Adventures in Sacramento

On Friday, I ventured to Sacramento (a two hour drive) and the home of the California State Library. This is my 15th trip to the State Library, which is located around the corner from the State Capitol and the offices of California's increasingly unpopular Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over the last few years, I have been surveying California newspapers, of which the State Library has an extensive collection on microfilm. So far, I have looked through various Los Angeles area papers - including those from Hollywood, Pasadena and Santa Monica. Earlier, I had also gone through microfilm for papers from other California cities and towns, such as Santa Barbara, Fresno, Modesto, Stockton, etc....

This time, I continued my search through the Hollywood Citizen News. This "small town" newspaper has proven rich in material relating to Louise Brooks. (Hollywood is a company town, and it's local paper, naturally, devoted considerable coverage to movies and the movie industry.) So far, I've found movie reviews, brief news items, miscellaneous articles, advertisements, and mentions in the "local" society and gossip columns. I've also found recipes ascribed to Brooks on the food pages, and a special bridal section once featured the actress modelling wedding gowns for a local store! Brooks' name started showing up in the paper with regularity once the actress moved to Los Angeles in 1927. And on earlier trips, I had gone through every day of the paper for that year. It is tedious work - but occassionally, some exceptional material turns up! This time, I went through the last six months of 1926, and found a few minor items. On my next trip to Sacramento, I plan to tackle 1928.

Like Hollywood, nearby Glendale was also something of a company town. Though I don't think any studios were located there, the local Glendale Daily Pressdevoted near daily coverage to the movies. I found that film companies - such as Paramount and MGM - held regular sneek previews of new films in Glendale. These sneek previews were intended to guage public reaction, and the studios would sometimes reshoot or recut a film based on audience response. (I had recently read about this practice in Gavin Lambert's biography of Norma Shearer.) In a couple of instances, I came across screenings of Brooks' films which were paired with sneek previews. From what I found, the preview film was never announced and only rarely reviewed. Thus, I wasn't able to determine which film was shown along with the Brooks film. Nevertheless, my quick search through nearly three years of the Glendale Daily Press proved fruitful. I found a slew of articles about Brooks' films. I plan to add citations to the LBS bibliographies later today.

With my remaining time at the library, I decided to take a peak at the Daily Bruin, the student newspaper from UCLA. I didn't expect to find much of anything, as most of the college newspapers that I have looked at in the past yielded little. I was surprised! I came across original articles reporting on lectures and talks at UCLA by movie directors and producers, interviews with the stars, and reviews of new films by student reporters. Daily Bruin coverage of the movies, including reviews of films opening in Los Angeles, really picked up starting in late 1926. With what time I had, I was able to uncover  reviews of Love 'Em and Leave 'Em (1926) and Evening Clothes (1927). On my next trip to the State Library, I plan to finish going through this notable student newspaper.

Lulupalooza

Something everyone will want to know about - a Louise Brooks film festival. Announcing Lulupalooza '05. Check it out at http://www.lulupalooza.org/

Willem Frederik Hermans

I recently received through the mail a copy of a novel by Willem Frederik Hermans. The book, written in Dutch and published in Amsterdam in 1988, is titledEen Heilige Van De Horlogerie. Louise Brooks is pictured on the cover.

From what I have been able to find out, Hermans is a noted literary novelist, and is considered one of the three most important authors in the Netherlands in the period following the second World War. His style is described as bleak - at times existential, surreal and satirical. A Google search reveals many pages in Dutch, and only a few in English. Not being able to read Dutch, I don't know much of anything about this novel, except that Louise Brooks may have inspired a character in the novel. I have an image of another version of this book (published the previous year), and the actress is also pictured on the cover of that edition. Here is a scan of the reverse of my recently acquired softcover copy. As can be seen, Louise Brooks is mentioned in the text on the back of the book. Can anyone provide a translation of this text, or some sort of approximate meaning regarding what is stated about Brooks?

A very cool web thingy

AmazType uses Amazon Web Services to render an authors' names in type that's composed of collages of their book covers, which are pulled from Amazon's databases. The collages can be based on either a title or author. I created a "Louise Brooks" collage (with the search terms in quotes). Clara Bow and Buster Keaton title collage results are especially nifty. All together, a very cool web thingy - check it out.

