet, artless, and blues-tinged voice made her the ideal performer of the new sort of popular song that was being written in the 1920s and '30s: ironic, sometimes bitter, distinctly urban, and full of the disappointment, loneliness, and joyless hedonism that filled the smoky clubs."]

The day's biggest haul came from a newspaper from the smallest city - Cumberland, Maryland. I looked through about a month worth of the Cumberland Evening Times, where I found a bunch of articles, advertisements, feature photos and a review of the 1923 Denishawn performance in that town. Louise Brooks was mentioned in one of the advertisements, and was twice pictured in group photographs of the Denishawn company.

A footnote: there are interesting happenstances I run across while looking for Brooks material. For example, when Brooks and the Ziegfeld Follies appeared in Baltimore in February of 1925, also in town for a performance was the Denishawn Dance company. Brooks had been ejected from Denishawn less than a year before. Did she notice the Denishawn performance? . . . . And in Chicago, when she was performing with Dario at a supper club, the Chicago Daily News ran a big feature on movie stars (such as Clara Bow and Raymond Hatton) and their failed attempts at a comeback. Did Brooks notice this article? One can only wonder.

Image search

Yahoo announced recently that the search engine at Yahoo Images  ( http://images.search.yahoo.com ) now has over a billion images on record. That's a lot! Google Image Search ( http://www.google.com/imghp ), by comparison, counts itself as having over 880 million images.

Either search engine will turn up hundreds of images of Louise Brooks. Many of the results come from the Louise Brooks Society or the handful of other websites and webpages devoted to the actress. However, a thorough look through the search results will turn up some little seen and otherwise unusual images, including examples of "fan art" and other pictorial representations of the actress. Here is one that I find somewhat striking.

The Chanteuse and the Crooner

There is a new book out called Chanteuse in the City: The Realist Singer in French Film, by Kelley Conway. This study "provides a genealogy of realist performance through analysis of the music hall careers and film roles of Mistinguett, Josephine Baker, Frehel, and Damia. Above all, Conway offers a fresh interpretation of 1930's French cinema, emphasizing its love affair with popular song and its close connections to the music hall and the cafe-concert." Fittingly, there are a handful of references to Louise Brooks and Prix de Beaute (which is depicted three times) in this new book. I have read parts of this book, and found it interesting. You may too.

On a not unrelated "note" . . . .

Did anyone catch today's installment of Fresh Air, which featured rock guitarist Lenny Kaye? He spoke about his new book, You Call it Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon, which chronicles the male singers of the 1920's and 1930's - such as Rudy Vallee, Bing Crosby and Russ Columbo - who were known for their suave, sophisticated and romantic interpretations of song. Kaye's book looks quite worthwhile.

Emil Petaja "Photoplay Edition"

I have a few copies of  Photoplay Edition, by Emil Petaja, which I would like to sell. This collectors guide was the first book on the subject of photoplay editions, the movie tie-in books of the silent and early sound era. This heavily illustrated, 200 page bibliography contains a delightful introductory essay and a checklist of hundreds of titles. It is also illustrated with dozens of rare book covers and black-and-white stills. I am selling these softcover books for $10.00 each (which includes shipping). Personal checks or PayPal accepted. Contact me via email at thomasg at pandorasbox.com to arrange payment and shipping.

                                            

Emil Petaja (1915 - 2000) was a friend of mine, and I knew him during the last half dozen years of his life. Though an accomplished author in the fields of science fiction and fantasy, Emil is best known to movie lovers as the author of Photoplay Edition (SISU Publishers, 1975). Petaja based this book on his personal collection, which at the time of publication, numbered more than eight hundred books. He loved film, and was a life-long movie buff and collector of movie memorabilia. He had a large library of film-related books, owned hundreds of 16mm films and videotapes, and enjoyed recounting stories about classic films, actors and actresses. What always impressed me about Emil was his remarkable mind for recalling plots, the stars of films, and even the authors whose books were made into movies. Occasionally, we would take in a movie together. And I enjoyed many conversations with him about the movies. Emil was a gateway to the past.

Freckles and His Friends

Here is an amusing item I came across the other day while looking though old newspapers on microfilm. This comic strip dates from 1923, and features Buster Keaton as a character (in this day's strip). Other strips I noticed featured Mary Pickford and Constance Talmadge. Does anyone know anything more about "Freckles and His Friends," or the cartoonist, Blosser?

