Louise Brooks exercise video

Here it is, the original Louise Brooks exercise video . . . .

Tagebuch einer Verlorenen poster

Speaking of Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, or The Diary of a Lost Girl (see my earlier post), I recently came across this image of an early 20th century German poster and would like to more about it. Anyone got a clue? I might hazard a guess and mention that this might be a poster for the stage play adaption of Bohme's novel, or possibly the lost first film adaption, from 1912, of the book, or something else all together. This is the highest resolution scan I have. 

Book signing for the Louise Brooks edition of The Diary of a Lost Girl

I will be signing copies of my "Louise Brooks edition" of Margarete Bohme's The Diary of a Lost Girl (PandorasBox Press) on Saturday, March 23 from 2 to 5 pm at the first annual Noe Valley Authors Festival. Please join me an other local authors at this special event.

The event takes place at St. Philip the Apostle Parish Hall, 725 Diamond Street, between 24th and Elizabeth Streets, in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. A bit more about the event can be found on the San Francisco Chronicle website at http://events.sfgate.com/san_francisco_ca/events/show/315357843-thomas-gladysz-book-signing

I will be happy to speak about the book and my continuing research into the amazing life of this lost classic. Feel free to ask me about the book being banned from coming into Canada, about it being written about in Sigmund Freud's journal of psychoanalysis, or about what I think is its very earliest American newspaper review - in a San Francisco newspaper! Here, for example, is one of my other new finds - a newspaper article about a lawsuit filed by Bohme in the wake of the torrents of negative publicity she received as a result of having published this controversial and contested bestseller. Variations of this article ran in newspapers around the world. This particular clipping is from a newspaper in Perth, Australia. 

Silent film star bookplates

Buzzfeed ran a rather swell piece featuring the bookplates of a number of famous individuals, including authors and a few early film stars. Be sure and check it out.

Included are the bookplates of H.P. Lovecraft, Charles Dickens, Sigmund Freud, Lewis Carroll and others, including silent film stars such as Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin and a joint bookplate belonging to Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. There is also a Paulette Goddard bookplate seemingly designed by Chaplin.

Above are a couple of examples from the Buzzfeed piece. Below is Louise Brooks' bookplate, which was not included in the Buzzfeed piece.

Another Brooks related street name

A while back, this blog ran a post about a street in the suburbs of Paris named after actress Louise Brooks. More recently, we have also noticed that a street in the German town of Husum was named after Margarete Böhme, the German author who penned The Diary of a Lost Girl. Louise Brooks starred in the 1929 film made from the book.

Böhme was born and raised in Husum, a small town in Northern Germany dubbed “the grey town by the grey sea” by its best known resident, the novelist and poet Theodor Storm. The house in which she was raised in Husum bears a commemorative plaque. And in 2009, a street in a new housing development in the north of the city was named after the author. More about Böhme and her connections with Husum can be found here in a local article from January 2013. (I wasn't able to use Google maps / street view to acquire an image of the street sign, as I had with the Paris sign.)

But what's more, earlier this month a stage play adaption of The Diary of a Lost Girl was once again put on in Husum by a group of women who have been regularly staging the work. Read more about that in another local article from Nordfriesen. Pictured below, the theater group 5plus1, performing Diary.

Actress Louise Brooks & Admiral Richard E. Byrd

Here is something you don't see everyday, a picture of silent film actress Louise Brooks & and famed explorer Richard E. Byrd (1888-1957). The picture was found on eBay. It was most likely taken in January 1927, while Brooks was making Evening Clothes and was sporting a hairstyle different from her usual bob with bangs.

Diary of a Lost Girl, the research continues

Lately, I have been working on a revised 2nd edition of my Louise Brooks edition of The Diary of a Lost Girl, by Margarete Bohme. (Bohme's book was the basis for the 1929 film by G.W. Pabst.) I plan on incorporating much of my new research into an expanded e-book. Notably, I have uncovered a bunch of interesting new material, including, even, a connection to Sigmund Freud! I also uncovered what I think was the very first newspaper review of The Diary of a Lost One in the United States, while finding out that the book was banned in Canada.

One of the things I have also been tracking is the influence Bohme's book had on subsequent literature. In Germany, it brought about not only a popular sequel, a controversial stage play, a parody, and two or three silent films – but a score of imitators as well. There was also a movie made from the book’s sequel; and in France, a novelization of the 1929 film with Louise Brooks was issued. (Imagine that, a novelization of a film which was based on a book.)

In England, Bohme's book lingered in the British imagination for some time. It went through at least three printings. And  was referenced in a few literary works from the time - one in 1909, another in 1917. It also inspired another. That latter book, from 1931, was titled No Bed of Roses: A Pathetically Realistic Story of a Woman of the Underworld. 

When No Bed of Roses was advertised in England it was described as “The Diary of a Lost Soul” (which also happened to be the original advertised English-language title of The Diary of a Lost One). In not unfamiliar language, an ad for No Bed of Roses stated “These are the actual diaries of a prostitute and dope fiend. They form one of the most important human documents uncovered in our time.” 

  

No Bed of Roses was followed by God Have Mercy on Me. Like The Diary of a Lost One, the sequel was edited from the reportedly real life diaries of a wayward, nearly anonymous woman (named O.W.) Here is the cover for that book as well. Both covers are more than a bit lurid.