It is July 11th, did you know that 7 out of 11 Bobbed Heads want Bobbie Pins?

It's July 11th. Just think of it! Did you know that 7 out of 11 Bobbed Heads want Bobbie Pins?

Here is another vintage bobbed hair advertisement, promoting a modish coiffure.

 

Prix de beauté, starring Louise Brooks, screens in Berkeley tomorrow

The French film, Prix de beauté, screens in Berkeley, California tomorrow, July 11th, at the Pacific Film Archive as part of "Henri Langlois: A Centennial Tribute." More details and tickets information here. And here is the short piece that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle. What follows is the PFA description.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

6:30 p.m.	Prix de beauté Augusto Genina (France, 1930)

Imported Print!
Live Music Judith Rosenberg on piano

(Miss Europa 1930). Living humbly in Rochester, New York, the great silent-era actress Louise Brooks was rediscovered and thrust back into the spotlight in 1955 by Langlois and George Eastman House curator James Card. In 1958 Langlois invited her to Paris for a retrospective of her works, and her legend was solidified. “You have created a new Louise Brooks, entirely yours,” Brooks wrote to Langlois in 1959. Featuring Brooks in her last major role (at age twenty-four), Prix de beauté has a history as illustrious and troubled as its star's. Based on a treatment by G.W. Pabst, it was scripted as a silent by its intended director, René Clair. But Clair left the project when he was forced to rework the script for the addition of sound, and direction was taken over by Augusto Genina, who, with master cinematographer Rudolph Maté, brought an air of actuality to this tale of a Parisian typist who wins a beauty contest and a movie contract, only to face the violent disapproval of her husband. The simple plot becomes a potent vehicle for reflections on the mechanics of celebrity and the power of the photograph. Melodrama and real life ironically converge in the breathtaking ending, with the tragically mortal heroine juxtaposed against her own immortal filmic image—the image of Brooks, a timeless star whose meteoric career was already beginning its rapid decline. 

• Photographed by Rudolph Maté. With Louise Brooks, Georges Charlia, Jean Bradin, Augusto Bandini. (108 mins, Silent, French intertitles translated live, B&W, 35mm, From La Cinémathèque française)

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In honor of this special screening, here is a gem from the Louise Brooks Society archive, a newspaper advertisement for Prix de beauté from 1932. The ad comes from Haiti (a former French colony), where other newspaper advertisements indicate the film was shown again in 1933, 1935 and 1936!

Interview with Rick Geary, author of Louise Brooks: Detective

Comic book author Rick Geary is a longtime fixture at Comic-Con International. Back in 1980, he took home their Inkpot Award given to individuals for their contributions to the world of comics. And this year, as it has in the past, his artwork (The Toucan) adorns the cover of the official events guide and "Reader" t-shirt.

Geary is at the 2015 Comic-Con International, which starts this week in San Diego. He is taking part in a panel, signing books, and celebrating the release of a new hardbound work, Louise Brooks: Detective (NBM Publishing). See some sample pages here.

This new comic is something of departure for Geary. Of the last number of years, he has been engaged in an ongoing non-fiction series, A Treasury of XXth Century Murder -- a follow up to his popular and well regarded A Treasury of Victorian Murder which launched 20 years ago with Jack the Ripper. Both series are true-to-life comic book accounts of sensational death.

Geary's new comic is a departure because its fiction, though it is based on the life of a real person, the iconic Kansas-born silent film star Louise Brooks.

The story centers on the actress' return to Wichita after quitting Hollywood. It was one of the low points of her life, though she was still just in her early thirties. Living at home, she becomes intrigued by a murder involving a new friend, her friend's shady beau, and a famous reclusive writer. Not before she gets herself into trouble will Brooks emerge with the solution the local police have failed to grasp. It's a taut page turner, and an intriguing story that might make for a clever screenplay.

Publishers Weekly calls Louise Brooks: Detective, "A fun, twisty mystery for both film buffs and crime fiction lovers.

Geary is an Eisner award-winning cartoonist and illustrator with a distinctive visual style. He is the author and illustrator of several books, and has worked for Marvel Entertainment Group, DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and the revived Classics Illustrated series. For thirteen years, Geary was a contributor to National Lampoon. His work has also appeared in Heavy Metal magazine, MAD, Spy, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times Book Review. In 1994, the National Cartoonist Society awarded Geary its Magazine and Book Illustration Award.

Recently, Geary answered a few questions about the bobbed-hair actress and his new work, Louise Brooks: Detective.

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Thomas Gladysz: Your ongoing multi-volume true crime series, "A Treasury of Murder", is a great achievement in comic art. You done a number that center on historic mysteries, and few of which focus on old Hollywood. How did you come to write one about Louise Brooks?

