Tuesday, February 8, 2005

Beautiful you are

This beautiful colorized portrait of Louise Brooks is for sale on eBay. What is more lovely, the subject or the painting?

Monday, February 7, 2005

RadioLulu

Every month, I receive statistics for RadioLulu - the Louise Brooks-themed radio station I set-up on Live365.com  Here are this month's stats for the station (located at www.live365.com/stations/298896 )

Total Listening Hours
Last Month: 146
This Month: 142

Total Station Launches (the number of times individuals clicked on the listen button)
Last Month: 485
This Month: 361

Station Presets (the number of individuals who chose to bookmark RadioLulu)
Last Month: 389
This Month: 403

Favorite Station Designations
Last Month: 15
This Month: 15

Sunday, February 6, 2005

All Hail Gianluca !!!

Gianluca Chiovelli, a longtime correspondent, a devoted Louise Brooks researcher, and the author/editor of a superb Italian website devoted to the actress, has done a great thing! Gianluca sent me photocopies of what are among the scarcest Louise Brooks-related item I have ever come across.

After a couple of unsuccessful attempts, Gianluca managed to convince an European library to make photocopies of two books - novelizations of the Louise Brooks films, La Vie d'une Fille perdue (Trois Pages d'un Journal), and Prix de Beaute. The first book, based on the Pabst film The Diary of a Lost Girl, was written by Rene Wild and published in France in 1930. The second book, based on the French film of the same name, was written by Boisyvon and published in 1932. [ I haven't been able to find out anything about Rene Wild, except that he may have contributed the scenario to a 1932 French film, Le Triangle de feu. Boisyvon, I believe, went on to write a number of books on film in later decades.]

Up until now, I knew very little about these ephemeral items. But from what I can deduce, each of these titles were inexpensive, softcover books (hence their ephemeral nature), and each were part of a series of novelizations published by Editions Jules Tallandier. (The series featured mostly French titles, though it did include a few German and American releases.) Each book features Louise Brooks on their pictorial cover, and each contains numerous scene stills scattered throughout the book. (In this regard, they remind me of the the early American photoplay editions.) Each also contains an advertisement in the back of the book listing other titles in the series.

Gianluca and I have long sought after Prix de Beaute. He and I searched the catalogs and records of libraries and bookdealers worldwide. I listed it on the LBS Help Wanted page, and sent queries to knowledgeable individuals. Nothing happened. We both thought we might be chasing a phantom reference. Until one day, I received an anonymous email stating that a certain library held this rare book. Gianluca, an Italian devotee of Brooks, wrote to the library and asked for a loan or copy. The library declined. Some time passed, and he wrote again. This time, the library said yes.

Gianluca received the prize, and emailed me with the good news. However, when scanning the advertisement of earlier books in the series printed in the back, he realized that another novelization of a Louise Brooks' film also existed! Gianluca wrote to the library, and acquired a photocopy of La Vie d'une Fille perdue.  And now, generously, he has provided photocopies of these items to the LBS. Thank you Gianluca Chiovelli.

Saturday, February 5, 2005

Photoplay Edition (a review)

Recently, I wrote and posted online this review of Photoplay Edition, by Emil Petaja. My review follows.

"A pioneering guidebook for lovers of old movies and books"
by thomas gladysz

Throughout his life, the acclaimed fantasy & science fiction author Emil Petaja (1915 - 2000) was an avid film buff and collector of movie memorabilia. As a writer, he was especially interested in the literature of film. Petaja had a large collection of books about the movies, as well as an even larger collection of so-called photoplay books - movie tie-in editions dating from the silent film and early sound era. (Then, like now, novels that served as the basis for a film were republished with a scene or film star on the cover. Many also had stills from the film interspersed within the book. Film buffs, collectors, and bibliophiles have long sought out these variant editions - especially if they involved a particular actor, like Rudolph Valentino or Louise Brooks.)

Published in 1975, Photoplay Edition was the first ever book on the subject. Petaja based the book on his personal collection of photoplays, which at the time of publication, numbered more than eight hundred! (Petaja owned many rare examples, including a few autographed by film stars.) Photoplay Edition is composed of a checklist of books, with each entry detailing the book's movie title (which sometimes differed from the title of the novel), as well as it's author, publisher, date of release, the motion picture company which produced the film, it's leading actors, and the number of illustrations included within the book. Illustrating Petaja's guide are dozens of dustjackets and scene stills, each of which graced the original editions. Petaja also offers a short prologue, as well as a longer history of photoplay books. Another delightful, anecdotal chapter tells the story of the author's involvement in collecting these books.

Photoplay Edition has been surpassed by later guides. Nevertheless, this pioneering bibliographical study is a valuable testament to a by-gone era. Anyone interested in old movies or old books will want to own a copy.

Friday, February 4, 2005

When it rains it pours . . . .

When it rains it pours . . . . Five inter-library loans were waiting for me at the library this week! I found articles, reviews and advertisements for Love Em and Leave Em (1926) and Just Another Blonde (1926) in the Bridgeport Post (from Bridgeport, Connecticut). I also found a whole bunch of Denishawn material in the Baltimore American (Baltimore, Maryland), as well as in the Macon Telegraph (Macon, Georgia), Pine Bluff Commercial (Pine Bluff, Arkansas), and Kewanee Star Journal (Kewanee, Illinois). Citations for all of this material have been added to the LBS bibliographies.

Wednesday, February 2, 2005

Ayn Rand

According to an article about Ayn Rand in today's New York Times, today is the centennial of her birth. I don't own or haven't read any of her books, except for Russian Writings on Hollywood, which was published by the Ayn Rand Institute Press in 1999. 

Rand was born in czarist Russia in 1905, witnessed the revolutions of 1917 from her St. Petersburg apartment, and managed to make her way to the United States in 1926. Early on, she was something of a film buff, and at one time, Rand aspired to work in the film industry. (A couple of her novels would later be made into films.) The above mentioned book brings together early articles on the movies, along with other miscellaneous writings. Of note is the fact that Rand records having seen American Venus (1926) after her departure from the Soviet Union. According to her movie diary, Rand saw the film in Chicago on March 2 at the Terminal theatre. She had been in the United States less than one month. The American Venus was the eighth film she saw in America. She gave the film a 4-, or B- grade.
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