Screen Seductresses tickets to be won!

The FutureMovies website in Britian is giving away tickets to a upcoming screening of Pandora's Box (1929) at the BFI, in London. 

Women have always been a commanding presence on the cinema screen and BFI Southbank, in association with the Birds Eye View Film Festival, are presenting a season of films dedicated to these vamps, vixens and femmes fatales. The season features an extended run of Joseph H. Lewis’s electrifying love-on-the-run cult classic Gun Crazy, in which Bart (John Dall) loves guns without wanting to kill, but Laurie (Peggy Cummins) yearns for violent excitement… Other highlights include Barbara Stanwyck’s glacial turn in Double Indemnity, Rita Hayworth’s infamous Gilda and ‘the miracle of Louise Brooks’ in Pandora’s Box. This is just a selection of the great films on offer; for more information seewww.bfi.org.uk/femmesfatalesfuturefilms.

To find out more about the ticket give away, visit this webpage. And good luck!

From Carmilla on-line

I recently came across an archived write-up of Pandora's Box, which was posted to Carmilla on line, an Italian blog devoted to dissident literature and the imagination. This recent blog was titled "Oblique visioni (dall'estrema sinistra) 2," and it contains short entries on various classic films. Here's what Carmilla on line had to say about Pandora's Box, which is called Lulu in Italy:

36-Lulù di Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Germania 1928

La vamp fatale all’ennesima potenza: dai romanzi di Wedekind, Pabst trae la tragica vicenda di Lulù, bellissima donna attorniata da uomini allupatissimi e amata financo da una donna, cosa che sugli schermi mai era accaduta. Lulù provoca, in un crescendo melodrammatico, disperazione (e morte) in padri e figli, amici e protettori, tutti incapaci di resistere al suo proverbiale fascino, fino al tragico epilogo quando, dopo romanzesche e complicate avventure (un po’ noiose, tutto sommato), finisce a prostituirsi a Londra e ha il suo primo (e ultimo) incontro mercenario (anche se nella fattispecie rifiuta il denaro e lo fa per carenza d’amor) con il giulivo Jack lo Squartatore. Il nonno degli odierni serial killer, disorientato da cotanta disponibilità, sembra sul punto di cedere, ma poi la sua natura (come lo scorpione wellesiano) prevale e la bella dama, assetata d’amore e altro, viene accoltellata in un raptus inarrestabile. Che dire? La serata era iniziata pessimamente: il Lumière era riuscito a creare un piccolo evento portando il sommo poeta Sanguineti a discettare sul destino di questa femme fatale un po’ zoccola. Chiaramente, siccome la sfiga ci vede benissimo e prende la mira anche al buio, dalla Cineteca Nazionale è arrivata una copia de I bambini ci guardano e non della Lulù: disperazione e stridore di denti! La gran folla convenuta è stata ammansita con prossimamente vari e cine-Chiambretti, finché non è pervenuta una copia videoregistrata del film di Pabst e non si è proceduti a una videoproiezione, francamente non meno godibile (quanto a qualità dell’immagine) dello standard delle pellicole di settanta anni fa. Purtroppo l’operazione d’immagine non ha funzionato: la proiezione è iniziata con più di un’ora di ritardo e, alla fine, Sanguineti ha parlato solo per cinque minuti. Peccato: il film, anche se in certi momenti è sbrodolato e tedioso, ha momenti molto belli e Louise Brooks appaga la mia curiosità di verificare quanto il mito rispondesse a realtà. Era proprio una bella gnocca. (Cineclub Lumière; 28/2/98)

Molly Haskell on Lulu in Hollywood

The well known film writer Molly Haskell surveyed five autobiographies by actresses in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. One of them was Louise Brooks' Lulu in Hollywood. Here's what Haskell had to say.

After laboring for much of the 1920s in Hollywood, the black-helmeted Kansas-born free spirit Louise Brooks had to go to Europe to become a star. She was a revelation in two mesmerizing German silent films directed by G.W. Pabst, "Pandora's Box" (1928) and "Diary of a Lost Girl" (1929) -- but then Brooks, independent-minded to a fault, refused to compromise once Hollywood came calling, and she basically threw her career away. By the late 1940s, she was working as a saleslady at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. She was rescued by admirers, chief among them James Card, curator of the George Eastman House film archive in Rochester, N.Y. He persuaded Brooks to move to Rochester, where she lived in the 1950s as a recluse, watched films, her own and others, and was reborn as a writer. (She was also rediscovered as an actress by Kenneth Tynan, who championed her work in an influential piece for The New Yorker.) "Lulu in Hollywood" -- Lulu was the ill-fated innocent who drove men to distraction in "Pandora's Box" -- is a collection of Brooks's often brilliant essays. Some of the pieces recount her own joyous romp through the 1920s as a Ziegfeld showgirl (a job she enjoyed more than making movies) and party-girl courtesan. Other essays shimmer with insight as she discusses the work of Humphrey Bogart, W.C. Fields, Greta Garbo, Lillian Gish and others. She paints a vivid picture of Bogie, for instance, still showing vestiges of the stiff stage actor in "The Roaring Twenties" in 1939, when he appears helpless opposite James Cagney, whose "swift dialogue" and "swift movements . . . had the glitter and precision of a meat slicer . . . impossible to anticipate or counterattack."

Haskell is well known as the author of the seminal 1974 book, From Reverence to Rape. She can also be seen discussing films with Robert Osborne on TCM, and has a just released a new book through Yale University Press, Frankly, My Dear: "Gone with the Wind" Revisited (part of their Icons of America series). Haskell has written about Brooks on at least a couple of occasions in the past. Once in the aforementioned From Reverence to Rape - discussing the treatment of women in the movies - and in a 1974 article in Film Comment, where she discussed the 1928 Howard Hawks film, A Girl in Every Port.

