I just found out about this series in the Westwood Village area of Los Angeles at the Armand Hammer museum.

The Female of the Species

Friday, Jul 7  at 8pm

Pandora's Box
Pandora's Box is the tragedy of Lulu, an irresistible femme fatale whose sexuality entices and eventually destroys the men around her. The film made Louise Brooks an icon of the Jazz Age.

Friday, Jul 14  at 8pm

Siren of the Tropics
Josephine Baker makes her debut in this silent film as Papitou, a young native girl from the tropics who follows her love interest to Paris and becomes a music hall performer.

Friday, Jul 21  at 8pm

Piccadilly
Anna May Wong mesmerizes as Shosho, the scullery maid who becomes an overnight dance sensation in London, in this simple tale of ambition, desire, and jealousy.

Friday, Jul 28 at 8pm

Salome
After Russian actress Alla Nazimova rose to stardom, she began producing scandalous and experimental films, like Salome, that were tapped as monumental failures at the time, but are seen today as artistic achievements.

Friday, Aug 4  at 8pm

It
Clara Bow stars as a shop girl whose romantic relationship goes awry when local rumors pin her as an unwed mother. Influential in redefining the mores of sexuality on screen, Bow became the 'It' girl and one of the most famous flappers of the '20s.

Friday, Aug 11 at 8pm

Metropolis
A science fiction classic, Metropolis is set in a futurist urban dystopia where humans are divided into the thinkers and the workers. When the leader of the workers falls for the son of the thinkers, order unfolds into chaos and revolution begins.

Aldeburgh Festival

I just found out - the Aldeburgh Festival in England will be mounting a program called "Lulu and Louise" on June 22nd - that's tomorrow! The festival will be showing Pandora's Box and Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu. The festival was begun by composer Benjamin Britten shortly after World War II. This year marks the 59th annual event. For more info see the festival website at www.aldeburgh.co.uk/

New Yorker illustration

FYI: There is a very nifty illustration of Louise Brooks (in a scene from Pandora's Box) in the June 19 isue of the New Yorker. See page 24.

Box Office coverage from indieWIRE

According to an article by Steven Rosen on indieWIRE, the Pandora's Box screening at the Film Forum in NYC is doing well.

The second-place film on this week's iWBOT did $9,950 at New York's Film Forum -- which frequently is a launch pad for movies that rank well on this chart. But that figure is especially good for Kino Releasing's "Pandora's Box," since it's a 77-year-old silent film. This re-release, a newly struck print from a negative at the George Eastman House, is part of the centennial celebration of the birth of "Pandora" star Louise Brooks, whose role as the Jazz Age free-spirit and prostitute Lulu in G.W. Pabst's film has come to be regarded as one of the most important in cinema. Her bobbed hairstyle has been equally influential.

"It was a chance to see Brooks at her most dazzling that turned out the crowd," said Gary Palmucci, Kino's general manager for theatrical sales. "It's really about her," he said. "She's just jumping off the screen with her effervescence and sexuality. She's so bubbly and so voracious at the same time."

Palmucci traces the revival of interest in Brooks to a New Yorker article by the late critic Kenneth Tynan from 1979, "The Girl With the Black Helmet." In 1983, Kino first re-released "Pandora" on a double bill with Brooks' "Diary of a Lost Girl" at Manhattan's old Regency Theatre. Now this new print of "Pandora" -- on its own -- will play at Cambridge's Brattle Theatre, Hartford's Cinestudio, San Francisco's Castro Theatre and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A DVD release also is slated for later this year.

I hope all those who not yet seen Pandora's Box on the big screen take the opportunity to view one of  these screenings.

Musical

On Saturday July 15th, a new 35mm print of Pandora's Box will be shown at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, as part of the annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival. (See www.silentfilm.org for details). Also showing earlier that day is a French film, Au Bonheur Des Dames (1930). I haven't seen that film - but it looks very promising.

I will be introducing Pandora's Box. I have also been asked to program a short musical selection to be played in the theater prior to Pandora's Box and Au Bonheur Des Dames. I plan to put together a Louise Brooks-themed set and a French musical set (featuring Parisian music of the 20's and early 30's) - each lasting about 25 minutes. There will be some musical rarities to be heard, and some selections from RadioLulu. If you are there, it will be a treat for the ears. I promise.

Ooodles of pulchitrude and other clippings

Despite this being a national holiday (Groundhogs Day) for some, I spent the morning at the San Francisco Public Library. A couple of inter-library loans were waiting for me. I had requested microfilm of two newspapers from Springfield, Missouri in hopes of tracking down reviews of the Denishawn performance there in January, 1924. The Springfield Republican turned-out to be a goldmine of articles, images, advertisements, and a review. The paper ran six articles in advance of the performance, and each carried a picture eithor of Ruth St. Denis or of the Denishawn company. One depicted Louise Brooks. Very nifty! TheSpringfield Daily Leader, on the other hand, did not run a review. And only ran two short articles on the Denishawn company on the page devoted to "Automobile News." Very odd!

I also found some Denishawn material in the Times-Union, from Albany, New York. Denishawn performed there in April, 1924. And this would be one of Brooks' last performances with the company. The Times-Union ran a review, and article in advance, some ads, and a write-up in Marie Avery Myers local column, "Dramatic Driftwood." All together nothing outstanding, but good to have for the record.

Along with the Denishawn-period microfilm, I also requested reels from late 1925 and early 1926 in hopes of scoring some film reviews from Albany. Unfortunately, the Times-Union (a Hearst paper ?) was a third rate publication. I found advertisements, listings and very brief notices for three Brooks' films - though they are hardly worth citing in the bibliographies. The problem with the Times-Union was that it just was not a very good newspaper, editorially speaking. I've seen better papers from much smaller towns.

However, while scanning the September, 1925 Times-Union for material on a local screening of The Street of Forgotten Men, I did come across a number of articles on the Miss America beauty contest, which was then being held in Atlantic City, New Jersey. (The contest was the background for Brooks' second film,The American Venus.) "Prettiest Girls Vie for Title" one article was headlined, as it detailed the field of beauties. Others spoke of the controversy surrounding the contest. "Miss Pittsburgh" and "Miss Erie" withdrew from the affair, charging that two of the entrants were professional beauties. One of those two entrants turned out to be "Miss Manhattan" - Dorothy Knapp, who was Brooks' friend in the Ziegfeld Follies. Others objected "to an attempt which they said was made by another judge, a motion picture producer, to compel them to sign contracts to appear in the movies if crowned Miss America." Hmmmm.

One article I found mentions a personal appearance by actors Ernest Torrence and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., each of whom had roles in The American Venus. The contest, of course, was won by San Francisco's own "Miss California," Fay Lanphier. She would star in The American Venus. Hmmmm. While looking through all this interesting material, I also came across this captioned photo. It is offered here for your viewing pleasure.