Every woman is potentially a VAMPIRE

This is post number 600 on the new LBS blog: Presented here, a 1925 newspaper advertisement for Motion Picture magazine. It's the battle of the vamps! (Louise Brooks was considered a "Junior Vamp.")

Cinephilia :: Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks is a world wide phenomenon. Check out this 2009 postage stamp from the Republic of Benin (French: République du Bénin), a country in West Africa.

Or, check out this link to a webpage slideshow from Greece. Louise Brooks: Οι εικόνες μιας σταρ. (Louise Brooks: Images of a star.) Μια σειρά φωτογραφιών της Louise Brooks.

‘The Chaperone’ heads to the big screen

As readers of this blog know, Laura Moriarty's exceptional novel, The Chaperone, involves a character based on Louise Brooks.

Now comes word that Fox Searchlight has selected Simon Curtis to direct The Chaperone with Downton Abbey’s Elizabeth McGovern starring, to be scripted by Julian Fellowes, also of Downton Abbey.

For more on this story, see deadline.com and other news outlets.

For more on Louise Brooks and Downton Abbey, see an earlier LBS blog.

Louise Brooks - Don't Put A Tax On The Beautiful Girls

Presenting a new YouTube video "Louise Brooks - Don't Put A Tax On The Beautiful Girls."

The latest issue of Golwg

Louise Brooks and Louise Brooks Society are mentioned in the latest issue of Golwg, a Welsh-language magazine, in the story pictured over the soccer player's left shoulder. 

"Agor Bocs Pandora" by Dilwyn Roberts-Young looks at the Welsh National Opera forthcoming presentation of Alban Berg’s opera, Lulu, and a related screening of Pandora's Box, starring Louise Brooks. More on those events here.

A constellation of stars

A constellation of stars . . . .

. . . . featuring Pola Negri, Florence Vidor, Louise Brooks, Lois Moran, Esther Ralston, Clara Bow and Bebe Daniels.

Downton Abbey - the Louise Brooks connections

Louise Brooks, by Barry Paris

If you are a fan of silent film and Downton Abbey, you may have noticed a scene where one of the downstairs help was spotted reading a vintage issue of Photoplay magazine with Mabel Normand on the cover. The connection the popular series has with the silent film era doesn't end there. The series, set in England in the early years of the 20th century, also has some rather interesting ties to Louise Brooks.

Back in November, a handful of English writers were asked by the Guardian newspaper which books had most impressed them during the course of the year. The piece was titled "Books of the Year 2012." The answer given by actor, novelist, screenwriter, director and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes caused a bit of a stir, as the book he mentioned was published in 1989. Fellowes' answer reads this way.

"I suspect the book that has haunted me the most this year was the life of that queen of the silent screen, Louise Brooks: A Biography (University of Minnesota £17), by Barry Paris. I have seldom read so lyrical a tale of self-destruction. When she was a girl, my mother used to be mistaken for Louise Brooks and so I have always felt a sort of investment in her, but I was unprepared for this heartbreaking tale of what-might-have-been."

Wow, what an eloquent appreciation of Barry Paris' acclaimed biography. I, for one, couldn't agree more. As I have said before, it is the best biography I have ever read, and it is the best biography I will ever read. It's that good! It is also a book anyone interested in silent film or a life story well told should read.

One wonders if Fellowes knows that Shirley MacLaine, one of the stars of Downton Abbey, is also a BIG fan of Louise Brooks. Over the years, MacLaine has said as much in interviews, all the while expressing her interest in playing Brooks on screen. Additionally, one of the other stars of Downton Abbey, Elizabeth McGovern, has developed a similar interest in Brooks. After serving as the reader for the audio version of Laura Moriarty's 2012 novel, The Chaperone, McGovern snapped up the movie rights to the bestselling book, which tells a story centered around Brooks' time as an aspiring Denishawn dancer.

If, one day, Fellows scripts  a film version of The Chaperone with McGovern as the title character and MacLaine as Louise Brooks' mother (?), just remember you saw it here first. But then who would play the teenage Brooks?

Are you a fan of Louise Brooks and of Downton Abbey? Who do you think could play a teenage Brooks?  Leave a comment in the comments field. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Music by Herb Weidner

A nicely tinted and nicely toned video from YouTube. Music by Herb Weidner.

Louise Brooks in Fairbanks, Alaska - better late than never

I am continuously researching Louise Brooks and her films. And recently, I came across a couple of clipping (one of which is shown here) which merit mentioning. My findings are notable on a few accounts.

In January, 1930 two of Louise Brooks' silent films - The City Gone Wild and Now We're in the Air -  were shown in Fairbanks, Alaska. The "Screen Life" column details the event. These screenings are not the first instances of Brooks' films showing in Alaska, then an American territory. (Alaska did not achieve statehood until 1949.) A Social Celebrity (1926), for example, was shown at the Empress theater in Fairbanks in April, 1927.

What is notable about these particular screenings is that each took place long after the films were released. Both films debuted in the Fall of 1927, and these two screenings took place more than two years later. That is a long time for a film to be in circulation during the silent film era. Notably, they are also the very last screenings I have come across for these two now lost films.

What is also notable is that theaters in Fairbanks were still screening silent films well after the sound era had started. For the record, a 1929 sound film featuring Brooks, The Canary Murder Case, was shown in Fairbanks in April, 1930, about 14 months after it first debuted. And another, It Pays to Advertise, also with Brooks, was shown in Fairbanks only nine months after its release in November, 1931. 

For the record, I have also come across a handful of screenings of various Louise Brooks' films in Honolulu in the territory of Hawaii during the 1920s, decades before it gained statehood. Hawaii seems to have gotten films sooner than Alaska. But, better late than never.