Louise Brooks' art from 1974

I just came across this rather interesting art depicting Louise Brooks. It dates from 1974. The piece, entitled "Louise Brooks," is by Frank Martin (b. 1921). It is an intaglio print on paper and measures 371 x 273 mm. The work is owned by the Tate Gallery in England, and was presented to that museum by Christie's Contemporary Art through the Institute of Contemporary Prints in 1975. Does anyone know anything more about this artist? (Stylistically, the piece looks like its from the 1920's. For me, it recalls the Cubist aesthetic and the work of Leger.)

Diary of a Lost Girl shows in Columbus, Ohio

Diary of a Lost Girl will be screened tonight in Columbus, Ohio as part of an ongoing film series. According to theColumbusalive website. "The Summer Abroad series continues on Wednesday, July 20, with two extraordinary examples of early German cinema: G.W. Pabst’s silent classic Diary of a Lost Girl, in which the luminous Louise Brooks is a naïve girl who stumbles onto the path to ruin when she becomes pregnant, and Fritz Lang’s M, one of the first, best and most thoughtful serial killer movies ever made. Between M star Peter Lorre’s constant humming of Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” and the live accompaniment toDiary by Scrawl’s Sue Harshe, you’ll be leaving the theater with a song in your head."

Gavin Lambert (1924 - 2005)

"Gavin Lambert, an incisive observer of life in Hollywood through his screenplays, novels and film histories, died on Sunday at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 80." For those interested in early film, Gavin Lambert is best  known as the author of outstanding biographies of Norma Shearer and Nazimova. (The Nazimova biography earned the William K. Everson Film History Award from the National Board of Review.)  Lambert also authored "On Cukor," and appeared in the recent documentary. I recently read Lambert's biography of Shearer, and enjoyed it a great deal. And his book on Nazimova sits on my stack of books I must read. I remember speaking with Gavin Lambert on the phone a few years back regarding his books.

According to an Associated Press article, "In April, Lambert joined author Gore Vidal and others at a motion picture academy salute to Greta Garbo. That's believed to be one of his last public appearances." A short biography of author and Oscar-nominated screenwriter appeared in today'sNew York Times. Here is the link to a longer article in the Hollywood Reporter.

Australian crime fiction writer Kerry Greenwood

I received an email recently from Mark Armstrong-Roper, a longtime LBS correspondent from Melbourne, Australia. Mark wrote to tell me about an Australian crime fiction writer named Kerry Greenwood, whose work certainly shows some awareness of Louise Brooks. Mark wrote "I live not far from the Australian crime writer Kerry Greenwood. In fact she has the launches of her new books at my local cinema. I've been to several of these launches and at one a few years back she mentioned that she was a big fan of Louise Brooks and had modelled some of the aspects of her 1920's detective heroine, Phryne Fisher, on Louise. Over the years with various repackagings and reprintings of the series of now 15 books the artwork on the covers has come to resemble LB more and more, until with Kerry's current publisher, Allen & Unwin, the similarity is more than just a coincidence! Have a look: http://www.phrynefisher.com/."

I checked out the author's website and agree with Mark. The books look appealing. Has anyone read any of these works ? Descriptive text for the most recent title in the series, Death by Water, reads thus: "Phryne Fisher, with her Lulu bob, green eyes, Cupid's bow lips and Chanel travelling suits, is exactly the sort of elegant sleuth to take on a ring of jewellery thieves aboard the high seas - or at least, aboard the SS Hinemoa on a luxury cruise to New Zealand. With the Maharani - the Great Queen of Sapphires - as the bait, Phryne rises magnificently to the challenge." Here is my favorite cover, the first book in the series.

Lulupalooza article

There is an article in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch about Lulupalooza. The article, "Lulu of a film fest recalls Jazz Age," can also be found on-line. The two-day festival starts next Saturday. For more info, see www.lulupalooza.org

Around reading (Ali Smith and Toby Litt)

I recently received a copy of New Writing 13, a literary journal from England. This 350-page publication contains "new writing from established writers and names to watch" from around the British Isles. Admittedly, I am not very familar with contemporary British lit. The only authors I recognized in this 46-author collection are David Mitchell, John Berger, Fay Weldon, Kate Atkinson, and Muriel Spark. (For those interested, here is the amazon.co.uk page on the book.) However, I did recognize the names of the journal's two guest editors, Ali Smith and Toby Litt. Each are themselves authors with a handful of books to their credit. Each author has been critically acclaimed. And each share a particular interest in - Louise Brooks.