Rick Geary: After about 25 years of producing true murder books, my publisher Terry Nantier of NBM Publishing, suggested I do a work of fiction. I had long had an idea in my head for a murder mystery set in Kansas in the 1930s, so from there I made the leap of casting Louise Brooks as the detective. It seemed just outrageous enough to work.

TG: In Louise Brooks: Detective, you take a little documented time in the actress' life -- after she quits Hollywood and returned home -- and imagine her getting involved in a murder. Was there room then in Brooks' real life story to "make something up"?

RG: By fortuitous coincidence, my idea of setting the story in Kansas fit in with Louise's return there in 1940, after her Hollywood career had dissolved away. She was definitely at loose ends and, it would seem, ripe for any new kind of adventure.

TG: I've heard that you're related to Louise Brooks? Is it true?

RG: Yes, Louise was my mother's second cousin, and they both hailed from the same area of southeastern Kansas. My mom's maiden name was Brooks and it's also my middle name.

TG: We've also heard that you are friends with Barry Paris, who wrote the biography of actress published in 1989.

RG: Yes, Barry and I go back a long way. We're both from Wichita, and we've worked on various projects together since our high school days.

TG: When and how did you first become aware of Brooks as an actress and silent film star?

RG: I had been dimly aware of her as an image and icon, but knew very little about her until the early 1980s. That's when I first found out that we were related. I read her memoir Lulu in Hollywood and began to seek out her movies and find as much information on her as I could.

TG: There is an impressive amount of detail, both in the text and in the images, which suggests you did your research. What you do to prepare?

RG: I envisioned the book as a kind of tribute to Wichita and the little town of Burden, where both my mother's and Louise's branches of the Brooks family converged. This involved many trips there and many photos taken. Luckily the buildings and other locations in both towns are still there.

TG: For example, you mention the philosopher Schopenhauer - a favorite of Brooks, her affair with Charlie Chaplin, that she scrubbed floors at home as a kind of repentance after quitting Hollywood, and, as well, the name of the building in which she opened a dance studio in Wichita. Your attention to detail is remarkable.

RG: I put to use many of the biographical details I had learned over the years, from Barry's biography and other sources, to fill in the details of this period in her life. I've always loved it that she was such a voracious reader.

TG: There is the matter of Brooks' hair. She is famous for her bobbed hair -- yet you chose to draw it a bit longer. Why so?

RG: I based her look on photos I had seen of her during this period in her life. The bangs were still there, but her hair had grown to shoulder-length.

TG: The crime at the center of the story seems quite real -- like it could have happened. It's complex, and believable. Was it based on an actual event?

RG: No, the crime is pretty much all made up.

TG: What about the writer Thurgood Ellis, a key character in the story. Was he real?

RG: Thurgood Ellis wasn't real, but I based him on the kind of writer, a la J.D. Salinger, who develops a dedicated following with groundbreaking work and then vanishes from the cultural landscape.

TG: There have been a handful of comic strips and graphic novels based on Brooks, going back all the way to the late 1920's. I am thinking of Dixie Dugan, which ran for decades in American newspapers, as well as Valentina -- the long-running Italian erotic comix by Guido Crepax that appeared in Heavy Metal magazine. There are other European works based on Brooks by Floc'h, Hugo Pratt, Marion Mousse and others. Kim Deitch has also drawn her. Brooks even appears in Dr. Who comic, and inspired a character in the Sandman series. Why do you think so many artists have drawn Brooks?

RG: I remember the Dixie Dugan strip, which ran in the Wichita paper for years. There's something about the eternal image of Louise Brooks that captures the imagination of artists worldwide.

TG: Were you aware of these earlier efforts? How does your work fit into theirs?

RG: I've been vaguely aware of those European versions of Louise, but I was never a regular follower. I'm not sure if my work fits in with theirs at all.

TG: Louise Brooks makes a great detective. And the final page suggests she might even write a mystery novel. Any chance she will return in your work?

RG: My hope is that she will return in a second volume someday.

More about Rick Geary and his work can be found on his website at www.rickgeary.com. As he has for many years, the artist and his wife will be manning their table at Comic-Con International, which is set to run Wednesday July 8th through Sunday, July 12th in San Diego, California.

Here is a link to another interview with Rick Geary about Louise Brooks: Detective, from the comicbookresource website.

