A new project

I've started a new project today. I am creating an index to Lulu in Hollywood. Surprisingly, no edition of the book that I have has an index - and I feel the book cries out for one. I am indexing all of the proper names and place names. My index, when finished, can be used with the original hardback edition from Knopf as well as the more recent University of Minnesota reprint from 2000. The pagination for each of these books is the same. The index will also be useful with two British editions (which I own), the softcover published by Hamish Hamilton in 1982 and a later paperback reprint from Arena published in 1987. Indexing is very tedious work. Nevertheless, I plan to see it through to the end by doing a couple of pages a day. I hope to be done in a couple of months time.

Documentary based on Jim Tully bio nearing release

The documentary based on the book, Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler (Kent State University Press), is nearing release. Here's the opening clip.

Road Kid to Writer - Promo - Tully's Titles from StoryWorks.TV on Vimeo.

A Social Celebrity - A Round-up of Reviews

A Social Celebrity, Louise Brooks' third film, was officially released on this day in 1926. The film is a comedy about a small town barber's son who poses his way into New York high society. This Paramount film was directed by Malcolm St. Clair. Adolphe Menjou played Max Haber, Louise Brooks played Kitty Laverne, and Chester Conklin was Johann Haber. The film is lost.

A Social Celebrity proved popular. Here is a round up of magazine and newspaper reviews and articles drawn from the Louise Brooks Society archive.

Marzoni, Pettersen. "Picture Reviews." Birmingham Age, March 29, 1926.
--- "A newcomer also provides color to A Social Celebrity. She is Louise Brooks, who flashed a moment of inspiration in The American Venus." (brief review in Birmingham, Alabama newspaper; the film was also deemed acceptable by the Better Films Committee of Birmingham in an adjunct column)

Tinee, Mae. "Adolphe Menjou Proves He's No One Role Actor." Chicago Tribune, March 31, 1926.
--- "Louise Brooks, who plays the small town sweetheart who want to make a peacock out of her razorbill, is a delightful young person with a lovely, direct gaze, an engaging seriousness, and a sudden, flashing smile that is disarming and winsome. A slim and lissome child, with personality and talent."

Hughston, Josephine. "Adolphe Menjou At Liberty in A Social Celebrity." San Jose Mercury Herald, April 2, 1926.
--- "Louise Brooks is Kitty, the girl who sets the pace in leaving the small town to dance in a New York night club."

anonymous. "A Social Celebrity." New York Morning Telegraph, April 19, 1926.
--- "Besides Menjou's capital performance, various rosettes and medals should go to Josephine Drake, Louise Brooks, Chester Conklin and Elsie Lawson. . . . Louise Brooks, provocative, alluring, would have been enhanced by better lighting or darker make-up, but that will doubtless come in another picture. She is, Heaven knows, potent enough as it is."

W., M. "Mr. Menjou in Another Cinema Joy on Valentine Silver Sheet." Toledo Times, April 19, 1926.
--- "Louise Brooks, who left Mr. Ziegfield's 'Follies' for a career on the shadow stage, has her first important role opposite him and does admirably. She is a captivating little brunette with the figure of a Venus."

McGowen, Rose. "Social Celebrity Shaved Off Nobility by Chance Remark." New York Daily News, April 20, 1926.
--- "Louise Brooks would have been ample excuse for making any picture. Here is a young actress who has fresh young beauty reinforced by one of the most expressive faces I have ever seen on the screen."

Pelswick, Rose. "New Pictures on Broadway." New York Evening Journal, April 20, 1926.
--- "It is about 85 per cent top grade entertainment and consequently much better than the average. . . . Louise Brooks is an unusually attractive girl who stirs the hero to ambition by leaving the same small town to do the inevitable Charleston in a Broadway night club."

Fred. "A Social Celebrity." Variety, April 21, 1926.
--- "And in Louise Brooks it looks as though Famous has a find that might rank in the Colleen Moore class providing they handle her right."

anonymous. "Adolphe Menjou in A Social Celebrity." Film Daily, April 25, 1926.
--- "Louise Brooks a cutey and with a quantity of good looks. She isn't exactly the heroine type though. She would make a far better baby vamp."

Montfort, Lawrence M. "Menjou Funny in Granada's Screen Farce." San Francisco Illustrated Daily News, April 26, 1926.
--- "Louise Brooks, who plays the small town girl who coaxes Menjou to emulate her example and try luck in New York is a comer and awfully good to look upon. Her straight-cut bob, black eyes and not too sweetly pretty face are different, and she displays some acting ability."