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 . . . .

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.

Le regard de Buster Keaton

The other day on eBay, I won a copy of Le regard de Buster Keaton by Robert Benayoun. I already own a copy of this book in English, but was pleased to acquire this inexpensive softcover French edition because it contains Louise Brooks' brief piece on Keaton translated into French.

Blog search

Came across a few different 'meta" weblog / blog search engines, including Bloogz and Technorati and BlogPulse . A search for "Louise Brooks" turned up a handful of results on each search engine, though some of the results turned out to be broken links.

I wonder how extensively blogs (LiveJournal, Blogger, Movable Type, etc...) are indexed? And how long lasting are the entries? Will someone be able to read this entry in ten or twenty years?

(Two other blog search engines worth checking out are are Blogdex and Popdex.)

More Jewish Daily Forward

While looking at microfilm of vintage newspapers and magazines, it's not unusual to run across nifty material about other film stars. (Though I try to stay focussed on Louise Brooks, I have somehow managed to acquire thousands of photocopies of interesting articles, interviews, clippings, magazine covers, etc...... relating to other actors and actresses. What I will do with all this stuff, I do not know.)

Here are a couple of interesting things I copied from December, 1929 issues of the Jewish Daily Forward. The one on the left pictures a captioned photo of Clara Bow on the front page (top fold) of the Forward ! The one on the right is a feature photo of Anna May Wong, with its caption in both Yiddish and English. The English text reads "CHINESE ACTRESS CANNOT KISS ENGLISHMAN IN FILM  -  Anna May Wong, the charming Chinese motion picture star, who must not kiss John Longden, English actor, co-starring with her in a British talkie, according to a ruling by the English film censor."

Jewish Daily Forward

My weekly trip to the San Francisco Public Library yielded some rather interesting and unusual results. I visit the library once a week to place inter-library loan requests, and to go through what ever material has arrived from earlier requests.

This week I went through microfilm of the Buffalo Evening News and New Orleans Item-Tribune dating from the 1920's. I found a few more reviews, articles and advertisements in those publications for films featuring Louise Brooks.

The rather interesting and unusual items I found were advertisements, an image of Brooks, and what might also be an article about Pandora's Box dating from 1929 - all of which came from the Jewish Daily Forward, the Yiddish language newspaper from New York City. That metropolis was alive with non-English language newspapers in the 1920's and 1930's. And the Jewish Daily Forward, like the New York Times, Daily News, etc.... ran material on movies showing in town. Pandora's Box had its American debut in New York City in December, 1929.

Now, I can add this bit of Yiddish perspective to similar material I have already excavated from other New York-based German and Russian language newspapers of the period. (I have also looked at Italian and Polish language newspapers from NYC, but without finding anything regarding Pandora's Box.)

Does anyone read Yiddish? I don't, so I may well have missed some articles. However, I made photocopies from the microfilm of what seemed like relevant material. Here is the advertisement for the film's showing at the 55th Street Playhouse.

"Secret Life of Humphrey Bogart"

Just came across a book entitled The Secret Life of Humphrey Bogart: The Early Years (1899 - 1931), by Darwin Porter. (The book was published in 2003 by Georgia Literary Association.) This book is an account of Bogart's early life, especially his years as a Broadway and Hollywood actor. Porter claims to base much of the book on the papers of Bogart's friend, actor Kenneth MacKenna (who had a part in The American Venus), as well as interviews with various Hollywood actors of the twenties and thirties.  Despite these claims, the book has no footnotes, no noted sources, and no bibliography - just acknowledgements.

I haven't read the entire book, but only skimmed it for material on Louise Brooks, of which there is more than a few pages. The author claims to have interviewed Louise Brooks, but does not say when. (The back of the book depicts a number of actresses, including Brooks, and next to an apparent quote by Brooks, it reads "as told to the author in Rochester, NY.")

Personally, I have a hard time believing this book. It just doesn't seem to ring true. For me, the best thing about this book was its selection of images, including this portrait of Brooks.

Ohio / Michigan research trip

Finalized my travels plans for mid-December. I will be travelling to Ohio and Michigan where I will be visiting family and doing some research.