In speaking about her first book, Free Love and Other Stories (Virago, 1994), Ali Smith stated in an interview with the Times of London that her editor "kindly let me have the cover I wanted, a picture of Louise Brooks from the G. W. Pabst film Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)." ( link to article ) Like many first books, it was published in a small edition, gained a few reviews, and quietly won a prize. In another interview, Smith noted, "My first book, a collection of short stories called Free Love, had almost no promotion at all. It had a charming photo of Louise Brooks on it, though, and was an interesting size, slimmer and longer than your usual book of short stories, and has become, apparently, very rare and highly collectable. That's what comes of a *really* tiny print run." On another occassion, the author added "Best was when I saw a man in front of me in a queue buying my first book. That was very exciting. I think it was the picture of Louise Brooks that did it for him. I often wonder if he liked the stories." I have been searching the internet in vain for a scan of a first edition of Ali Smith's first book - with the Louise Brooks cover, but have been unable to find an image. Does anyone have a copy ? Would anyone be able to send a scan ?

It was a Louise Brooks book cover that caught Toby Litt's attention. In a 2004 interview with the London Independent ( link to article ), the British novelist said "I'd never heard of Adolfo Bioy-Casares' The Invention of Morel (New York Review of Books £7.99). Initially attracted to it by the beautiful cover photo of silent film actress Louise Brooks, I found it to be an equally beautiful novel of unrequited love and parallel worlds." Elsewhere, in writing about Bioy-Casares' seminal 1940 novella, Litt said "This is a strange book. . . . The narrator falls in love with one of them, Faustine. . . . Faustine is based upon the great silent film actress Louise Brooks, star of Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl. (It was her picture on the cover that first attracted me to this book.)" **  Notably, Pandora's Box also makes Toby Litt's list of the all-time top ten films on the author'swebsite.

Perhaps it's just coincidence, but here we have two "emerging" 21st century authors who have an interest in a 20th century icon and muse, Louise Brooks. Has anyone read either author?



** The Louise Brooks Society webpage devoted to Adolpho Bioy-Casares played some small part in putting the actress on the cover of the NYBR reissue of The Invention of Morel, a classic work of "magical realism." Prior to its publication in 2003, the publisher (who had come across the LBS webpage) contacted me about finding an appropriate image for the cover. I steered them toward this picture of Brooks asleep and dreaming, books at her feet.

Reading around

Since finishing A Beautiful Fairy Tale: the Life of Lois Moran, by Richard Buller, I have been reading around. I have been dipping into three books of late, skimming or reading chapters or chunks of the book that interested me. One of them is Allan Dwan: the last pioneer by Peter Bogdanovitch. (Yes, that Peter Bogdanovitch. The acclaimed movie director started his career in film writing books.) Though not so well known today, Dwan made many highly regarded films in the silent and early sound era. Among his silents are Robin Hood, Stage Struck, Manhandled, Tin Gods, The Iron Mask, etc.... Dwan worked with Gloria Swanson, Douglas Fairbanks, Marion Davies, and others - and Bogdanovitch's book is an interesting, quick survey of his accomplished career. Another book I've been reading from is Malcolm St. Clair, by Ruth Anne Dwyer. Clair was responsible for such hits as Are Parents People?, The Grand Duchess and the Waiter, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, as well as three films featuring Louise Brooks, A Social Celebrity, The Show-Off and The Canary Murder Case. The extensive material from Dwyer's book on The Canary Murder Case is especially interesting.

