"Lulu in Berlin" screening / "Pandora's Box" screening

I just found out . . . .  Richard Leacock's fascinating documentary, Lulu in Berlin, will be screened at the De Young Museum as part of a "Leacock / Pennebaker: Pioneers of Cinema Verite" series taking place in San Francisco. Leacock's 1984 film will be shown at the De Young Museum (in Golden Gate Park) on Thursday, March 2nd at 7:30 pm. And what's more, Richard Leacock will be on hand to introduce the film. If you are a Louise Brooks fan, and haven't seen this film, you should! The series is sponsored by the Documentary Film Institute, which is part of the International center for the Arts at San Francisco State University. Tickets can be had for $10.00 through www.ticketweb.com

For more information about these films and Richard Leacock and D.A. Pennebaker visit www.collegeofcreativearts.org/DFI/

-----

I've just heard that a newly struck print of Pandora's Box will be shown at the historic Castro Theater as part of the annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival in July. This year, the festival will take place on July 14 - 16. Pandora's Box will likely be shown on Saturday, the 15th. More about the festival (though this year's schedule has not been posted) can be found at www.silentfilm.org.      I am very excitied to see this screening. And you can bet I will be there.

And some more late breaking news . . . . Another new book about Louise Brooks - this one published in Austria - is due out near the end of the year!

For the latest on Louise Brooks centenary news, please visit this page.

I am distraught

This morning, I had used my computer to check email, read the news, etc.... Everthing was working fine. Then I headed off to the library. When I returned, I booted up my computer and my secondary hard drive - a storage drive, failed. I am distraught. All of my RadioLulu files (more than 100 mp3's), all of my Cafepress work, and all of my work on other Louise Brooks related projects was stored on that drive. I am very anxious that this data may be lost or it may cost me a shitload of money to get back it through the services of a data retrieval company. And, I wasted all afternoon chasing down solutions in the vain hope  I might be able to reverse the situation. Apparently, this particular Maxtor hard drive has a history of firmware corruption. The Louise Brooks Society shall not depend on Maxtor hard drives ever again!

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."