While in Ohio, I plan to visit the Columbus Metropolitan Library and Ohio Historical Society. At these two Columbus-based institutions I hope to gather reviews, articles and advertisements for the numerous Denishawn performances throughout Ohio for the two years Brooks was a member of that dance company. I also plan to gather vintage newspaper reviews of Brooks' films from major Ohio cities, such as Cleveland, Cinncinnati, Columbus, Toledo, Dayton and Akron. Until now, I have had a hard time borrowing material from libraries and archives in Ohio. This two day venture should fill in many gaps in my research. (Time permitting, I may also poke around the library at Ohio State University.)

From Ohio, I will travel north to the University of Michigan Library in Ann Arbor. That institution has a handfull of otherwise scarce German and French periodicials in which I will search for reviews and articles concerning Brooks' European films. The University of Michigan Library also has a weekly publication called Detroit Saturday Night which was published throughout the twenties and thirties. I don't know much about this very hard-to-find serial, but I am hoping that it may include coverage of Brooks' two week stint as a ballroom dancer in Detroit in 1934.

I plan to spend half a day in Ann Arbor. From there I drive to Lansing, where I return to the Library of Michigan. There, I plan to finish my survey of major Michigan newspapers in search of vintage film reviews. Still on the to-do list are newspapers from Grand Rapids, Saginaw, Kalamazoo and Port Huron. I figure I may spend up to eight hours at the Library of Michigan.

From there, I return to the Detroit area. I will be visiting with family, but hope to make a quick visit to the Royal Oak Public Library where I will be looking at microfilm of the Royal Oak Tribune. I'll be scanning this surburban newspaper in the slim hope of catching an article or advertisement from the period of the mid- to late 1920's.

Rare early portrait on eBay

A previously little seen portrait of a young Louise Brooks, most likely taken in 1925 by M.I. Boris, has shown up on eBay. The auction page can be found here. Along with some hand-written notations refering to Pandora's Box (which perhaps dates the use of this image for publicity purposes to late 1928 or early 1929), stamped on the back of the image is "Louise Brooks appearing in Paramount Pictures" and "From    Dept. Foreign Publicity and Advertising    FAMOUS PLAYERS LASKY CORPORATION    485 Fifth Avenue New York City    O.R. Geyer Manager".

 

The Louise Brooks Society webpage devoted to this singular photographer can be found here.

Zine article

Yesterday, I won an copy of Debris, issue nine. This scarce British music 'zine from late 1985 (?) contains a one page article about Louise Brooks. Along with later issues of Stained Pages - a Canadian zine, and Telegraph - a music 'zine devoted to the band OMD - this is one of only a few articles I have collected about Brooks from which originally appeared in a 'zine.

Zines are ephemeral. Does anyone know of any other articles about Brooks which appeared in a 'zine? If so, please email the LBS.

Robert Olen Butler

A few nights ago, I had a chance to chat with Robert Olen Butler, the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist. He has a new book called Had a Good Time, a lyrical collection of short stories inspired by turn-of-the-century postcards - especially the sentiments written on the back of the cards. I would highly recommended this new book to any fiction readers in the crowd.

As it turns out, Robert Olen Butler collects many things - old postcards, vintage fountain pens, old-time product cards, etc .... The author said he has a few British cigarette cards depicting Louise Brooks. "I love her. She is a wonderful actress," declared Butler.

"Oh, Canada"

Canada is one area of research I have been pursueing as it relates to Louise Brooks.

The Denishawn Dance company performed in a handful of Canadian cities during their 1922/1923 and 1923/1924 tours - the two seasons Brooks was a member of that dance group. Over the last year and a half, I have managed to acquire a few reviews of performances in Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec. I hope to acquire more, but the process of obtaining microfilm of newspapers from north of the border is slow and a little complicated. Few American libraries, seemingly, own Canadian newspapers on microfilm from that time period. (Any Canadian citizen who reads this and wants to help is encouraged to send me an email.)

I have also, slowly, been collecting reviews and articles about Brooks' films which appeared in Canadian papers in the 1920's and 1930's. So far, I have managed to gather a handful of reviews from each of the following periodicals: Calgary Herald, Manitoba Free Press, Toronto Star, Toronto Globe, Montreal Gazette, and Ottawa Citizen. And again, I have plans to acquire more in the coming year.

It's interesting to get the Canadian perspective! A brief write-up in the Toronto Star from 1931, for example, is one of the very few newspaper items I have ever found regarding Windy Riley Goes Hollywood, then and now one of the most obscure films in which Brooks appeared.

