Louise Brooks :: Timelock :: Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks :: T.i.m.e.l.o.c.k. :: Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks :: T.i.m.e.l.o.c.k. :: Louise Brooks
Released January 1, 1992
More at http://www.last.fm/music/Timelock/Louise+Brooks

Two screenings of Pandora's Box with Louise Brooks

Pandora's Box is a silent film that just won't go away.

Largely panned when it debuted in 1929, this German-made film starring Louise Brooks has experienced a decades-long comeback and is now considered one of great films of the silent era. These days, its shown more often than many of the more acclaimed films of its time.

Two screenings of Pandora's Box will take place in the coming days. The film will shown in Toronto, Canada on Sunday, January 26th at the Revue Cinema. And on Monday, January 27th, Pandora's Box will be screened at The Paramount Theater in Seattle.

Directed by G.W. Pabst, Pandora’s Box tells the story of Lulu (played by Brooks), a lovely and somewhat petulant show-girl whose flirtations with members of each sex lead to tragic results. Despite having appeared in 23 other films – some of them quite good, Lulu is the role for which Brooks is best known today.

Others in the 109 minute film include acclaimed German stage star Fritz Kortner, as Dr. Schon, a respected businessman, and Francis Lederer, a dashing young actor who plays Schon's son. Both Schon's fall under Lulu's spell.

Lulu, a iconic character brought into the world by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind, has been described as a femme fatale, but in fact, she is a kind of innocent. As Brooks' biographer Barry Paris put it, her “sinless sexuality hypnotizes and destroys the weak, lustful men around her.” . . . And not just men. Lulu’s sexual magnetism knows few bounds, and this once controversial and censored film features what is described as the cinema's first lesbian. The Countess Geschwitz, covertly in love with Lulu, is played by Alice Roberts.

Coiffed in her signature black bob, Brooks inhabited her character thoroughly and effectively. Some say she lived it. The resulting performance in Pandora's Box, called "devastating" by contemporary critics, has become the stuff of legend.

The Toronto screening is part of Silent Sundays series, now in its fifth season; founded by journalist Eric Veillette, the Canadian series is curated by media archivist Alicia Fletcher. In Toronto, Pandora's Box will feature live piano accompaniment by William O’Meara.

The Seattle screening is part of the Seattle Theater Group's series Trader Joe's Silent Movie Mondays. The film is a special pick by the Seattle International Film Festival and their Women in Cinema Festival. In Seattle, Pandora's Box will feature Jim Riggs on the Paramount's Mighty Wurlitzer Organ. A CineClub discussion led by Beth Barrett, SIFF's Director of Programming, follows the screening.

Why these screenings, and why now?

It may be the growing public and media interest in the silent film era in the wake of the acclaim given The Artist and Hugo (the latter contains a shout-out to Brooks). Brooks herself was the subject of a recent best selling novel by Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone. It is in development as a major motion picture.

Or, it may be the actress' own story – the story of her rise and fall and reemergence – not only within the annals of film history but within popular culture and the even larger realm of public awareness. When Barry Paris wrote his outstanding 1989 biography of the actress, he originally titled it Louise Brooks: Her Life, Death and Resurrection. That title suggests something extraordinary, something even mythic.

If you attend either of these events, please leave your impressions in the comments field....

Louise Brooks Encyclopedia: Emil Coleman

Welcome to a new feature of the Louise Brooks Society blog - the Louise Brooks Encyclopedia. The first entry is devoted to bandleader Emil Coleman. In 1935, Coleman and his Orchestra shared the bill with Brooks & Dario in the Persian Room of the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

Who was Emil Coleman?

As early as 1917, the Russian-born pianist was performing in New York City on the third floor of Reisenweber's restaurant, upstairs from the Original Dixieland Jazz Band on the second floor and Gus Edwards on the first floor in a coming together of musicians regarded as the musical beginning of the Jazz Age in the Big Apple.

Starting in 1918, Coleman would lead one of the most popular dance bands in New York, first at the Montmartre Hotel (where Gloria Vanderbilt saw him) and then over the years at the Riviera, Central Park Casino (where he would be replaced by Eddie Duchin), Club Lido, St. Regis (in the King Cole Room, featuring Kay Thompson), Trocadero, Mocambo, and the famed Waldorf-Astoria, where he was a fixture.