Bangless Lulu, or P703-69

Lulu in Hollywood - the Russian Edition

Today, I was thrilled to receive the Russian-language edition of Louise Brooks' Lulu in Hollywood. I knew I was getting something special when I removed the package from my mailbox. The book was wrapped unsealed in plain brown butcher's paper and tied with string! Just like a present. It was addressed to me both in English and in Russian, and in forward leaning cursive lettering which reminded me of my Polish grandmother's handwriting.

The book was sent to me compliments of the publisher. This new edition was published late last year by Rosebud Publishing, a new enterprise located in Moscow. Scanned below are the front and back covers.

          
 

I was also thrilled to see the Louise Brooks Society and my name (in Russian) acknowledged on the copyright page. Just call me Tomacy from now on. This hardback book, which is 290 pages, is about the same size as an American softcover book. It measures 6 x 8 inches. And, as far as I can tell, it includes the same material found in the University of Minnesota reissue from 2000. The book begins with the introduction by Kenneth Tynan, and concludes with the afterword by Lotte Eisner and a filmography - all in Russian. The big difference is the number of images. There are four 16 page inserts featuring portraits and film stills, as well as other miscellaneous images scattered throughout the book.



All in all, it is a very nice production. I am very pleased to have it. Thank you Rosebud Publishing! I looked around online and found a European website from which this book can be purchased. The website is called RUSLANIA and the catalog page featuring this new edition can be found here. There may be other places on the internet to purchase this book. That is the first one I came across. Curiously, the RUSLANIA page shows a copy of the book with a different cover. I am presuming that it is an earlier design. I have to admit, I like it better than the actual cover as depicted above.

The back of this new edition contains a brief bit of text in Russian which I am curious to know what it means. Can anyone translate it? I would really appreciate it. Please post an translation in the blog comments.
 

4th Annual Silent Film Winter Event

I am excited about today's 4th Annual Silent Film Winter Event at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. The event is put on by the good folks at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (link to website). 

Saturday, February 14, 2009
Noon - OUR HOSPITALITY (1923)

Set against the drama of an age-old feud between two families, Buster Keaton's ingenious take on Romeo and Juliet is a laugh-out-loud parody of Southern hospitality, circa 1830. Upon learning he's inherited the ancestral estate, Buster takes the first train home to reclaim his heritage. Soon he's courting a sweetheart and dodging her family's bullets. Buster's daredevil rescue attempt above a waterfall is one of the all-time great movie stunts. 

Live piano accompaniment by PHILIP CARLI

Directed by John G. Blystone & Buster Keaton Starring: Buster Keaton, Joe Roberts, Ralph Bushman, Craig Ward, Buster Keaton Jr. (1 year old) 35mm Print Source: Douris Corporation

Preceded by short, Alice Guy Blache's THE DETECTIVE AND HIS DOG (1912)

Admission Price: $12 Member/$14 General
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2:40pm - A KISS FROM MARY PICKFORD (1927)
Co-Presented by The Mary Pickford Foundation and The San Francisco Film Society

Movie stardom gets a gleeful once-over in this madcap slapstick farce from Russia. Goga is a brash young ticket-taker smitten by aspiring actress Dusia, but she only has eyes for movie idols like Douglas Fairbanks. Goga decides to become a famous screen star himself, starting with a stunt man job at a movie studio. But when Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford arrive on a promotional tour, (with rare footage of the Hollywood couple which only exists in this film!) Goga gets all the fame he could ever want - at his own peril!

Live translation of Ukranian intertitles read by Steven Jenkins from San Francisco Film Society.

Live piano accompaniment by PHILIP CARLI

Written & Directed by Sergei Komarov Starring: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Igor Ilinsky and Anel Sudakevich 35mm Print Source: The Mary Pickford Institute

Preceded by short, Alice Guy Blanche's MATRIMONY'S SPEED LIMIT (1913)

Admission Price: $12 Member/$14 General
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Saturday, February 14, 2009
6:30pm - SUNRISE: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Co-Presented by Film Noir Foundation

One of the supreme artistic achievements of the silent era, SUNRISE is a timeless ode to the forces of love, desire, guilt and redemption. Director F. W. Murnau infuses his fable of a man, a temptress, and a wife with a lyrical, dreamlike intensity that makes for a heightened emotional experience you'll never forget. Recipient at the very first Academy Award ceremony in 1929 of the only Oscar ever given for Unique and Artistic Picture.

Live accompaniment on the Mighty Wurlitzer by DENNIS JAMES

Directed by F.W. Murnau Starring: George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston 35mm Print Source: 20th Century Fox

Preceded by short, Alice Guy Blache's FALLING LEAVES (1912)

Admission Price: $15 Member/$17 General
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9:30pm - THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1927)
Co-Presented by MiDNiTES FOR MANiACS

At the stroke of midnight, the heirs of Cyrus West gather at his old dark house for the reading of the will. One of them will inherit his estate and take possession of the famous West diamonds - if they can survive the night without going insane. And wouldn't you know it, there's an escaped lunatic somewhere on the premises. Who shall live? Who shall die? In this thriller-chiller comedy, horror and hilarity lurk behind every secret panel! From the director of THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, our sold-out hit at this past summer's 2008 Festival!

Live accompaniment on the Mighty Wurlitzer by DENNIS JAMES and Foley Artist, Mark Goldstein.

Directed by Paul Leni Starring: Laura La Plante, Creighton Hale, Forrest Stanley, Tully Marshall 35mm Print Source: Film Preservation Associates

Preceded by short, Alice Guy Blache's THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1913)

Admission Price: $12 Member/$14 General