Perhaps the most intrigueing item I located was an article in the Toronto Star from 1927 which told the story of a young Canadian swimmer - a star athlete - who went to Hollywood to test for motion pictures.

He recounted his experiences - visiting the studios, having make-up applied, the glare of the bright lights, etc... and, his chance encounter with a friendly young actress named Louise Brooks. Two long paragraphs are then given over to their meeting, his observations of her character and appearance, and the "love scene" he had to play with her. From the description of Brooks' hair as being in ringlets, I assume their encounter took place at the time of Brooks was making Evening Clotheswith Adolphe Menjou.

That article, and others from Canada, are cited in the various bibliographies on the LBS website.

Roger Ebert articles on-line

The Chicago Sun-Times has put thousands of Roger Ebert's film reviews and articles on-line. They can all be found in a searchable database at the Sun Timeswebsite. Ebert really loves "the movies," and he is an advocate for the greats of the silent film era, i.e., Charlie Chaplin, Lon Chaney, Buster Keaton, Lillian Gish, and Louise Brooks, among others. (See "Star Ranking Really Rankles.")

Included among the Ebert archive is a long article from 1998 on Louise Brooks and Pandora's Box (which quietly alludes to the LBS - "she is the most popular dead actress on the Web.") Another interesting item is a question and answer exchange from "Movie Answer Man."

"Q. I've been attending a series of silent films by the German director G.W. Pabst. While watching Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), I recognized a camera shot that is most often attributed to Conrad Hall (that of a face next to a window during rain, making it appear as if the raindrops are tears). Hall's use of that shot in In Cold Blood is certainly amazing, but it seems that the origin of that shot should be credited to the cinematographers Sepp Allgeier and Fritz Arno Wagner. I was amazed to find such a shot in a German film from the '20s.  --- Charles Modica Jr., Los Angeles

A. There are more amazing shots in German films from the 1920s than in most new releases. That film and Pandora's Box made Louise Brooks a movie immortal. Thanks for the insight; Bertolucci's new The Dreamers quotes the shot, and I credited Hall."

Louise Brooks of Kansas

Just out from the University of Nebraska Press is The Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, edited by David J. Wishart.

"With 1,316 entries contributed by more than one thousand scholars, this groundbreaking reference work captures what is vital and interesting about the Great Plains - from its temperamental climate to its images and icons, its historical character, its folklore, and its politics. Thoroughly illustrated, annotated, and indexed, this remarkable compendium of information and analysis will prove the definitive and indispensable resource on the Great Plains for many years to come."

This nearly 1000-page reference work also contains a short entry (by yours truely) on Louise Brooks, who was born and raised in Kansas.

I haven't seen a copy, but am curious to hear from anyone who does if the editors chose to include the picture of Louise Brooks I submitted with my entry.

Louise Brooks and Lemony Snicket . . .

Came across these interesting references to Louise Brooks in the works of the popular writer known as "Lemony Snicket." 

In the "A Night at the Theatre" section of Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, the author refers to the "Brooks-Gish Award for Best Actress."

And in The Carnivorous Carnival, which is part of the author's A Series of Unfortunate Events series and which contains other cinematic and literary references, there is a mention of Lulu.

What does it all mean? Is Lemony Snicket a fan of Louise Brooks? Someday I will have to ask Daniel Handler . . . .

Louise Brooks mention on NPR

I was listening to National Public Radio while driving home from a research trip to the University of California, Berkeley. On the radio was a program called "Artists At Work." The artists featured were French song composer Dominique Cravic and artist Robert Crumb, members of the musical group Les Primitifs du Futur. While highlighting the group's music and past cd's, the program host mentioned their song for Louise Brooks, "Chanson pour Louise Brooks," and then played an excerpt.

Silent film analyzes battle of the sexes

A review of Diary of a Lost Girl appeared in yesterday's Grand Rapids Press. The article, by John Douglas, was entitled "Silent film analyzes battle of the sexes." The article concludes " . . . The print of "Diary of a Young Girl" on this DVD has been restored, and much of the footage deleted by the early censors has been restored. So it is a wonderful opportunity to catch up with this film starring a true talent few people remember."

Lulu play

This brief article, by Wally Rubin, appeared in the September 10 issue of Variety.

"Presented by Fearless Productions as part of the New York International Fringe Festival at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher St., NYC, Aug. 24-28.

