Continueing my pursuit

Continueing my pursuit of Louise Brooks / Denishawn material from college newspapers, today I looked at an interlibrary loan of the Daily Iowan (the student newspaper at the University of Iowa). I found a few good articles and a couple of advertisements, though no review, regarding the February, 1924 Denishawn performance in Iowa City. I was impressed by the Daily Iowan. It was a pretty decent college newspaper for the time. I think it the equal of the papers from the University of Michaigana, UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley.

I also looked at a small town newspaper, the Altoona Tribune, from Altoona, Pennsylvannia. I found lots of material on the October, 1922 Denishawn performance - though only a little on the March, 1924 engagement. Nevertheless, my pursuit goes on . . . I mean to be thorough. I had also requested a couple of later reels of the Altoona Tribune. And, I found some stuff on screenings of The Street of Forgotten Men and The American Venus, including a few nice advertisements! I will add those to the files, and add citations to the appropriate LBS bibliographies.

Here is a rather busy, though rather typical advertisement I came across today. I think it is rather nifty - so wordy! Notice the adjoining advertisement for the Hipitty Hop Girls. I hadn't realized hip-hop went back so far. . . .

Wil Wheaton reblogged

Back in December, Wil Wheaton (of Star Trek fame, actor, author, and blogger extraordinare) posted a blog headlined "girls in corsets juggling knives." The entry read thus. "If you like:

• olde tyme music
• louise brooks
• girls who look like louise brooks
• squirrel nut zippers
• asylum street spankers

and you're not on dial-up, you simply must go watch this video from The Ditty Bops." I would suggest taking his advice! The Ditty Bops video is nifty - very surreal, and the Ditty Bops themselves look smashing in their dual bobs. (Does Wil Wheaton know that the Squirrel Nut Zippers once used an image of Louise Brooks on a concert poster?)

A Girl in Every Port

On this day in 1928, A Girl in Every Port, starring Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong and featuring Louise Brooks, premiered at the Roxy Theater in New York City. It was a big hit in the big apple. It would also prove popular in France.

Mick LaSalle's Prix review

Today, Mick LaSalle, the well known film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, reviewed the recent Kino DVD release, Prix de Beaute. Mick is a fine newspaper critic, and the author of two worthwhile books on pre-code film, Complicated Women, and Dangerous Men. However, he has never much liked Louise Brooks.

A 1995 article by LaSalle, titled "Pandora's Box is Steeped in Critical Hysteria," began by stating "Pandora's Box, which opens today for a four-day run at the Castro, is one of those revered classics, so steeped in critical hysteria that it's almost heresy to question its greatness." He goes on to suggest that Brooks (who he refers to as "a minor star best known for her Moe-in-the-Three-Stooges haircut") is today known only because of her friendships with a number of film critics. LaSalle also refers to Kenneth Tynan's long 1979 article in the New Yorker as "critical lunacy." LaSalle's review of Prix de Beaute echoes his earlier sentiments. Today's piece begins "More nonsense has been written about Louise Brooks than any other silent-era figure. A minor American actress . . . ." I would suggest that some of that nonsense about Brooks is LaSalle's own.

The bob as mask

Yesterday, at the library, I ran across this striking 1924 photo of a stage actress sporting a rather exaggerated bob. I have never seen such stylized cut - especially in the way the points of the bob reach across Jean Bodine's face. And look at her eyebrows, extended to touch the hairline. The effect quite nearly looks like a kind of disquise, or mask. I thought "a haircut performing as a mask." Or is this image a kind of masque?

I think he was right

On this day in 1925, Florenz Ziegfeld is quoted in the Baltimore News as saying, "Louise Brooks, is going to eclipse a lot of the present stars in a very few short years."