Louise Brooks Society is on Twitter

The Louise Brooks Society is on Twitter @LB_Society. As of now, the LBS is followed by more than 2,160 followers. Are you one of them? Why not join the conversation? Be sure and visit the LBS
Twitter profile, and check out the more than 2,760 LBS tweets so far!

Louise Brooks is trending in 2013! The LBS twitter stream can also be 

found in the right hand column.

Best film books of 2013

I have a new piece on the Huffington Post, my selection of the "Best Film Books of 2013". It includes more than a few titles of interest to fans of Louise Brooks and silent film.

Check it out at  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-gladysz/best-film-books-of-2013_b_4491272.html

By the way, my selection of the book of the year is ..... A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 by Victoria Wilson (Simon & Schuster). I explain why I think it the best book in my article. This richly detailed biography has a number of references to Louise Brooks, some of which relate to Stanwyck's one time husband, Frank Fay, the star of the 1931 Louise Brooks' film, God's Gift to Women. Check it out.

The Vanity, by Robert Murillo, on display at Orinda Books

Check it out - The Vanity, by Robert Murillo, on display at Orinda Books in Orinda, California.

Louise Brooks / Guido Crepax inspired Valentina furniture

Italian comic artist Guido Crepax (1933 - 2003) is best known for his iconic heroine Valentina, which was inspired by the silent film star Louise Brooks.

Valentina was one of the most recognized graphic novel characters of the 1960s and 1970s, especially in Europe. The character, a young photographer, is identified by her signature bob haircut and voluptuous body, presenting readers with erotic storylines of suspense and surreality.

Italian designers Andrea Radice and Folco Orlandini have developed the Valentina line of furniture in order to pay hommage to character and her creator. Produced by Brazilian manufacturer Schuster, the collection features a room divider, mobile bar, bookcase, side table, and other pieces, all depicting live size imagery of the comic book vixen at work and at play. Here are a few examples:

This Valentina furniture seems to be widely available in design shops. A Google image search will reveal other pieces as well.

Louise Brooks crossword puzzle

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the first crossword puzzle, the Louise Brooks Society presents this Louise Brooks-themed puzzle. (Download the puzzle to see a bigger image.)

Across 

2.  Rolled
4.  Valentina author
6.  Miss Europe
9.  First name
14. Pandora's Box playwright
15. Male star of gangster film
16. Dance Company
19. Avian murder case
21. Murdered by Jack the Ripper
24. Attended his funeral in 1926
25. It pays to ______
26. Canine star of Street of Forgotten Men
29. Author Margarete _____
30. City in France, biographer
31. Said there is no Garbo, there is no Dietrich, there is only Louise Brooks
32. Authored The Chaperone
33. German director
34. Miss America 1925
36. Lulu or Windy
38. Sunflower state
39. Almost won Pulitzer for The Show Off
40. Birthplace

Down 

1.  Directed A Girl in Every Port
3.  Hobo author
5.  Home in upstate New York
7.  One time lover, founder of CBS
8.  Italian born French director
10. English theater critic, wrote for the New Yorker
11. Gun Moll named Joy
12. Sophisticated two-time co-star
13. God's Gift to Women
17. Lost Girl
18. Dance team, Brooks & _____
20. Played Philo Vance
22. Nicknamed "American Venus"
23. Dear _____, collection of letters
26. Brooks one-time voice double
27. Two-time co-star, future Oscar winner
28. Follies
35. Magazine, or name for movies
37. American director, first Oscar winner

Sirens & Sinners: A Visual History of Weimar Film 1918-1933 stars

Here is another newly published book that every silent film and Louise Brooks fan will want to own, Sirens & Sinners: A Visual History of Weimar Film 1918-1933, by Hans Helmut Prinzler, the former director of the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin.

Sirens & Sinners: A Visual History of Weimar Film 1918-1933 celebrates the height of Weimar cinema through images and commentaries on more than seventy of its finest films including the two Louise Brooks made in Germany, Pandora's Box (1929) and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929). Other G.W. Pabst films are also featured in this heavily illustrated book.

According to the publisher, "Between the First and Second World Wars, Germany under the Weimar Republic was the scene of one of the most creative periods in film history. Through the silent era to the early years of sound, the visual flair and technical innovation of its filmmakers set an international standard for the powerful possibilities of cinema as an art form, with movies such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, Metropolis, and M building a legacy that shaped the world of film.

Here is a showcase of more than seventy films, selected to give a wide-ranging overview of Weimar cinema at its finest. Every genre is represented, from escapist comedies and musicals to gritty depictions of contemporary city life, from period dramas to fantastical visions of the future, with themes such as sexuality and social issues tackled by iconic stars like Marlene Dietrich and Louise Brooks. A wealth of film stills captures the bold vision of great directors like Fritz Lang and Ernst Lubitsch, while the text sets the historical scene and gives intriguing insights into what the films meant to the society that created them."

Each of the 70 films featured in Sirens & Sinners is given a two page spread. The glory of this book is in its 443 illustrations, 335 of which are in duotone. Many are little seen. Also useful is the bibliography in the back of the book, which lists many works. I am pleased to report that among the reference works listed in Sirens & Sinners is my Louise Brooks' edition of The Diary of a Lost Girl.

Making Personas: Transnational Film Stardom in Modern Japan (starring Clara Bow and Louise Brooks)

There is a new book out which should appeal to anyone interested in Louise Brooks, Clara Bow and silent film. The book is Making Personas: Transnational Film Stardom in Modern Japan, by Hideaki Fujiki, a professor of Cinema and Japanese Studies at Nagoya University. The book was published by the Harvard University Asia Center, and is distributed by Harvard University Press.

Fujiki's book is a detailed and fascinating look at how film stars are "made." According to the publisher, "The film star is not simply an actor but a historical phenomenon that derives from the production of an actor's attractiveness, the circulation of his or her name and likeness, and the support of media consumers. This book analyzes the establishment and transformation of the transnational film star system and the formations of historically important film stars--Japanese and non-Japanese--and casts new light on Japanese modernity as it unfolded between the 1910s and 1930s."

One chapter, "Modern Girls and Clara Bow," stronly suggests that the It girl was the subject of an intense following in Japan. And not far behind was Louise Brooks. In Japan in the late 1920s, the two actresses were compared and contrasted. Both were considered "modern girls," another term for flappers, and each influenced the way young Japanese women dressed and acted. (Colleen Moore was also considered a modern, though less so than Bow and Brooks, in opposition to Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish, who were considered "old fashioned.")

Bow and Brooks were each the subject of articles, which the author cites, in the Japanese press. Fujiki also notes that Akira Iwasaki, a prominent left-wing film critic, historian, and producer who helped introduce German experimental film in Japan, once penned a story called "Clara Louise."

In Making Personas, Fujiki "illustrates how film stardom and the star system emerged and evolved, touching on such facets as the production, representation, circulation, and reception of performers' images in films and other media." I've only begun looking through this book, but have found much of interest in it. The images of American movie stars on the cover of Japanese film magazines is fascinating. This book is recommended to anyone interested in the world wide phenomenon that was silent film.