Lulu is a new musical by two graduates of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, based on two plays by German Expressionist playwright Frank Wedekind. The plays were also the basis for an opera by Alban Berg and a 1929 silent movie starring Louise Brooks, famed for her bobbed hairstyle. It is the story of Lulu, a young, amoral man killer, and of the unbidden effects of love, how passion and lust can overrule rational impulses.

Composer-lyricist Adam Gwon and Courtney Phelps, who wrote the book with Gwon and directed, have set this Lulu against the backdrop of the roiling 1920s, when jazz, booze, and silent movies were all the rage. Think La Ronde meets The Wild Party, which, not so incidentally, are both works that have been musicalized by Michael John LaChiusa, who is clearly on influence on Gwen. The style (if not the effect) of the writing is similar, with the same penchant for a restless sound that distrusts melody, and an arch tone that is equal parts bitter and wistful. Gwon shows potential, but he needs to find his own voice and allow his characters greater specificity, giving us reasons to care more about them. At the moment, they seem like ideas culled from other sources.

Broadway veteran Brooke Sunny Moriber was Lulu. She has the perfect 1920s face, with a small mouth and pale porcelain skin, and is gifted with both a distinctive belt and soprano. Jessica Morris, Selby Brown, Daniel C. Levine, and Maggie Letsche all have strong voices, and it was a treat to hear them unmiked. Kevin Kern as a young screenwriter with sunken cheeks and curly blond hair had a melancholic manner that appropriately set him apart. Trevor McGinness' costumes were impressively all of a piece."

Calgary Herald

Another newspaper achive I've come across is that for the Calgary Herald, which is part of the early Alberta newspaper collection. Unlike other newspaper archives, this collection is not searchable by keyword. Instead, the archive contains rather large images of individual pages from the newspapers in its archives. I went through months and months of the Calgary Herald, and managed to find a bunch of articles, reviews and advertisements from the 1920's. (Citations have been added to the appropriate bibliographies on the LBS website.) Does anyone know of any other Canadian publications with searchable on-line archives?

Harvard Crimson

While crawling around the world wide web, I ran across the website for the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper at Harvard University. That publication has put its archive, dating back to 1873, on the internet. My search under keywords "Louise Brooks" only turned up a few minor mentions, including this brief review of A Girl in Every Port.

Does anyone know of any other student publications with searchable on-line archives?

Rare Louise Brooks soundtrack

Yesterday, I won an eBay auction for a contemporary soundtrack recording for Le Journal dUne Fille Perdue, or The Diary of a Lost Girl. Brooks is pictured on the front and back of the record sleeve. This rare French LP (PSI / Musimage 20716) was released in 1981, and contains original music for String Quartet by Robert Viger and Solo Piano by Alain Bernaud. I assume this soundtrack recording accompanied the film at some time during its then recent rerelease by Connaissance du Cinema.

Los Angeles trip

Besides the USC and UCLA libraries, my wife and I visited some film-related sites during our recent trip to Los Angeles.

We took the Sony Pictures studio tour, which led us around the old MGM lot in Culver City. There were a number of historic buildings still standing on the lot, and the tour guide knowledgeably filled us in on what building related to Irving Thalberg, Buster Keaton, etc.... The tour was worthwhile, and comparable to the Paramount Studio tour - which we had taken a few years earlier. We also visited the site of the old Hal Roach studio (now a movie production facility), where my wife's sister was working on Team America, a forthcoming film. We got to see the film's sets, as well as a scene being shot. Nifty. Later, we stopped in front of the old Chaplin Studios - now home to Jim Henson Productions.

We spent a few hours walking around downtown Hollywood, where we once again visited the Roosevelt Hotel (home to the first ever Academy Awards), Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the Kodak Theater (new home to the Academy Awards), and some of the memorabilia shops and bookstores which line Hollywood boulevard. Unfortunately, Larry Edmunds bookshop was closed.

A highlight of our time spent in Hollywood was our first ever trip to the Hollywood Heritage Museum (located across the road from the Hollywood Bowl). Over the years, we have tried to visit this little museum on at least three occassions, but could never make it when the building was open. (The building is currently open on weekends from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.)                                                                                                                                   

"The Hollywood Heritage Museum is housed in the beautifully restored Lasky-DeMille Barn (c. 1895). The Museum features archival photographs from the silent movie days of motion picture production, movie props, historic documents and other movie related memorabilia. Also featured are historic photos and postcards of the streets, buildings and residences of Hollywood during its heyday." Louise Brooks' name and image can be found on at least four or five pieces of memorabilia inside the museum, including a rare image of Brooks and Adolph Menjou standing outside of the building, circa January, 1927. In this photo, a bearded Menjou is seen observing Brooks, who has climbed up a ladder leaning against the "old barn". Supposedly, these two Paramount stars are helping paint the building. If you are a silent film buff, the Hollywood Heritage Museum is well worth a visit. There is a lot of really cool stuff inside - as well as a gift shop!