B., D. W. "Films of the Week." Boston Evening Transcript, April 28, 1926.
--- "In this instance the manicurist is no less provocative a morsel than Miss Miss Louise Brooks, remembered for her bit in that specious puff-pastry, The American Venus. Miss Brooks has anything but a rewarding task in A Social Celebrity. Yet it would be ungracious not to comment on the fetching qualities of her screen presence. She affects a straight-line bang across the forehead with distressingly piquant cow-licks over either ear. Her eyes are quick, dark, lustrous. Her nose and mouth share a suspicion of gaminerie. Her gestures are deft and alert - perhaps still a shade self-conscious. In body she is more supple than facial play and her genuflectory exertions in the Charleston might well repay the careful study of amateurs in that delicate exercise."

anonymous. "Menjou, Heart Breaker, Tries Hand at Barbering." Portland Oregonian, May 11, 1926.
--- "It introduces to the movie public a new heroine in the person of the sleek and boyish Louise Brooks. A little young, perhaps, but buoyant and of most engaging smile. There is no opportunity to learn whether or not she can act, but in her role of chorus girl she reveals the most beautiful pair of legs in the movies - which is a rather broad statement and a comment which would have been in very poor taste in crinoline days."

anonymous. "The Screen in Review: A Barber-shop Chord." Picture-Play, August, 1926.
-- "Louise Brooks is the young lady with the black hair who saved The American Venus from a fate worse than death. This young lady, very recently from Kansas, is the newest of all those new faces that have been cropping up lately. And the prettiest, too."

Day 2: The Diary of a Social Celebrity features Louise Brooks

According to the movie herald pictured above and below, March 27th is day two in the diary of a social celebrity - "a bobbed hair barber who bobbed up at the right time." The film it promotes, A Social Celebrity, which starred Adolphe Menjou (as "social celebrity" Max Haber) and Louise Brooks (as Kitty Laverne), was officially released on March 29th, 1926. (A round-up of reviews will run on this blog in two days. Please check back.) In the meantime, here is the Paramount herald for the film.

Check out those wheels . . . .

Two seldom seen photographs of Louise Brooks looking over an automobile, taken in France in 1929 while the actress was working on Prix de Beaute.

Cool pic of the day: Louise Brooks

Cool pic of the day: Louise Brooks

A cubist drawing of Charlie Chaplin

Just because it is: A cubist drawing of Charlie Chaplin from the book Bonjour, Cinéma (1921), by Jean Epstein.

Epstein was a French filmmaker, film theorist, literary critic, and novelist. Although he is remembered today primarily for his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), Epstein directed three dozen films and was an influential critic of literature and film from the early 1920s through the late 1940s. He is often associated with French Impressionist Cinema. In July 2012, a book of Epstein's critical essays was published in English translation.

Love Letters of an Interior Decorator - 1928 fiction which mentions Louise Brooks

Show Girl, by J. P. McEvoy, is well known among devotees of Louise Brooks as the first novel to feature a major character or storyline inspired by the actress. First serialized in Liberty magazine in 1928 (and quickly published in book form by Simon & Schuster), Show Girl told of the life and adventures of a character named Dixie Dugan.

The novel and its two follow-up books, Show Girl in Hollywood and Show Girl in Society, proved popular. So much so that they spawned a long-running comic strip which lasted into the 1960s, "Dixie Dugan," as well as a stage play, Show Girl, and two movies which unfortunately did not star Louise Brooks.

This sort of buzz makes one wonder if there were other works of fiction which either featured or named-checked the actress. There were, of course, the various fictionalizations and novelizations of the films in which Brooks' appeared.

Just recently, I came across another work of fiction which mentions, and even pictures, Louise Brooks. And that's not all, as it also notes her appearance in Beggars of Life!

The work in question is Love Letters of an Interior Decorator, by Bert Green; he also drew its illustrations. (Bert Green worked as a film animator in the teens, drew comic strips including "Kids," wrote fiction and scripts, and even directed a Hollywood short.) Like Show Girl, this novel was first serialized in Liberty magazine before being published in book form by Frederick A. Stokes, a leading publisher of the time.

Green's comedic novel has been described as a zany romp and as a cornerstone of Prohibition and Jazz Age fiction. Written in the manner of Gentleman Prefer Blondes, the malaprop-dropping narrator is a bootlegger in love with the flapper depicted on the cover. Subtitled "Romantic Outbursts of a Bootlegger," the story concerns, among other things, the tricky task of providing alcohol (then banned) to the Hollywood community, including its directors and actors. The bootlegger in question, Mike Shea, is known as an "Interior Decorator," as his job involves "plastering." For the uninitiated as well as the sober, the slang is explained on the book's back cover.