Adapting to changing musical styles, the portly, balding Coleman developed the "medley" form of dance band repertoire emulated by other society orchestras. He played the Charleston, Tango, and Rumba, along with big band swing. He also performed on the radio, and at hundreds of debutante balls and social galas. Between 1923 and 1934, Coleman's various hotel orchestras registered 12 hits on the national charts on the Vocalion, Brunswick and Colombia labels. Among them were "Little Man, You've had a Busy Day," which peaked at #2 in 1934, and "What Is There to Say?" from the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934. Though his sound was sweet, Coleman's recordings were appreciated and collected by many, including even Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner.

Coleman's filmed appearances include musical shorts in the 1930's and 1940s, and a television appearance on the Arthur Murray Party show in the early 1950s. In later years, Coleman continued to record and perform, issuing the "Walter Winchell Rumba" in 1952, and backing up Eddie Fisher's comeback at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1959. Coleman's last vinyl LP was Emil Coleman Lights Up ... The Plaza on Phillips.

Not much is known about the other orchestra noted on the ad, the George Sterney Orchestra, except that they too played on the radio in the 1930s and 1940s. I haven't found any recordings by them.

Know anything else about Emil Coleman? Please post in the comments!

Louise Brooks in a Swedish cafe

Image of Louise Brooks displayed at Cafe UB in Sweden. Twitter pic image via Kristian Nilsson.

Pandora's Box screens in Seattle, Washington on Jan 27

STG Presents

Trader Joe's Silent Movie Mondays - Pandora's Box

Featuring Jim Riggs on the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ

Monday, January 27, 2014

Doors at 6:00 pm / Show at 7:00 pm

The Paramount Theatre

911 Pine Street, Seattle, WA 98101

To Purchase By Phone: 1-877-784-4849

General Admission Seating

$10 general public

$5 students and seniors

(not including fees)

STG Presents Trader Joe's Silent Movie Mondays - Pandora's Box featuring Jim Riggs on the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ at The Paramount Theatre on Monday, January 27, 2014.

"The second film in our ADORED & RESTORED series is PANDORA'S BOX (1929), directed by Austrian filmmaker G.W. Pabst and starring Louise Brooks, is a German dramatic silent based on Frank Wedekind's "Lulu" plays. Pabst searched for months for an actress to play Lulu and hired her as the only American and the featured star of the film. Brooks' portrayal of a seductive, thoughtless young woman, whose raw sexuality and uninhibited nature bring ruin to herself and those who love her, although initially unappreciated, eventually made the actress a star."

A special pick by the Seattle International Film Festival and their Women in Cinema Festival.
CineClub discussion led by Beth Barrett, SIFF's Director of Programming Running Time: 109 Minutes.

Pandora's Box screens in Toronto, Canada on Jan 26

Pandora's Box, starring Louise Brooks, will screen in Toronto, Canada on Sunday January 26th at the Revue Cinema (400 Roncesvalles Avenue). More info here. Event Time(s):4:15 p.m. Website: www.revuecineama.ca Costs: Range:$10 - $19

Pandora’s Box
Dir. G.W. Pabst (1929)
Starring Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, and Francis Lederer
109 mins.

It doesn’t really get better than Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box, does it? Brooks fled Hollywood and escaped to the German film industry to seal her fate as an indelible force in silent film, forever to be remembered as the sensual, yet naïve; unintentionally vampish and victimized Lulu. Under the direction of master G.W. Pabst, the film’s cinematography, costumes, and narration are almost unparalleled in the medium. In short: Pandora’s Box is a masterpiece and Louise Brooks is a legend here - visually, as well as in her acting style. Her realism was so ahead of her time that audiences and critics rejected her; a dismissal that history has, luckily for us, rectified. Flappers at heart unite; this is a Silent Sundays not to be missed!

Featuring live piano accompaniment by William O’Meara.

Silent Sundays, now in its fifth season, is curated by media archivist Alicia Fletcher and was founded by journalist Eric Veillette.

Feminine beauty as blinding as ten galaxial suns

"Louise Brooks is the only woman who had the ability to transfigure no matter what film into a masterpiece. The poetry of Louise is the great poetry of rare loves, of magnetism, of tension, of feminine beauty as blinding as ten galaxial suns. She is much more than a myth, she is a magical presence, a real phantom, the magnetism of the cinema." 

So said Ado Kyrou (1923-1985), a Greek-born filmmaker, writer, critic and associate of the Surrealists long resident in France. Kyrou was a contributor to the French film journal Positif, and the author of Amour - érotisme & cinéma (1957) and Le Surréalisme Au Cinéma (1963).