Another memorable visit was to the Hollywood Forever cemetery. We have been there a few times, but this visit coincided with the annual Rudolph Valentino memorial service - which is held every year on August 23. About a hundred people gathered for the service this year, which was set up inside the mausoleum where the Valentino is laid to rest. The speakers included the "lady in black," musician Ian Whitcomb - who performed a couple of vintage songs about Valentino, film historian Annette D'Agostino Lloyd (author of the just published Harold Lloyd Encyclopedia), and Tracy Ryan Terhune - author of a new book called Valentino Forever - The History of the Valentino Memorial Service. This was the first time we have attended the memorial service. Perhaps we shall go again some year.

USC and UCLA

Short vacation to Los Angeles. Spent one day each in the special collections departments of the libraries at USC and UCLA, where I uncovered a bunch of new material - including previously undocumented articles and reviews from a smattering of American, British, German, French, and Spanish publications.

I was able to look through about four years worth of bound volumes of Picturegoer, the British fan magazine. Also examined vintage copies of two very rare trade journals, The Film Mercury and Hollywood Filmograph. Each was based in Los Angeles, and each offered a somewhat different perspective on the film world than East Coast trade journals like Variety and Film Daily. Also looked at individual issues of other American fan publications, such as Movie Monthly. One very cool find was an illustrated fictionalization (in short story form) of The American Venus.

The most significant item I looked at was a book about the films of G.W. Pabst published in Moscow in 1933. (That's just four years after Pabst made his two films with Louise Brooks!) I have known of the existence of this book for some time - but have been unable to examine it. USC is, seemingly, the only library in the United States which owns a copy of this very rare item - and its rarity and fragility prevents them from loaning it.

And so, as I sat in "the cage" - the special collections viewing room - I was nearly trembling with excitement. Finally, resting on the desk before me was a copy of this elusive book. I paged through it ever so slowly, and though I don't read Russian, I found an entire chapter devoted to the two Brooks films. (There was also an image of the actress.) Certainly, this is the earliest chapter in any book ever devoted to Louise Brooks.

My thanks to the special collections staff at UCLA and USC for their help. I especially want to thank Ned Comstock of USC, who more than went out of his way to help me with my research. Thank you Ned!

K'Scope

A recent eBay purchase: a copy of K'Scope (also called Kaleidoscope), a film magazine from 1967 featuring an overview of the movies made from the S.S. van Dine murder mysteries, including The Canary Murder Case.

Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits

There is a new anthology of mostly contemporary crime fiction called The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits. The book is edited by Mike Ashley and features a cover image obviously based on Louise Brooks.

                        

Book description: "In Chicago and New York, in sleazy speakeasies and on Easy Street, to the strains of jazz and the beat of the Charleston, the twenties roared. The horrors of the Great War behind it, the decade went mad with abandon-and mad over the movies, radio, telephones, and the motorcar. But beneath the froth and the folly, the razzle and dazzle, lay a darker world, a hard and often violent world, for the twenties belonged as much to the gangster as they did to the flapper. The stories in this vastly entertaining collection of whodunnits crafted by talents like Amy Myers, Robert Randisi, Jon L. Breen, Edward D. Hoch, Marilyn Todd, and Mike Stotter reflect the allures - and the deadly dangers - of both those worlds."

Charlie Chaplin biography

Finally finished reading Chaplin, the 1985 biography by the British film historian David Robinson. (This book served as the basis for the biopic of Charlie Chaplin.) What a large life! The author - who I had the pleasure to meet and chat with a number of years ago - did a tremendous job. There is a ton of information here, with emphasis given to the films rather than the personal life of the "little tramp." Nevertheless, its a good read.

Anniversary

Louise Brooks died on August 8th, 1985 in Rochester, New York. Her death was reported in newspapers around the world.

The Find-a-Grave website contains images of her grave, as well as messages from her many fans.