The book that I have been looking at most recently is Hollywood and the Culture Elite, by Peter Decherney. Published by Columbia University Press, this somewhat academic book takes a look at the little known connections between the film industry and various professors, academic institutions, museums and other members of the so-called cultural elite. "Peter Decherney explores the development of a symbiotic and unlikely relationship between the film industry and America's stewards of high culture. Formed during Hollywood's Golden Age (1915-1960), this partnership ultimately insured prominent places in American culture for both the movies and elite cultural institutions. As the book delves into the ties between Hollywood and various cultural institutions, an intriguing cast of characters emerges, including the poet Vachel Lindsay, Hollywood producers Adolph Zukor and Joseph Kennedy, Nelson Rockefeller, and film curator Iris Barry."  I'm skimming this book for factual material regarding the beginnings of film criticism / film history. (The book is not bad.)

I recently scored an inexpensive copy of An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Women in Early American Films: 1895-1930, by Denise Lowe. The book is worthwhile as a reference work (if gotten cheap), as it brings together much information. I immediately checked out the entry on Louise Brooks, however, and discovered a factual error. (Brooks' second husband was identified as "Deering Doyle.") There were a few other slight mistakes in the Brooks' entry, and I ran across typos in other entries. Nevertheless, it is a 623-page book I am glad to have. Has anyone else checked out this book ? Opinions ?



And today I received in the mail a copy of Lina: DeMille's Godless Girl, by Lina Basquette. I hadn't even known this book existed until a week ago, when I was scouring the bibliography of An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Women in Early American Films. I immediately ordered a used copy - the book was published by a small press in 1990, and is scarce. (I managed to get a signed copy - and paid dearly for it.) Basquette is an interesting figure in 1920's film history. She was married to Sam Warner (of the Warner Bros.), and appeared in some 50 motion pictures includingCecil B. DeMille's sensational The Godless Girl (with Marie Prevost). I first became aware of Basquette through the Barry Paris biography. Basquette and Brooks appeared together in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1925. Basquette writes of that time, "Louie the Fourteenth did not have a long run and after it closed Ethel Shutta and I were put in the current edition of the Follies at the New Amsterdam. To bolster publicity for the show, we arrived at the theater in taxies accompanied by sirens and motorcycle police. Then as now, publicity stunts were used wherever possible." I am looking forward to reading more from this book.

Yesterday I went to the library

Yesterday I went to the library, where a half-dozen inter-library loans were waiting. I got some good Denishawn material (articles, reviews, and advertisements) from the Rockford Republic (from Rockford, Illinois) and St. Joseph Gazette (from St. Joseph, Missouri). I also went through a couple of months of the Daily Progress (from Charlottesville, Virginia), as I had recently come across a fleeting reference to a little known Denishawn performance which took place in the Summer of 1923. Apparently, this particular performance on the campus of the University of Virginia was occasioned by that fact that Robert Gorham, who was then a member of Denishawn, had been a student at this historic university a couple of years earlier. (While Louise Brooks was a member of Denishawn, the dancers had summers off; the company only toured during the Fall, Winter, and Spring months.)

About half way through microfilm for July, I came across a couple of articles about the performance. One article printed the program notes for the evening, and from what I could discern, Brooks did not participate. Also, she wasn't mentioned in any of the articles, as was Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, Martha Graham, Lenore Scheffer, Charles Weidman and accompaniest Lois Horst. I wonder, why weren't Brooks and the other Denishawn dancers present? What was Brooks doing during the Summer of 1923?

I also went through some microfilm of the New Orleans Item, and the Spokesman Review (from Spokane, Washington), where I gathered a couple more film reviews. Then, I went through three years of microfilm of McCall's magazine. (Yes, the same McCall's our mothers and grandmothers read!) While reading A Beautiful Fairy Tale, the biography of Lois Moran, author Richard Buller (who I just recently had the pleasure to meet) mentioned that critic Robert Sherwood had written about Stella Dallas in the pages of the magazine. I was intrigued, as I didn't know McCall's covered films! As it turned out, starting in 1926, the future Pulitzer Prise winning playwright wrote about one "film of the month" every issue. His picks included Stella Dallas, The Big Parade, The Sorrows of Satan, The Circus, etc. . . . The only Brooks' film mentioned was The Show-Off,which received his "also recommended" notation in December, 1926 and January, 1927.