1920's Louise Brooks Cuban Tobacco Card

For sale on eBay, a 1920's tobacco card from Cuba depicting Louise Brooks (identified as "Louise Brook"). Spanish language text on the reverse identifies this card as number 716 in the "Serie Artistica."

Tobacco cards, sometimes also referred to as cigarette cards (or candy cards), were small promotional items packaged along with items like cigarettes or candy.

The image on the card was taken by M.I. Boris. The actress looks especially lovely in this portrait. She was probably no older than 18 or 19 at the time.

Interestingly, Louise Brooks had something of a presence in Cuba. I have managed to look through a few Cuban magazines and newspapers from the 1920s and have run across her image a number of times. Paramount did a good job promoting the actress on the island.

I also own a vintage box of stick matches which features Brooks' image. I've bid on this item. Let's hope I win. Then, at last, the match box will be "reunited" with the cigarette card. (Who knows, maybe the matches once lit a smoke from a package which contained just such a card....)

Louise Brooks tops TCM list of movies that created style trends

As New York Fashion Week kicks off , Turner Classic Movies has released a list of the network's favorite fashion trendsetting films.

Pandora's Box - starring the one and only Louise Brooks - has topped the list of 15 "Fashion Trendsetting Classic Films." According to the TCM website, "Film has provided fashion inspiration for audiences and fashion designers alike; costumes not only help create a character, but can spur real-life trends and runway looks. In honor of Fashion Week and the far-reaching influence that film has had on our closets, we present 15 of our favorite fashion trendsetting movies." Pandora's Box (1929) was the earliest film, as well as the only silent film, on the list.

Brooks' look has had a substantial influence on fashion. The actress took the number one slot, however, not for the clothes she wore (though both Travis Banton and Poiret both dressed her) back in the day), but for her much copied hairstyle.

The TCM website noted "Louise Brooks once said, 'A well dressed woman, even though her purse is painfully empty, can conquer the world.' That could have been the motto of Lulu, the role that made her a fashion icon for the ages. Brooks had been wearing her famous Buster Brown haircut and dressing in the height of flapper fashion for years, as had many other actresses, but her sleek hairdo and half-naked beaded gowns were such a perfect match for the amoral charmer in Pandora's Box they remain one of the screen's most enduring images. The look would prove just as lucky for Cyd Charisse and Melanie Griffith, who copied it for their star-making roles in Singin' in the Rain and Something Wild, respectively. And in many countries the severe black bob that led critic Kenneth Tynan to call Brooks 'The Girl in the Black Helmet' is still referred to as 'the Lulu'."

Be sure and check out the entire list of trendsetting films at www.tcm.com/dailies.jsp?cid=254416

a Mighty Wurlitzer then and now

When Louise Brooks' first film first played in San Francisco, it was at the Granada Theater at 1066 Market Street. The Street of Forgotten Men opened there on August 8, 1925 and played for a week. (Seven days was a typical run for a first run film in a big city during the Twenties.) The film received very good reviews in the local press.

The Granada Theater was an opulent, Andalusian-style movie palace. It was part of Publix, a chain of movie theaters allied with Paramount - Famous Players Lasky. As a result, all but two of Brooks' Paramount features opened in San Francisco at the Granada. The films which showed there were

The Street of Forgotten Men (Aug. 8-14, 1925)
The American Venus (Jan. 9-15, 1926)
A Social Celebrity (Apr. 24-30, 1926)
It’s the Old Army Game (May 29 – June 4, 1926)
Love Em and Leave Em (Jan. 8-14, 1927)
Evening Clothes (Mar. 19-25, 1927)
Rolled Stockings (Aug. 13-19, 1927)
City Gone Wild (Nov. 5-11, 1927)
Canary Murder Case (Feb. 8-14, 1929)

The Granada was a real old fashioned movie palace. When it opened in November of 1921, it had an operating staff of 122 people! In addition to its opulent interior, the Paramount also boasted a 4 manual, 32 rank Wulitzer organ. It was, at the time, the largest such instrument in the United States. When the Granada changed names in 1931 - the theater was renamed the Paramount - the organ remained. And, as a matter of fact, the theater's Mighty Wurlitzer remained on site till the Paramount closed in April of 1965.

All this is to say that you can hear this very instrument played in the very theater which screened so many Louise Brooks films. (Isn't that kinda time trippy!) On the following webpage, you can listen to a recording of a live 1964 radio broadcast of the Paramount Wurlitzer near the end of its life in San Francisco:

http://www.bayarearadio.org/audio/kpen/kpen_wurlitzer_1964.shtml

If you are interested in learning more about the Granada Theater, follow this link to a webpage on the outstanding Cinema Treasures website. There, you can also find links to interior and exterior images of the theater dating from the 1920's.

Lulu in the Philippines

The Philippine Daily Inquirer ran an insightful, and somewhat lengthy article about a recent production of Lulu (the Frank Wedekind play) on their website. And of course, Louise Brooks plays a significant role in the article's analysis of the play and the Philippine production. Check it out here.

The article by Gibbs Cadiz, "Femme too fatale in Dulaang UP’s Lulu," notes "The Lulu plays, with their fervid glorification of a woman's sexual rapaciousness and the devastation it wreaks on the world around her, has served as an Ur-text in the evolution of the iconic femme fatale in popular culture -- from Marlene Dietrich's Lola-Lola in The Blue Angel to Barbara Stanwyck's Double Indemnity (notice the hommage in names?), from Hitchcock's gallery of deadly blondes to the Botticelli-tressed Glenn Close as the terrifying Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction."

