Friday, April 9, 2010

The Lotus Eaters: from Max Headroom to Louise Brooks

Just stumbled upon this 1985 music video of "It Hurts," by the Lotus Eaters. It features Louise Brooks in some scenes from Pandora's Box.


The Lotus Eaters formed in Liverpool, England in 1982. Their debut single "The First Picture of You," from their debut album, No Sense of Sin (1984), became a hit in the UK and Europe. The band was mistakenly included in the New Romantic movement when they first appeared, as their sound was awash in '60s influences, namely the melancholic pop of the Zombies. "It Hurts" was the last single band released. They broke up in 1985.

[In 1991, the English band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) released a song called "Pandora's Box," which was subtitled "It's a Long, Long, Way." It' video also features clips of Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box. Sure seems as though those Brits love Brooks.]

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Louise Brooks art #1

This is the first installment of what should end up becoming an irregular, ongoing series of posts highlighting "Louise Brooks art" - paintings, drawings, photographs, collages, cartoons, sculpture, etc . . . . all featuring the silent film star Louise Brooks, or at least in some way inspired by the actress. I have been meaning to start this series for some time now, as work is occasionally sent to me. And I also come across a lot it on sites like eBay and Etsy. So here goes.

James Ferguson is a British "dark artist" (and self-described former goth) who goes by the name of Byron Black. And just today, he sent me a couple of his portraits of Louise Brooks. Here is one of them, which I like.

More of his work, including a bunch of images and portraits of various silent film and early sound actors and actresses, can be found on the deviatART website at http://darkinc1.deviantart.com

Click on his gallery page, and you'll see other images of other film stars like Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson, Bela Lugosi, Max Shreck as Nosferatu, and Elsa Lanchester as the Bride of Frankenstein. [Trivia connection: it's known that director James Whale had considered Louise Brooks for the role of the Bride in the Bride of Frankenstein. Somehow, however, I can't imagine Brooks' black bob with a shock of white hair a la Lanchester. But who knows.]

Here is another image of Louise Brooks, this time not wearing her signature bob. It's another effective rendering. I also like the artist's use of a black and white and shades of grey palate.

If you have created a piece of Louise Brooks visual art and would like to have it considered for future inclusion in this informal series, please email me. My contact info is off on the left hand side of this blog.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Here there and everywhere

Its known that during the silent film era actors and actresses were sometimes called upon to supply their own wardrobe.

That was the case with Louise Brooks. In a filmed interview later in her life, Brooks recounted how during the making of Pandora's Box (1929) director G.W. Pabst asked her to wear one of her new dresses which he had deliberately wrecked (soiled in oil) in order that the actress feel badly wearing it.

The other day, I was looking through some images when I noticed a couple of scene stills of Louise Brooks - each from different films - wearing the same dress. "Hazaa," I thought, "perhaps this dress belonged to the actress." Never before, in all of my looking at pictures of Louise Brooks, had I noticed this coincidence. (But then as "a guy," I am not one to notice fashion.)

The first image (above) is from German-made The Diary of a Lost Girl (1929). It was directed by G.W. Pabst. The film was in production between June 17th and July 26th, 1929. The second image (right) is from the French-made Prix de Beaute (1930). It was directed by Augusto Genina, and was in production between August 29 and September 27, 1929. To my eyes, Louise Brooks wears the same dress in each image. Brooks also wears this dress in the short film of the actress projected at the end of Prix de Beaute.

I got to wonder about that dress. And looked a little further.

My wife is a fashion historian, and owns a considerable number of books on the subject. One I pulled off the shelf was on Jean Patou, one of Europe's most important designers of the inter-war period. I flipped through the book hoping to find something. And there I uncovered another image of the actress wearing that same dress! Hazaa again! The book describes it as a figured bronze lame dress, and notes that Patou created it for Brooks at the time she was making Pandora's Box. (This book also notes that Brooks had attended a fashion show at the designer's salon.)

I figure Louise Brooks must have really liked that dress to have worn it as much as she did. Here is that last image. Brooks is wearing a matching jacket trimmed with fox fur.

Monday, April 5, 2010

The Little Church Around the Corner

In the Spring of 1925, while still a member of the Ziegfeld Follies, Louise Brooks acted in her first film, The Street of Forgotten Men. Brooks only appears in one scene, near the end of the film, and is on screen for about five minutes. It was an auspicious debut.

The Street of Forgotten Men was set in New York's rough-and-tumble Bowery, though it was largely shot at Paramount's Astoria Studio. A few scenes were also shot on location on the streets of New York. One of those location shots took place at the "Little Church Around the Corner," an actual building in the heart of New York City. It still stands today, and has an historical connection to the city's theatrical community.

