If we only had a time machine

If we only had a time machine, we could travel back to San Francisco on June 12, 1927 and take in one of three Louise Brooks films showing at four different neighborhood movie theaters. Both the Castro and the Coliseum were showing the now lost 1927 film, Evening Clothes. And, the Irving was showing the lost 1926 film, Just Another Blonde - while across town the New Balboa was screening Love Em and Leave Em (1926).

Imagine that, three different Louise Brooks showing at four different theaters in one city on the same day. If we only had a time machine.

The Grand Inquisitor

I finally had the chance to see The Grand Inquisitor (2008), a recent short film by Eddie Muller (the author and film historian known as the "Czar of Noir"). I mention it because this exceptionally well done short work contains an homage to Louise Brooks. It is well worth checking out. This 22-minute movie can be viewed online at Strike.TV.


The Grand Inquisitor stars 1940's film star Marsha Hunt as Hazel Reedy, and debut actress Leah Dashe as Lulu. Hunt is superb, and Dashe is oh so charming in this noirish tale. More on the film can be found at www.grandinquisitormovie.com/ Check it out - I really liked it.

A portrait of Louise Brooks

A portrait of Louise Brooks by M.I. Boris (circa 1925/1926)

Louise Brooks on the cover

My thanks go to Jason, who tipped me off to the appearance of Louise Brooks (or at least her distinct hair) on the cover of this just published novel by Kate Walbert. Not sure if the actress herself makes an appearance in the book, which was published by Scribner. Here is some publisher supplied copy.

About the book: National Book Award finalist Kate Walbert's A Short History of Women is a profoundly moving portrayal of the complicated legacies of mothers and daughters, chronicling five generations of women from the close of the nineteenth century through the early years of the twenty-first.

The novel opens in England in 1914 at the deathbed of Dorothy Townsend, a suffragette who starves herself for the cause. Her choice echoes in the stories of her descendants interwoven throughout: a brilliant daughter who tries to escape the burden of her mother's infamy by immigrating to America just after World War I to begin a career in science; a niece who chooses a conventional path -- marriage, children, suburban domesticity -- only to find herself disillusioned with her husband of fifty years and engaged in heartbreaking and futile antiwar protests; a great-granddaughter who wryly articulates the free-floating anxiety of the times while getting drunk on a children's playdate in post-9/11 Manhattan. In a kaleidoscope of voices and with a richness of imagery, emotion, and wit, Walbert portrays the ways in which successive generations of women have responded to what the Victorians called "The Woman Question."

As she did in her critically acclaimed The Gardens of Kyoto and Our Kind, Walbert induces "a state in which the past seems to hang effortlessly amid the present" (The New York Times). A Short History of Women is her most ambitious novel, a thought-provoking and vividly original narrative that crisscrosses a century to reflect the tides of time and the ways in which the lives of our great-grandmothers resonate in our own.

About the Author: Kate Walbert is the author of Where She Went, a New York Times Notable Book of 1998; The Gardens of Kyoto, winner of the Connecticut Book Award for fiction in 2002; and Our Kind, finalist for the National Book Award in 2004. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and numerous other publications.

Has anyone read this book?

SFSFF starts today

I'm excited about this year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival. It starts today. No Louise Brooks film, but plenty of cinematic action. Here is what I am especially looking forward to.

A wow Louise Brooks discovery

My latest discovery . . . . It depicts Louise Brooks' image in a window display promoting the release of The Canary Murder Case. As you can see, the actress is prominent in this display. My guess is that this image was shot in early February, 1929.

It is one of five different images I have uncovered of different store windows taken in Los Angeles at various department stores and shops including the May Company and the Owl Drug store.

Apparently, there was a widespread push to promote the film. Some of the images feature hearts and candy (suggesting a pre-Valentine promotion - the film was officially released on February 16th), while others include photoplay book edition of the novel on which the film was based. Nevertheless, Louise Brooks - in the form of a lifesize cardboard display piece - is front and center in each of the displays.

Wow wow wow wow wow! I have never seen these before.