Inter-library loan finds

A bunch of inter-library loans have come in recently! I went through four more months of the North China Daily News, and came across advertisements and brief write-ups for The American Venus and A Girl in Every Port. Both films played in Shanghai in the fall of 1928. Remarkably, one of the advertisements for A Girl in Every Port took up nearly three-quarters of a page! I also went through some reels of the Arkansas Gazette (from Little Rock, Arkansas), Knoxville News-Sentinal (from Knoxville, Tennessee), and Illinois State Journal (from Springfield, Illinois) - and found a few film reviews in each. Citations for each of these finds have been added to the LBS bibliographies.

I  went through a few months of the Long Island Daily Press and Daily Long Island Farmer. I was hoping to find material on Louise Brooks' Ziegfeld Follies appearances or on later screenings of her films in the Big Apple. However, this New York City area newspaper didn't cover Manhattan goings-on - and thus I turned up nothing of interest. (Previously, I had lots of luck uncovering Brooks' material in the two Brooklyn newspapers. I have yet to look at the Staten Island newspaper.) Similarly, my look-through the Daily Clarion-Ledger (from Jackson, Mississippi) also turned up nothing. And, my request for the Denver Times was declined - as no lending institution could be found in Colorado or elsewhere. Fortunately, I have in the past gotten access to a couple of other Denver papers.

I also went through some microfilm of the Trenton Evening Times. I had requested the month of September 1925, as this month sometimes turns up material on The Street of Forgotten Men (which opened a couple of months earlier and was still in circulation around the country)  as well as the 1925 Miss America contest. The contest - which served as the backdrop to Louise Brooks' second film, The American Venus - was held in the second week of September in nearby Atlantic City, New Jersey. In my searching, I managed to uncover a couple of articles about the contest, as well as a comic strip called "Petey Dink." For about two weeks, it focussed on the Miss America contest. Here is a typical strip.



The search goes on. I put in some more ILL requests. And we shall see what turns up next time.

Paper sculpture

Check out these paper sculptures of Louise Brooks-like figures. Very nifty!

City Girls

Back on Valentine's Day, I blogged about the Berlinale International Film Festival and its series called "City Girls," which is devoted to movies of the 1910's and 1920's. One of the films screened as part of the series is Love Em and Leave Em (1926), which features Louise Brooks as a department store employee.

Well, as it turns out, there are a couple of new books out in Germany which features the actress on the cover! I have already placed my order. (I adore the image of Brooks on the cover of these new books. She is so direct - almost defient looking. So modern !)

Pandora's Box

"Pandora's Box," as depicted by Arthur Rackham (for sale on eBay)

Arcadia books

Chances are, you’ve seen Arcadia Publishing books in your local bookstore. They are the photo-filled paperbacks (with often sepia color covers) that document the local histories of communities, business, schools, sports and ethnic groups across the nation. I own a bunch of them, mostly books about the San Francisco Bay Area (where I live now) and the Detroit area (where I grew up). Among my Bay Area books are a couple on the movie theaters of San Francisco and Oakland - each of which have made for interesting reading in local history.

During my December trip to Detroit, I picked up a just published book on Detroit's Downtown Movie Palaces, which has also proved to be quite interesting. In that book, I was able to see images of a few of the theaters where Louise Brooks' films first played in the Motor City. Another recent acquisition is The Chicago Movie Palaces of Balaban and Katz.

I was especially interested in this title because - through my research - I know that all of Brooks' American silent films played in Chicago, and usually at a Balaban and Katz theater. (Balaban and Katz, the dominant theater chain in the Windy City, were also the primary exhibitors of Paramount films in Chicago.) Thus I was not suprised to see The Canary Murder Case (1929) advertised on the marquee of the Uptown theater (as depicted on page 74 of this book).

A few other titles from Arcadia which I hope to check out eventually include Cleveland's Playhouse Square (the cover image depicts a marquee trumpeting the name of Ethel Shutta - Brooks' one time co-star in the Follies), Stepping Out in Cincinnati: Queen City   Entertainment 1900-1960, and South Jersey Movie Houses. I am interested in the history of theaters, and like local history. These books make for great reading.

Zasu

I made a small discovery.

Today, I went to the 40th California International Antiquarian Book Fair, which is held every two years in San Francisco. The fair is the largest rare book show in the West. I've gone many times. Generally speaking, I like to go and just browse. I rarely make a purchase, as the first editions and autographed copies are beyond my budget! Nevertheless, its fun to look. Today, for example, I saw nice copies of Charlie Chaplin's My Trip Abroad (1922) and Sessue Hayakawa's The Bandit Prince (1926) - each in their original dustjacket! I also found a remarkable illustrated book from 1930 called Modern Picture-Houses and Theaters. I will try and track down a less expensive copy of this latter book for myself, as it looked very interesting.

While walking the aisles, I also came across a Louise Brooks item I had never seen before, or even known about. Actually, it was my wife who spotted it first! I was about to leave a booth, having seen all I thought I wanted to, when my wife said, "Did you see that?" No, I hadn't. And there was a vintage Louise Brooks item staring me in the face. Wow!

A New York dealer was offering two sets of Czech sheet music dating from the late 1920s / early 1930s. One set of sheet music - containing about 12 pieces and dating from 1929, measured approximately 9" x 12". The second set, a miniature version of the first - dated from 1931 and measured approximately 4" x 5". Each group, seemingly, contained the same set of songs. And contained within each of these sets was a song called "Zasu" (described as an "English vocal waltz") which featured Louise Brooks on the cover. I was flabbergasted! I offered to buy the one sheet - but the dealer was only selling them as a set. He wanted $4800.00 for the lot, and that was far too much for me.

From what I was able to find out, the sheet music was from the Liberated Theatre, an avant-garde theater company located in Prague. "Zasu" - as I believe were all the songs in the set - was composed by Jaroslav Jezek - who is today considered one of the great Czech composers of the inter-war period. (Jezek is sometimes spoken of as a Gershwin-like composer, as Jezek was influenced by jazz and composed in both the popular and classical styles. Coincidentally, there is an exhibit about Jezek closing at the end of the month at the National Museum in Prague. ) Besides being composed by a famous Czech composer, each of the song sheets were strikingly designed by Frantisek Zelenka - an equally acclaimed Czech artist. Thus the premium on these vintage items. A famous composer + an acclaimed artist + their ephemeral nature and rarity = extraordinary value.

I was desperate to obtains some sort of visual documentation of this item, and asked the dealer for a photocopy or scan of this single piece, but he would make no promises.

Later in the day, I did some internet research on Jezek, Zelenka and the Liberated Theatre. And, after a little looking around, I did manage to track down a Czech compact disc featuring a vintage recording of "Zasu" with the composer at the piano. I ordered a copy. When that disc arrives, I hope to place the song on RadioLulu. And perhaps the CD will reveal a little but more about the song and any connection to Louise Brooks which may exist.