The Great Nickelodeon Show

Louise Brooks fan Russell Merritt, who has introduced her films here in San Francisco,
 is behind this cinematic extravaganza

Louise Brooks film screens at Andy Warhol Museum

There are few pop culture icons like Louise Brooks . . . and Andy Warhol. Each is legendary. Each, in ways, symbolize their time.

The silent film star and the pop artist come together on November 2 when the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania screens the gender-bending 1928 Louise Brooks' film, Beggars of Life. Live musical accompaniment will be provided by Pittsburgh's Daryl Fleming and friends.

Pop art colors define this vintage lobby card

Brooks’ singular beauty, charisma and naturalness helped make her a popular star in the 1920s. The bobbed hair actress was best known for her roles in light romantic comedies like Love Em and Leave Em (1926) and A Girl in Every Port (1928). Her dramatic role in Beggars of Life proved to be something different.

Directed by William Wellman the year after he made Wings (the first film to win an Academy Award), Beggars of Life is a gripping drama about a girl (played by Brooks) dressed as a boy who flees the law after killing her abusive stepfather. On the run, she rides the rails through a male dominated hobo underworld in which danger is always close at hand. Wallace Berry and Richard Arlen also star.

In its review, the New York Morning Telegraph wrote, "Louise Brooks, in a complete departure from the pert flapper that it has been her wont to portray, here definitely places herself on the map as a fine actress. Her characterizations, drawn with the utmost simplicity, is genuinely affecting."

Quinn Martin of the New York World added, "Here we have Louise Brooks, that handsome brunette, playing the part of a fugitive from justice, and playing as if she meant it, and with a certain impressive authority and manner. This is the best acting this remarkable young woman has done."

Beggars of Life features Brooks' best acting and proved to be her best film prior to heading off to Germany to star in Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl (both 1929). It is on those two films, each directed by G.W. Pabst, that Brooks' iconic reputation rests.

For this special screening, the Warhol Museum continues its partnership with the George Eastman House, the world-renowned photograph and motion picture archive in Rochester, New York. The screening is part of a series of seldom shown classic films, "Unseen Treasures from The George Eastman House."

The Beggars of Life screening marks the second time the Warhol Museum has partnered with the Eastman House to show a Brooks' film in Pittsburgh. Back in December of 2008, the Warhol Museum screened the 1930 Brooks' film, Prix de Beauté.

Pop art colors define this vintage lobby card

 For more info: Beggars of Life (b/w, 81 minutes) will be shown on Friday, November 2 at 8:00 p.m at The Warhol Theater in The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Museum will screen a recently restored, 35mm archival print, with live musical accompaniment. Additional details and ticket availability can be found at http://www.warhol.org/webcalendar/event.aspx?id=7162

New score for Pandora's Box playing in the UK

A new score for Pandora's Box (1929), starring Louise Brooks, has been written by composer Jóhann Jóhannsson and cellist and composer Hildur Gudnadóttir (from the Icelandic band Múm). They will stage their score live during screenings in the UK, together with clarinettist and graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music Dov Goldberg, and experimental turntable artist Philip Jeck, whose distinctive sound is created by mixing, looping and layering extracts from old vinyl records.

Pandora's Box will be performed in Manchester, Leeds, Coventry and London through November 3. The screenings and newly commissioned score is part of an Opera North Projects, an element of Opera North which brings classical and contemporary arts together in a year-round program of performance.

More on the new score and screenings can be found at www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/oct/30/opera-opera-north

Happy Halloween: Louise Brooks as Death

Happy Halloween: Louise Brooks as Death

Louise Brooks & Rina Ketty - "J'attendrai"

A great song: Rina Ketty sings "J'attendrai" to images of Louise Brooks.

For more French music like this, be sure and tune in to RadioLulu, the online radio station of the Louise Brooks Society, at http://www.live365.com/stations/298896

Libba Bray's The Diviners: a near Louise Brooks cover

Libba Bray's The Diviners, as
published in Italy.

Libba Bray's new young adult / teen novel, The Diviners, is set in 1920's New York City. It's story centers on Evie O'Neil, and features speakeasies, movie palaces, glamorous Ziegfield girls, rakish pickpockets, and a rash of occult-based murder. 

Kirkus Reviews said of The Diviners, "1920s New York thrums with giddy life in this gripping first in a new [series] from Printz winner Bray...The intricate plot and magnificently imagined details of character, dialogue and setting take hold and don't let go. Not to be missed."

The book contains a couple of references to Louise Brooks. One character, a Ziegfield girl named Theta Knight, is described as having "jet-black hair" cut into a "Louise Brooks shingle bob with bangs." Later, it is mentioned that Hollywood scouts were backstage and on the look-out for the "next Louise Brooks or Eddie Cantor."

The book has been published in a handful of countries, including Italy, where its cover (pictured above) features a Louise Brooks look-alike contemporary model sometimes mistaken for the actress. Thanks to Italian Brooks-scholar Gianluca Chiovelli for pointing this out! (He described the cover as "not Brooksian; Brooksiesque.") Here the book's American promotional video.

LBS featured on LAMB

On October 19th, the Louise Brooks Society blog was featured on LAMB, the Large Association of Movie Blogs, the premier movie blog directory - "a one-stop shop for readers and bloggers alike." 

Check it out at http://www.largeassmovieblogs.com/2012/10/lamb-1428-louise-brooks-society.html

Thank you LAMB!

Dressing up like Louise Brooks (for Halloween)

Thinking of dressing up or looking like Louise Brooks for Halloween? On eBay and other sites, you'll find Louise Brooks wigs - little black bobs, retro-looking dresses said to be like those Louise Brooks would have worn, and even a Louise Brooks mask.

On YouTube, you'll also find a handful of video's which instruct viewers on how to apply makeup to effect a Louise Brooks' look. I have watched some of them and think this is the best. Take a look.

 

More on Sid Kay's Fellows

Earlier this week, I received an extraordinary email. It was from Israel, and it came from Dr. Uriel Adiv, the grandson of Shabtai Petrushka (Sigmund Petruschka), the noted German musician and composer and a co-founder of the Sid Kay's Fellows. That jazz combo seen in the Louise Brooks' film, Pandora's Box (1929).

Dr. Uriel Adiv wrote in response to an earlier LBS blog, "Music in Pandora's Box: Sid Kay's Fellows." He sent images and information, and promised to send more. 

Here are a couple of the scans which he sent, the front and reverse of a vintage flyer promoting the group. Dr. Uriel Adiv wrote, "You can see my grandpa playing the trumpet on the upper right side as well as playing the accordion on the middle of the right side."

Not only does its collage design (by Umbo, a Bauhaus artist) reflect a modernist aesthetic, but its also contains valuable bits of information about the widespread popularity of this group (which I had not known) who performed for various stage, film, and dance productions. Also of note is the fact that the group was managed by impresario Hanns Wollsteiner, who helped promote Marlene Dietrich early on.