The chapter that came to my attention, "Rough Stuff Among the Stars," was published in Liberty magazine in July of 1928 (a few months before the release of the William Wellman directed film, Beggars of Life); it is the chapter which mentions Louise Brooks and her role as girl who dresses as a boy and goes on the run in Jim Tully's story.

This work of fiction certainly counts as one of the earliest works which mentions the actress. What follows is "Rough Stuff Among the Stars." For those interested, vintage copies of the book can be found on amazon.com, ebay, abebooks.com, and elsewhere.

Polish edition of Laura Moriarty's Louise Brooks novel, The Chaperone

The Polish edition of Laura Moriarty's novel, The Chaperone, has been published by Bukowy Las. In Poland, the book is titled Przyzwoitka. Alas, there is no Louise Brooks cover art. Here is the publisher supplied description:

"Inspirowana życiem gwiazdy filmu niemego Louise Brooks opowieść o dwóch diametralnie różnych kobietach oraz o nowojorskim lecie, które je odmieniło W 1922 r., jeszcze zanim stała się sławną aktorką filmową oraz ikoną swojego pokolenia, piętnastoletnia Louise Brooks wyjeżdża latem z Wichita w stanie Kansas do Nowego Jorku, by pobierać naukę w awangardowej szkole tańca Denishawn. Ku jej wielkiemu niezadowoleniu towarzyszy jej trzydziestosześcioletnia przyzwoitka. Cora Carlisle nie jest ani matką, ani przyjaciółką, a po prostu szacowną sąsiadką, którą rodzice Louise wynajmują przez wzgląd na przyzwoitość. Tradycyjna i zacna Cora, która udaje się w tę podróż także z powodów prywatnych, nie zdaje sobie sprawy, na co się zdecydowała. Louise, olśniewająco piękna już w tak młodym wieku i paradująca w słynnej krótkiej fryzurze, znana jest z arogancji, nierespektowania konwenansów oraz z żywej inteligencji. Zanim pociąg zatrzyma się na nowojorskim dworcu Grand Central, Cora nabiera obaw, że pilnowanie Louise będzie co najmniej wyczerpujące, a w najgorszym wypadku wręcz niemożliwe. Ostatecznie jednak te wspólnie spędzone z młodziutką dziewczyną tygodnie okażą się najważniejszym czasem w jej życiu."

Translation: "Inspired by the life of silent film star Louise Brooks, a tale of two radically different women and the New York City summer that changed in 1922, even before she became a famous film actress and icon of his generation, fifteen year old Louise Brooks leaves in summer, from Wichita, Kansas to New York to get enrolled in school by Denishawn dance. To her great disappointment of trzydziestosześcioletnia is accompanied by a chaperone. Cora Carlisle is neither her mother nor her friend, and simply distinguished neighbor, Louise's parents rent for the sake of propriety. The traditional zacna and Cora, who goes on this journey with private reasons, does not realize what you decided. Louise, drop-dead gorgeous already at such a young age and paradująca in the famous short hairstyle, is known for its arrogance, to become sources of conventions and with living intelligence. Before the train stops at New York's Grand Central station, Cora takes on fears that ensure Louise will at least be comprehensive, and at worst impossible. Ultimately, however, these jointly spent with young girl weeks will prove to be the most important time in her life."

And for those keeping track, here is the cover of the 2013 German edition. Laura Moriarty's  novel was translated into German by Britta Evert, and titled Das Schmetterlings mädchen. 

The publisher's description reads: "New York in den Goldenen Zwanzigern: Eine turbulente Metropole voller Leben, Musik, Abenteuer - ein aufregendes Versprechen. Als die fünfzehnjährige Louise aus dem verschlafenen Kansas dorthin reist, um Tänzerin zu werden, geht für sie ein Traum in Erfüllung. Hals über Kopf stürzt sich das neugierige, unkonventionelle Mädchen in diese berauschende Welt - sehr zum Missfallen ihrer Anstandsdame Cora, einer Frau mit traditionellen Wertvorstellungen. Doch hinter Coras korrekter Fassade verbirgt sich ein trauriges Schicksal, von dem niemand ahnt. Die Reise nach New York ist für sie eine Reise in die Vergangenheit."

Translation: "New York in the Roaring Twenties: A turbulent metropolis full of life, music, adventure - an exciting promise. As a fifteen year old Louise from the sleepy Kansas travels there to be a dancer, she goes for a dream come true. Head over to the curious, unconventional girl falls into this intoxicating world - much to the displeasure of their chaperone Cora, a woman with traditional values​​. But behind Cora's correct facade hides a sad fate from which no one suspects. The trip to New York for them is a journey into the past."