Jen Anderson

Tonight, I had the pleasure of meeting Jen Anderson, the gifted Australian composer and musician. Jen is on tour with the Larrikans - a musical group - accompanying screenings of The Sentimental Bloke (1919), an Australian film being shown around the United States. It is a charming film. And I liked Anderson's original score a good deal. It is certainly the first Australian silent film I have ever seen.

It was a pleasure to meet Anderson because she is also the composer of an original score for Pandora's Box, which accompanied the Louise Brooks film when it was screened "down under" around 1993. And one of her songs from that soundtrack - "Lulu: The Song" - is featured onRadioLulu. (It's one of my favorite contemporary Louise Brooks-themed songs.) It was nice to at last meet, as we had exchanged emails a long, long time ago. Perhaps ten years ago! Tonight, I asked Jen about the availability of copies of the Pandora's Box soundtrack. She said that she thought it was out of print, though there may be a very few left. If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy, email me and I will let you know what I find out when I find out more. Jen said she would let me know.

Jen Anderson also told me that she had just been to Rochester, New York - where she performed at a screening of The Sentinmental Bloke at the George Eastman House. (It's that institution that owns the 35mm print which was screened this evening.) While there, the musician said, she was shown some of Brooks' possessions. No doubt, they were preparing for the upcoming exhibit devoted to the actress.

Lulu review - SF Chronicle

Lulu - the Silent Theatre production currently at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco - just got a terrific review in the San Francisco Chronicle. If you live in the Bay Area and haven't already seen this enjoyable production, do check it out. It's really good - and Kyla Webb as Lulu is terrific! From today's review:

It's not just the title character, though Kyla Louise Webb's Lulu is almost as irresistible an embodiment of female sexuality as Louise Brooks was in G.W. Pabst's 1928 film, "Pandora's Box." As conceived and directed by Tonika Todorova, Silent's "Lulu" is a feast of exaggerated silent movie-style comic and melodramatic acting -- in living black and white, with blown-up supertitles and composer Isaiah Robinson's period-perfect piano accompaniment -- with a surprisingly flavorful tragic aftertaste. . . . 

"Lulu" also has something of a local connection. Though he was born in Germany, mostly raised in Switzerland and never visited America, Benjamin Franklin Wedekind's parents met in San Francisco and he was conceived in Oakland. Perhaps in keeping with his founding father namesake, Wedekind set out to revolutionize German theater, becoming a prime mover in the creation of expressionism and a major influence on Brecht, among many others. . . . 

Brooks, whose centennial is being celebrated this year, memorably captured that quality on film. Webb, in classic Brooks black bob, re-creates it onstage in a combination of expressionist stylization, Jazz Age jitterbugging verve and a more contemporary sexual assertiveness. But she doesn't do it alone. The entire company brings her fatal attraction to life, from her succession of doomed husbands and other lovers to the observers of her rise and tawdry fall. . . .

Adolphe Menjou book

I just received this book in the mail, which I had ordered from a book dealer in France. Its a short, 64 page, softcover book about Adolphe Menjou - his beginings, his films, and his adventures. It was published in June, 1927. As one would expect, it contains a number of portraits and stills from Menjou's films up to that time. Among the stills are a few from A Social Celebrity (1926), which featured Louise Brooks. And among them is one which depicts Louise Brooks - which makes this book the earliest I know of to include an image of Louise Brooks. I was secretly hoping that might be the case when I ordered it - and it turned out to be so. There is also a bit of text - a paragraph - about the film and Menjou's role in it. Notably, the book is co-authored by Robert Florey, who ten years later would direct Louise Brooks in King of Gamblers.

Legendary Sin Cities

I recently rented a DVD documentary, Legendary Sin Cities, which I want to recommend.  This three-part Canadian CBC documentary focuses on the most notoriously decadent cities in modern history: Berlin, Paris and Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s. I was especially impressed with the uncommon film clips, intelligent commentary, and interesting line-up of experts offering perspective and opinion.

Plot Synopsis: Of all the remarkable events of this century perhaps the most fascinating has been the spontaneous growth, flowering and then decay of a handful of great cities. These cities were places where art, culture and political liberties co-mingled with corruption, brutality and decadence. Everything and just about anyone could be bought and sold. The immigrant would struggle beside the artist. Gamblers, thieves and prostitutes co-habited with soul-savers, the rich and the powerful. The exhilarating combination of the seamy with the sublime made these places a magnet for all the lost souls and refugees of the world. Pushing the limits of tolerance and freedom, they defined the social, political and sexual culture of the 20th century.

Contemporary footage mixed with rare and richly evocative archival films, stock shots and stills give resonance to the stories of an extraordinary cast of characters: novelists and artists, musicians and journalists, rogues and sinners. Added to the mix are excerpts from feature films, married with the music of those remarkable times. What results is a richly drawn portrait of a time and place that helped define our century. Contains nudity :) but no mention of Louise Brooks, who briefly inhabited both Berlin and Paris in their decadent heyday.

Pandora's Box to screen in Jacksonville, Florida

Just received word from Mike about a screening of Pandora's Box in Jacksonville, Florida.  Mike writes "The Florida Theatre in Jacksonville, Florida presents the restored version of Pandora's Box as part of the "Reel People" film series. This one-time only screening will take place at 7 pm.  For more information, go to www.jacksonvillefilmfestival.com/reel_index.htm."  The film will be accompanied by live music.

The First Lulu

Speaking of rare book acquisitions, and speaking of Wedekind's play (the subjects of my last two entries) - I recently acquired a copy of the first American publication of Pandora's Box. It's pictured below. This softcover book dates from 1914. The translation is by Samuel A. Eliot. Four years later, the play would be published in hardback. And five years after that, it was published in a collection of Wedekind's plays titled Tragedies of Sex. I have copies of each.

I guess you could say I am a completeist. Or a detailist . . . . Interestingly, its a little known fact that Pandora's Box was staged in New York City in 1925 while Louise Brooks was living there. That production had only a short run, and there is no indication that Brooks saw it or was aware of it. (The play was considered both somewhat "modern" and somewhat "artsy.")