I call your attention to the Church because a couple of vintage images of this historic locale are currently for sale on eBay. Each image gives a sense of the "old-timey" atmosphere the film tried to affect. The first was taken around the turn-of-the-last century (circa 1900?). This image is close to what I remember of the building when I saw the film a few years back. Notice that there are no other buildings behind the Church - only sky!


The second image is from an obviously later date, through probably closer to the time the film was made. Notice that in this image there are buildings behind the Church. (Certainly, a NYC historian could fix a more accurate date based on the structures in the background.) When I saw The Street of Forgotten Men, I remember another shot looking across the street from the Church - I noticed a row of businesses including tellingly a vegetarian restaurant.


The scenes in The Street of Forgotten Men which featured the "Little Church Around the Corner" did not include Louise Brooks. Rather, the Church was featured in the scene where the characters played by Mary Brian and Neil Hamilton get married. Hamilton, who went on to play Commissioner Gordon in the Batman TV series, would go on to play an even more important role in Gotham City in later years.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

The Louise Brooks Legacy

What is Louise Brooks' legacy? How was she thought of in the 1920's. How is she thought of today? 

Over on Nitrateville.com - a bulletin board / message board / discussion group for fans of early film - there had been quite a lively discussion taking place on the topic. 

The discussion started (and largely took place) in 2008; however, it was just updated the other day. Check it out at http://nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?t=305&sid=7ef895314254216b0153293a2b1963b8

Agree? Disagree? Why not add your two cents?

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Louise Brooks

Friday, April 2, 2010

High Class pictures

I came across this newspaper advertisement just the other day, while going through some microfilm of the West Side Index, the local newspaper in Newman, California (a small town east of San Jose & west of Merced, in Stanislaus County). It, and the other advertisements depicted in this post, are typical of the material I dig up on a regular basis. They also help sketch the history of film exhibition in the region.

By my calculations, it was 82 years ago today that the Star Theater in Newman was showing a high class Paramount Picture "Not Yet Determined." Was it a  film starring Louise Brooks or some other Paramount actor? We'll never know. [Oops, the typesetter misspelled "A Hight Class."]

At this time, in March of 1928, the Star Theater - of which Gus Johnson was proprietor, was showing Paramount films. That wasn't always the case. In my research, I uncovered listings for six of Brooks films having shown in Newman at the Star. I found ads for The Street of Forgotten Men (1925), The American Venus (1926) - and then a gap - and then The City Gone Wild (1927), Now We're In the Air (1927), Beggars of Life (1928), and The Canary Murder Case (1929).

Why there was a gap in the exhibition of Brooks' films isn't known. However, I would guess from having scrolled through reels of microfilm that the theater started out tied to Paramount, shifted over to another studio or went independent, and then shifted back. Remember this was the time of block booking, when local theaters were allied to certain studios and were "obligated" to show most all of that studio's output - whether they wanted to or not. After The American Venus, which the Star screened in April of 1926, the theater seemed to drop Paramount films and instead screened a mix of motion pictures from studios like Universal or MGM. By early 1928, they had shifted back.

Here is another newspaper advertisement for the Star Theater, which dates from the beginning of Brooks' film career and from a time when the Star was allied to Paramount.
This ad dates from early September of 1925, and lists The Street of Forgotten Men as a coming attraction. It is typical of the dozens of "Paramount Week" ads I have collected from all over Northern California and from around the United States. (The Star eventually screened The Street of Forgotten Men in late October.)


Paramount had a stronghold in Northern California. And, as a matter of fact, hardly a week went by in 1926 and 1927 when one of Brooks' films wasn't showing somewhere in the Bay Area. (By my calculations, only 11 weeks passed when a Brooks film wasn't being shown during this 104 week period. That's kinda wow! The question arises: Was it because Brooks was so popular? The answer: Probably not. In all likelihood, Brooks Paramount films were shown as often as they were because her studio was so dominant in the region.)

Here is one last ad, for the Gustine Theater in nearby Gustine, California (just south of Newman). It was also found in the Newman newspaper and dates from March of 1937, near the end of Brooks' film career. 

What's interesting and even unusual about it is that it lists two Brooks' films, Empty Saddles (1936) and When You're in Love (1937) in one ad! I haven't found many instances of such overlap. 

As a matter of fact, and comparatively speaking, I don't have that many ads or listings for Empty Saddles. As a sort of B-Western, it didn't show all that much. Especially compared to When You're in Love, which was a major release from Columbia starring Grace Moore and Cary Grant. It was the most widely shown (in Northern California) of all of Brooks' films. It's too bad that Brooks herself is impossible to spot in it!

I did a search of www.cinematreasures.org for the Star Theater, but wasn't able to find an entry. Nor could I find anything on the Gustine Theater. I will search a little further.
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