Sunday, May 13, 2007

What a doll

Joe's Bar - an exhibit space located in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle - has an exhibit on display featuring the work of artist Sara Lanzilotta. The exhibit, “Dolls of the Silver Screen,” features likenesses of various actresses and cultural icons. Among them are Bettie Page, Joan Crawford, Liza Minnelli in Cabaret, and Louise Brooks. The exhibit, which lasts through May 31, has received local coverage. Here is the artist's representation of Brooks.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

New Louise Brooks DVD

It looks like Diary of a Lost Girl will be released on DVD in the UK. The releasing company - Eureka Entertainment Ltd - has set a release date of May 21st. The run time is 115 minutes - pretty much the same length as the American DVD release on Kino. The package includes a 16 page booklet featuring an essay by R. Dixon Smith, vintage photographs, and more. I haven't seen it yet - this is info I found on the internet. [ An essay by R. Dixon Smith - "The Miracle of Louise Brooks" - can be found here. ]

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Brooksie - The Jazz Age Musical


I wanted to let everyone know that Brooksie: The Jazz Age Musical is now available in the United States. A recording can be obtained through CDBaby at www.cdbaby.com/cd/brooksie   There, you can also listen to sample sounds of this enjoyable musical inspired by the life of Louise Brooks. Composed by Sandro Moreni, who lives in Switzerland, this is jazzy music from the Jazz Age, full of swing and interpreted by top European musicians. I would encourage everyone to check it out - as I understand the stage version has proven popular and has been performed in Switzerland and Austria (and perhaps Germany sometime soon).
The composer's website is also well worth checking out. It can be found at www.brooksie.ch    The CD of the musical can also be obtained through such on-line European vendors as Huge Music and amazon.de

Friday, May 4, 2007

Ululu



I've just found out about this new book, which explores the Lulu archetype. Here is what the publisher has to say:

Operatic in scope, ULULU (Clown Shrapnel) is a dramatic, genre-bending narrative and a lyrical cultural biography of the archetypal seductress Lulu. In a furious performance of text and imagery, Thalia Field introduces us to the stock characters of the commedia, the famous plays, operas, and silent films in which Lulu appeared, the artists who brought her to life, and the censorship and controversy that she engendered.

The myth of "Lulu" began during the height of late-nineteenth-century Viennese culture with a sequence of two plays by Frank Wedekind (Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box), and continued through the two world wars with Lulu, an unfinished opera by Alban Berg, and Pandora's Box, a highly acclaimed film by G.W. Pabst, starring Louise Brooks. Throughout all of Lulu's incarnations she met with censure - Wedekind's plays were banned from the stage, Berg's opera, which contained a secret score for his young lover, was kept from the public by his widow, and Pabst's erotic film was too risque for many.

As Field's story peeks into the dressing rooms and back alleys of history, words take the stage, "fictional" and "historical" characters speak side by side, and lyrical symbolism undulates throughout the pages. Original and treated footage from award-winning filmmaker Bill Morrison and illustrations from artist Abbot Stranahan complete this masterful work of avant-garde fiction, presented in a numbered and signed first edition limited to 1,500 copies.
In addition to her multimedia performance work, Thalia Field, an assistant professor at Brown University, is the author of Point and Line and Incarnate: Story Material. Has anyone seen a copy of her new book?

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Etch-a-Sketchist Draws Louise Brooks

This blog entry by the Etch-a-Sketchist featuring Louise Brooks drawn on a Etch-a-Sketch just popped up. Isn't it kinda nifty? I could never manage more than a stick figure or two on those things.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Kevin Brownlow's SF visit

John Bengtson - a friend and the author of two excellent books, "Silent Echoes: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Buster Keaton" and "Silent Traces: Discovering Early Hollywood through the Films of Charlie Chaplin" - posted a detailed account of Kevin Brownlow's visit to San Francisco. John posted it to the alt.movies.silent newsgroup. It can be read here.

Along with hosting the Brownlow booksigning at the Castro Theater on Saturday, I also attended the two events described by John in his post. And, I had a chance to speak with Kevin Brownlow at a small gathering on Sunday. Of course, we spoke about Louise Brooks - among other subjects. I told Kevin about the Louise Brooks Society and the various projects I have been working on. . . . We also spoke about Louise Brooks' inspired literature. Kevin had seen Smoking with Lulu when it played in London, and recommended I read Jack Finney's novel Marion's Wall. (I've just started the book. It is about a a young couple who move into an old San Francisco house possessed by a screen queen of the twenties who takes over the wife's body.)

It was a thrill to spend time with Kevin Brownlow. And just as you would expect, he "showed himself to be articulate, kind, modest, humorous, and generous. It was a delight to spend some moments in his company."

I took a few snapshots which I hope to post later. . . . My camera is at work awaiting tomorrow night's event with film biographer Steven Bach.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Lulu in Manilla

Louise Brooks is mentioned in an article which appeared in The Philippine Star. Admittedly, the author drops lots of names - but its neat to see Brooks mentioned in an Asian newspaper. The article - which discusses a number of things including the Ziegfeld Follies - reads in part

The Ziegfeld Follies was a series of elaborate theatrical productions inspired by the Folies Bergères of Paris. The Ziegfeld Follies was conceived and mounted by Florenz Ziegfeld, at the suggestion of his then-wife, the entertainer Anna Held. Top entertainers of the period like Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Ann Pennington, Bert Williams, Will Rogers, Ruth Etting, Helen Morgan, Marilyn Miller, W.C. Fields, Ed Wynn and Nora Bayes, appeared in the shows. Fanny Brice was one of the most celebrated Ziegfeld Girls whose life story was made into a movie entitled Funny Girl that starred Barbra Streisand.
Ziegfeld Follies was such a big hit that many future movie stars of the era once enlisted themselves as Ziegfeld Girls. The list includes Marilyn Miller, Marion Davies, Mae Murray, Paulette Goddard, Joan Blondell, Nita Naldi, Dorothy Mackaill, Eve Arden, Billie Dove, Gilda Gray, Barbara Stanwyck and Louise Brooks. Norma Shearer who became a Hollywood superstar was turned down by Ziegfeld for being "not up to standards." Ziegfeld Girls were usually decked in the most elaborate costumes. Ziegfeld hired the best designers like Erte, Lady Duff and Ali Ben Hagan.
So popular were the Ziegfeld Follies that several movies were inspired by the revue. The Great Ziegfeld, starring William Powell as the master showman, Myrna Loy as Ziegfeld’s second wife Billie Burke, Luise Rainer as Anna Held, (which won her an Academy Award for Best Actress), and Frank Morgan (as a rival showman) won the 1936 Oscar Best Picture. The 1946 feature motion picture entitled Ziegfeld Follies starred Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, William Powell, Gene Kelly, Fanny Brice, Red Skelton, Esther Williams, Cyd Charisse, Lucille Ball and Kathryn Grayson.
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