A bit of trivia

A bit of trivia: San Francisco has three bookstores whose names are taken from the titles of films by Charlie Chaplin, 1) City Lights, 2) Modern Times, and 3) Limelight.  //// City Lights is the world famous home to the Beats. (Store owner / poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti once remarked to me how much he like Louise Brooks!) Modern Times is a progressive bookstore whose logo features gears, just like the Chaplin film. Limelight is a theater and film bookstore. I have shopped there many times.

On this day in 1927

ON THIS DAY IN 1927: The Cedar Rapids Republican notes in an article, ''Louise Brooks, who is said to be Clara Bow's only rival as cinema's most ravishing flapper, is a convincing argument in favor ofmodernism.''

Popular Front Paris

I've received an advance copy of Popular Front Paris and the Poetics of Culture, by Dudley Andrew and Steven Ungar. I've only skimmed the book so-far, but this interesting academic work (published by Harvard University Press) seems quite promising. From the publisher . . . .

"The story of Paris in the 1930's seems straightforward enough, with the Popular Front movement leading toward the inspiring 1936 election of a leftist coalition government. The socialist victory, which resulted in fundamental improvements in the lives of workers, was then derailed in a precipitous descent that culminated in France's capitulation before the Nazis in June 1940. In this book, Dudley Andrew and Steven Ungar apply an evocative 'poetics of culture' to capture the complex atmospherics of Paris in the 1930's. They highlight the new symbolic forces put in play by technologies of the illustrated press and the sound film - technologies that converged with efforts among writers (Gide, Malraux, Celine), artists (Renoir, Dali), and other intellectuals (Mounier, de Rougemont, Leiris) to respond to the decade's crises. Their analysis takes them to expositions and music halls, to upscale architecture and fashion sites, to traditional neighborhoods, and to overseas territories, the latter portrayed in metropolitan exhibits and colonial cinema. Rather than a straight story of the Popular Front, they have produced something closer to the format of an illustrated newspaper whose multiple columns represent the breadth of urban life during this critical decade at the end of the Third French Republic."

Film in general, and Prix de Beaute (1930) in particular, are discussed. Louise Brooks is pictured (page 268), and is described as "the sensational Art Deco film idol who changed styles of hair, couture, and behavior in France and around the world." Anyone interested in the cultural history of this time and place might want to check out this new book.

Doors of Perception

There's a story in the news today about a previously unknown film by Jim Morrison having surfaced. One article stated "Before The Doors' Jim Morrison made it as a rock singer, he wanted to make films. Now, 34 years after his death, the state of Florida has found and restored what it believes to be the earliest film of Morrison, shot in the early 60s when he attended Florida State University. It was discovered when the Department of State went through 1,000 films in its archive . . . . " The article went on to reference the Department of State website where one can view the Morrison film. That picqued my interest. I visited the website, and began exploring its photographic archives in hopes of finding something about you know who. It's the Old Army Game (1926), which starred W.C. Fields and Louise Brooks, was filmed in part in Ocala, Florida. (This Florida town, as it turns out, was also the setting for The Creature from the Black Lagoon.) A few scenes of  The American Venus (1926) were also filmed in the state.

Sadly, my search through the Florida Photographic Collection didn't turn-up any Brooks material. However, I did find a few images of movie stars (such as Evelyn Nesbit and Lupe Valez), and a few images of film companies on location in the state during the silent film era. The image below depicts Theda Bara shooting a scene on a beach in Florida.



A keyword search under "motion pictures" will lead you to relevant categories under which to browse or search for images. I will continue to poke around the website in hopes of finding other related material. Perhaps something related to Brooks' time in Florida as a nightclub dancer will turn up.

Louise Brooks: Portrait of an Anti-Star

I saw a copy of Louise Brooks: Portrait of an Anti-Star for sale on eBay. No one has placed a bid on this item, which has a very modest opening price of $9.99. I am not the seller (and don't know the seller), but wanted to bring this item to the attention of anyone who might be looking for a copy of this increasingly scarce book.