Friday, September 29, 2006

October events


Thru October 29, 2006: The Silent Theater company has extended their San Francisco stage production of Lulu at the Victoria Theater.  (more info)

October 3 - 8, 2006: The SEDICICORTO International Film Festival Forlì in Forlì, Italy takes place. A special category in this year festival includes films relating to Louise Brooks.  (more info)

October 7 - 14, 2006: The Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Italy will show G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box, with a newly commissioned orchestral score.  (more info)

October 12-13-14, 2006: As part of its Centenary Tribute to Louise Brooks, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents Pandora's Box.  (more info)

October 13, 2006: The Music Box Theatre in Chicago will screen Pandora's Box as part of the Roger Ebert "Great Movies" series.  (more info)

October 15, 2006: The Music Box Theatre in Chicago will screen Pandora's Box as part of the Roger Ebert "Great Movies" series.  (more info)

October 15, 2006: The Valley of the Sun Chapter of the American Theater Organ Society presents Beggars of Life as part of its "Silent Sunday" series at the Orpheum Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona.  (more info)

October 20, 2006: As part of its Centenary Tribute to Louise Brooks, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents A Girl in Every Port andDiary of a Lost Girl. Claudine Kaufmann, former Director of Collections, Cinémathèque Française, will be in attendance.  (more info)

October 21, 2006: As part of its Centenary Tribute to Louise Brooks, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents the silent version of Prix de Beauté. This new print, restored by the Cineteca di Bologna and running 109 minutes, features French intertitles and a spoken translation. Claudine Kaufmann, former Director of Collections, Cinémathèque Française, will be in attendance.  (more info)

October 23, 2006: The Florida Theatre in Jacksonville, Floria will screen Pandora's Box.  A specially commissioned poster has been created for the event.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

San Francisco Public Library annual book sale

The Friends of the San Francisco Public Library 42nd annual book sale takes place this weekend. For more info click here. I will be there Sunday morning. Can't wait to find a few treasures - books on film, biographies, dance, music, 20th century American history,  etc....

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Alma Rubens, Silent Snowbird

Lately, I've been reading Alma Rubens, Silent Snowbird, a new book edited by Gary Rhodes and Alexander Webb. The book contains a short biography of the early silent film star, as well as Rubens' sensational 1931 memoir.
Dark-eyed and distant Alma Rubens was one of the first female stars of the early feature film industry in the 1910s. She was a major star by 1920, but before the decade was over her screen career was marked and marred by cocaine abuse. She died in 1931 at age 33 - a Hollywood beauty, a casualty of Hollywood "snow," yet much more. As an actress she was versatile, demonstrating a talent that was ahead of its time with her gentle and subtle expressions.

This book contains Rubens’s autobiography, a text titled This Bright World Again that was serialized in newspapers in 1931. Ghost-written or not or somewhere in between, this long forgotten document deals with Rubens’s addiction and despair. In addition, a new biography of Rubens takes the reader from her birth in San Francisco through an impoverished upbringing, three short-lived marriages, and her career in pictures for Triangle Film, Cosmopolitan, Fox and other production companies. The story of her film career mingles with a tale of desperate drug addiction that led to hospital stays, violence and deception.
Alma Rubens, Silent Snowbird is interesting, and well worth checking out. The book contains some illustrations, and a filmography.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

SFBG reviews Lulu

From the San Francisco Bay Guardian (the alternative weekly here)
Lulu Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St; 863-7576, www.victoriatheatre.org. $20. Extended run: Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Oct 29.

Oh, to have the perfect Louise Brooks bob and the desire of all who lay eyes on you. Being irresistibly sexy is not all it’s cracked up to be, as demonstrated in the Chicago-based Silent Theatre’s adaptation of German playwright Frank Wedekind’s story cycle revolving around the self-serving femme fatale Lulu (Kyla Louise Webb). Everyone wants the vixenly cabaret performer, from her sugar daddy agent (Alzan Pelesic) to her legal guardian, the supposedly upstanding Dr. Sch�n (Nicholas DuFloth), to the doctor’s feckless son (Matthew Massaro) and the Egon Schiele-esque countess and costume designer (Lauren Ashley Fisher) for the upcoming big show. And though Lulu seems adept at handling her cadre of suitors, the stage can get pretty crowded, with one lover coming in the door, another sneaking around the sofa, and yet another pretending to be a statue in the corner. The story is told without dialogue, save for the projected intertitles, and the players move in black and white makeup and costumes like actors in the sped-up, jerky films of the 1920s to the dazzling and manic piano accompaniment of Isaiah Robinson. Director Tonika Todorova’s translation of the silent film to the stage can be elegantly seductive, as when Lulu tangos with her new dance partner, the volatile Rodrigo (Curtis M. Jackson), but also a bit messy, as when a particularly juicy make-out session between Lulu and the countess leaves their black lipstick smeared for the rest of the scene. Ah, but nothing in life is ever too tidy — especially in Lulu’s. (Giattina)
http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=1743&l=1

Monday, September 25, 2006

Lulu in Cyberspace

Just posted a links page = "Lulu in Cyberspace" at silentfilmbuff.googlepages.com/

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Buck's column - Cherryvale's movie star

The Coffeyville Journal ran an article about Louise Brooks in today's paper. "Buck's column - Cherryvale's movie star" discusses the actress from the next town over. Buck Walton's piece starts:
It must be admitted that I’ve only seen one film of Cherryvale’s Louise Brooks, and it was “Overland Stage Raiders” (1938, John Wayne), which was her last. Judging from this B-western, you’d never guess that she had been a sensation in the 1920s and has a cult following.
The article can be found in its entirety at www.cjournal.com/columns/local_story_267010823.html/

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Continueing . . .

I have continued placing inter-library loan requests and have continued visiting the library. . . . Over the last few weeks I have gathered Denishawn material from the Wasau Daily Record-Herald (from Wasau, Wisconsin) and most interestingly, the Yale Daily News (from Yale University). The students at Yale gave Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, Louise Brooks and the other members of the Denishawn Dance Company considerable coverage, including a front page article and front page review. Just a few days later, Rudolph Valentino, who was also on a dance tour of his own, visited New Haven. (Valentino was on strike against Paramount, and was touring the country with his wife, Natasha Rambova.) This would not be the first time Brooks and the Denishawn Dance Company would nearly cross paths with the silent film star.

I also gathered film material from a handful of newspapers including the Poughkeepsie Eagle-News (from Poughkeepsie, New York), Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, (from Lancaster, Pa.), Knoxville Journal (from Knoxville, Tennessee), Indianapolis Times , San Antonio Express, and Denver Post. I found some nice advertisements, and a few original reviews.

Also, of late, I have also been borrowing books. I managed to get ahold of a few vintage editions of Margarete Bohme's Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, the 1907 novel which was the basis for the 1929 film Diary of a Lost Girl. It was interesting to examine different editions. I also got ahold of Un homme en habit, the 1922 French play which was the basis of the 1927 film, Evening Clothes.

Here is a scan of the remarkable cover of the first edition of Bohme's book.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Rolled Stockings, a rolled stock

Rolled Stockings (1927) lobby card is for sale on eBay. The card depicts Louise Brooks in a scene with James Hall and Richard Arlen (his pant leg pulled up, and his sock rolled down). Little known is the fact that a good deal of the film was shot around the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.  Anybody got an extra $1,125 ! 
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