The unworthy son of Louise Brooks and E.M Cioran

Le fils indigne de Louise Brooks et de Cioran

Les carnets de Roland Jaccard

Publié le 27 juin 2015

1. Un salaud sympathique

L’affaire est entendue : je suis le fils – illégitime, bien sûr – de Louise Brooks et de Cioran. L’actrice américaine et le volcanique Roumain partageaient la conviction que la création est une aberration, la procréation un crime et la concision un devoir. Il va de soi qu’ils ne pouvaient rêver pire héritier : j’ai trahi mon père quelques mois avant sa mort en révélant dans un quotidien parisien son peu glorieux passé sous le nazisme, ce qui est une forme particulièrement perfide de parricide. Pour ma défense, je citerai ce mot qu’il m’avait écrit en avril 1991, le 10 précisément : « Il est grand temps que vous écriviez vos Mémoires et que vous nous exécutiez tous. »

Avec Louise Brooks, je me suis montré plus indigne encore. Alors qu’elle me suppliait de lui apporter une arme à feu pour mettre fin à ses jours, j’ai décliné son invitation de me rendre à Rochester où elle végétait dans un modeste studio. J’avais là encore une excuse : ma mère, ma vraie mère, sentant venir sa mort, m’avait fait prêter serment de lui enfoncer dans le cœur une aiguille à tricoter le jour de son décès tant elle redoutait d’être enterrée vivante. Mon acquiescement avait été de pure forme, mais l’avait apaisée. Je n’avais nulle envie de récidiver avec Louise Brooks. Après tout, que les gens s’arrangent avec leur propre mort sans compter sur autrui, fût-ce leur famille. D’ailleurs compter sur autrui mériterait déjà une peine pire que la mort.

Kinomania: and yet more silent film bits from Poland

The Poles loved movies and movie stars. Here are a few more things I found while looking around in the online Polish archives.

A two page spread on some of the current stars of the screen, from Na Szerokim Świecie, 1931.

A bit of dialogue mentioning Pola Negri and Harold Lloyd, published in Trubadur Polski in 1925.

A biography of Clara Bow, published in Na Szerokim Świecie in 1931.

Kinomania: more silent film bits from Poland

Here are a few more things I found while looking around in the online Polish archives. The Poles loved movies and movie stars. The Poles loved not only Polish stars, like their own Pola Negri, but also American stars.

Pola Negri branded cosmetic, from 1928.

Clara Bow on the front page of Ewa pismo tygodniowe, from 1928.

Greta Garbo on the cover of Nasz Przegląd Ilustrowany, from 1930.

A full page article in Cyrulik Warszawski about Mary Pickford, from 1926. The piece is by the noted writer Antoni Słonimski (15 November 1895 – 4 July 1976), a Polish poet, journalist, playwright and prose writer. He was a member of the Skamander movement. His works include Torpeda czasu (Time Torpedo, 1926), a science fiction novel influenced by H.G. Wells, and Dwa końce świata (Two Ends of the World, 1937), a novel predicting Warsaw's destruction by a Nazi dictator.

Kinomania: silent film bits from Poland

Here are a few things I found while looking around in the online Polish archives. The first is the front page of Kurjier Warsawski, featuring Rudolph Valentino. Valentino died on August 23, 1926 and this page dates from September 16, 1926.

The second item below is a poem or song lyrics called "Kinomania", as printed in Trubadur Warszawy, also in 1926. They mention Valentino, as well as other stars of the time like Lillian Gish, Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt and Lya de Putti

Happy 4th of July from Louise Brooks and Sally Blane

Happy 4th of July from Louise Brooks and Sally Blane (and the Louise Brooks Society, now celebrating 20 years online).

Louise Brooks: Greetings from Poland, part 7 (saving best for last)

A continuation of the six previous posts, the results of my look through online Polish archives in search of any and all Louise Brooks clippings or advertisements. Here is some more of the material I found. I uncovered some wonderful stuff, but have been saving the best for last.

I have seen the above piece before, in an American publication. I have also seen something like the article below, which discusses the amount of fan mail certain American stars received, including Louise Brooks, ranking 10th on the list (which is all Paramount stars). "Listy do gwiazd filmowych" translates as "Letters to movie stars."

One of Brooks' very last roles was an uncredited bit part in When You're in Love (1937), starring Grace Moore, an international singing star, along with British-born up-and-comer Cary Grant. Here to end this 7 part blog trip to Poland are a couple of related clippings for that almost last Brooks' film. The first is from a Yiddish-language publication from Warsaw. The second depicts stars Grace Moore and Cary Grant.

Coincidentally, it was just recently learned that Louise Brooks "visited" Poland in 1929! While filming the beach and resort scenes in Diary of a Lost Girl, the cast and crew spent time on the Baltic in the German resort town of Swinemünde, which is now called Świnoujście in the extreme north-west of Poland. After the second World War, the border shifted, and so did film history.

The Louise Brooks Society hopes you've enjoyed this trip to Poland. Look for other visits to other countries in the coming months.