Cadiz adds, "They all owe a debt to Lulu more specifically to her now-celebrated cinematic embodiment, the Lulu of American actress Louise Brooks in German director G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box."

Cadiz continues, and remains focused on Brooks: "While seemingly unmoored from motivational underpinnings, Lulu's anarchic, iconoclastic nature did have a purpose: It was the shattering blast of modernity Wedekind had lobbed at fin-de-siècle Germany, with its smothering rubric of social, economic and psychosexual conventions -- the real aim of his subversive dramaturgy."

"Pabst reportedly auditioned numerous women, including Dietrich, before settling on Brooks for his Lulu. The smoldering Dietrich (25 at that time to Brooks’ 21) was rejected because, as Pabst explained, her overripe sexuality, her all-too-seductive look threatened to turn Pandora’s Box into a 'burlesque.'"

"Pabst wanted an actress who combined allure and innocence, sensuality and grace. When he found Brooks, he photographed her exactly as Wedekind had conjured Lulu: an ethereal presence, seemingly separate from the common humanity around her, her stunning face -- that otherworldly gaze -- and lithe figure always more luminous, the light more alive in her presence."

While I don't think the author gets it completely right, there are some interesting points made in the article. Check out the Philippine perspective.

Two silent films not on DVD that should be

On Friday, I wrote an article on examiner.com titled "Six silent films not on DVD that should be." Please check it out.

Of course, two of my six suggestions were Louise Brooks' films. And of course, I want to see every one of her films on DVD. (Surprisingly, the W.C. Fields comedy, It's the Old Army Game (1926), is not on DVD - though just about every other Fields films is. The same goes for A Girl in Every Port (1928), directed by Howard Hawks. And then there is Love Em and Leave Em (1926), which is a good little film.)

However, I truly believe the two I suggested in my article, Beggars of Life, and The Street of Forgotten Men, deserve to be on DVD because they are especially fine films.

If you like silent film but are not necessarily a Brooks' fan, you will like these films.

I would enjoy hearing suggestions - either in the comments section following this blog, or in the comments section after the examiner.com article - of films you believe also belong on DVD.

As more and more films get released on DVD, it's time to get the word out for those films silent film fans really want to see.

A significant find

The other day, I was scrolling through newspaper microfilm when I happened to notice a petite portrait of Louise Brooks. It wasn't something I was looking for, but there it was. It caught my eye. I suppose I've become trained to notice Brooks' image wherever it appears.

What I came across surprised me. It was something I had not seen before or even known about. And, as far as Louise Brooks and film history is concerned, I think it may be a significant find.

What I came across was an item in a column by Louella Parsons. The clipping is dated February 1, 1929. At the time, Hollywood studios were undergoing the transition from silent films to talkies. Also undergoing great change were the careers of many actors and actresses. Some, with weak voices or heavy accents, failed to make the transition to talking pictures.

According to the clipping I came across, Louise Brooks sent a telegram to the famous, nationally syndicated columnist Louella Parsons asking her to help put out the word that her voice was not bad, and that the reason her voice was dubbed in the then just released Canary Murder Case was that she was simply unavailable to do the job. (The film, released in 1929, was originally shot as a silent in 1928 and was adapted as a sound film.)

The column reads, "Louise Brooks sends a wire to this desk begging me to say that the reason Famous Players-Lasky used a voice substitute was because she could not leave New York when The Canary Murder Case was being synchronized. 'Please,' asks Louise, 'deny that they used a substitute because my voice was bad. I was tied up in New York and could not come to the coast. That is the real reason.' We are big minded and are not going to get Louise in bad if we can help it. So please heed the contents of her telegram."

What revelatory about this brief piece is that 1) it shows Brooks' awareness and concern over the poor notices her voice was receiving in early reviews of The Canary Murder Case, and 2) it supports Brook's long held contention (debated by some film historians) that some studios knowingly wrecked the careers of actors - often using the "bad voice" gambit - during this turbulent period in the industry's history.

Apparently, Brooks' considered herself a victim of studio sabotage as far back as 1929. What's also interesting is that Brooks is here attempting to make her case in the court of public opinion. That's unusual. I don't think she ever did anything as proactive again - or at least until she turned to writing about film in the 1950's and 1960's.

What do you think? Barry Paris does not mention this item in his outstanding 1989 biography.

Interestingly, in her own review of The Canary Murder Case which ran on February 8th, Parson commented "He was handicapped by no less a person than Louise Brooks, who plays the Canary. You are conscious that the words spoken do not actually emanate from the mouth of Miss Brooks and you feel that as much of her part as possible has been cut. She is unbelievably bad in a role that should have been well suited to her. Only long shots are permitted of her and even these are far from convincing when she speaks."

Brooks' part in The Canary Murder Case marked her last important role in an American silent film. With her career in turmoil, Brooks worked in Europe. (There, she made what many consider to be her three best films. Each was a silent film.) When Brooks eventually returned to work in America in 1931, newspapers and magazines usually referred to an attempted "comeback." All that was available to the once popular actress were supporting roles in largely B-movies.

Louise Brooks

A somewhat serious, though nice portrait of Louise Brooks, by George P. Hommel (circa 1928)