William Wellman blogathon: Nominate Beggars of Life for the 2016 National Film Registry

The Library of Congress is now soliciting nominees for their 2016 National Film Registry list. Please take a moment to nominate the William Wellman-directed Beggars of Life (1928). It is a fine film, very American, and stars the one and only Louise Brooks.

Learn more about “Beggars of Life” by reading this excerpt from 100 Silent Films by Bryony Dixon (British Film Institute, 2011). Or, check out this essay by Laura Horak from the 2007 San Francisco Silent Film Festival.

You can nominate as many films as you like. More information can be found HERE. It is easy to do. Just send a simple email with your nominees (reasons optional) to filmregistry@loc.gov

Your voice is important! Librarian of Congress Dr. James H. Billington invites you to submit your recommendations for movies to be included on the National Film Registry. Public nominations play a key role when the Librarian and Film Board are considering their final selections. To be eligible for the Registry, a film must be at least 10 years old and be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The National Film Registry historically has included only those films that were produced or co-produced by an American film company, typically for theatrical release or recognized as a film through film festivals or film awards. If in doubt, check the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) for country of origin. Registry criteria does not specifically prohibit television programs, commercials, music videos or foreign productions, however, the original intent of the legislation that established the Registry was to safeguard U.S. films. Consequently the National Film Preservation Board and the Librarian of Congress give first consideration to American motion pictures.

Looking for ideas on possible films to nominate? Check here for hundreds of titles not yet selected to the National Film Registry. This link will take you to the complete list of films currently on the Registry.

For consideration, please forward your recommendations (limit 50 titles per year) via email to: filmregistry@loc.gov. Please include the date of the film nominated, and number your recommendations. Listing your nominations in alphabetical order is very much appreciated, too. There’s no need to include descriptions or justifications for your nominations unless they’re films that have not been distributed widely or otherwise made available to the public. For example, if a film is listed in the Internet Movie Database or the AFI Catalog of Feature Films, no further information beyond title and date of release is necessary. Lastly, please tell us how you learned of the Registry.
Email is preferred; however, to submit via regular mail, send your nominations to:

National Film Registry
Library of Congress
Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation
19053 Mt. Pony Road
Culpeper, VA 22701
Attn: Donna Ross

William Wellman blogathon: The sounds of silents, Beggars of Life

William Wellman's 1928 film, Beggars of Life, is considered Paramount's first sound film. Though shot as a silent (and released to some markets in that format), a synchronized musical score, sound effects, a few lines of dialogue, and a song sung by Wallace Berry were added to prints of the film --  against the director's wishes.

The film stars Beery as Oklahoma Red, Louise Brooks as The Girl (Nancy), and Richard Arlen as The Boy (Jim). Beggars of Life was named one of the six best films for October by the Chicago Tribune; it also made the honor roll for best films of the year in an annual poll conducted by Film Daily. Musical Courier called Beggars of Life ” . . . one of the most entertaining films of the littered season.” And Photoplay thought it “good entertainment.”

Beggars of Life was well regarded, as was Wellman's earlier effort, Wings. On the basis of those two films, Film Daily named Wellman one of the world's best directors for the year's 1928-1929. Each was adapted for sound, as the rare newspaper advertisement below indicates. The two films were showing in Buffalo, New York at the same time.

Though the sound elements for the film are lost, newspaper articles and advertisements of the time tell us a little about the nature of Beggars of Life. Commenting on its New York City premiere, Women's Wear Daily noted "All of these stars outdo themselves in this picture. Wallace Beery talks in this picture, sings a hobo song and ends with an observation about jungle rats in general." The New Yorker commented on "the synchronized accompaniment of sentimental music."

Elsewhere, the New Orleans Item observed, "Vitaphone helps the story along with music that is fitting and well arranged. The 'Hallelujah I'm a Bum' rhythm helps the story's speed." Peggy Patton of the Wisconsin News wrote "Wallace Beery, Richard Arlen (also playing in Wings) and Louise Brooks play the featured roles. All do praiseworthy work. By the way it is a sound picture and Wallace Beery speaks a few lines and sings a song. His speaking voice is splendid." Frank Aston of the Cincinnati Post penned, "The direction is admirable. Vitaphonic sounds lend some extra force. Beery is heard singing." The San Diego Union added, "Accompanied by a synchronized musical score of more than average excellence, the picture provides an hour and a half of film entertainment radically out of line with the general run of cinema drama. It is pungent, powerful, appealing, masterfully directed and superbly acted."

Advertisements for the film proclaimed something along the lines of “Come hear Wallace Beery sing!” But what that song was is uncertain. Reliable sources, including the director's son, site one of two similar titles, “Hark the Bells” or “Don’t You Hear Them Bells?” While at least two newspaper advertisements for the film, including the NYC one above, mention the songs "I Wonder Where She Sits at Night" and "Beggars of Life."

At the time of the film's release, a few recordings of the J. Keirn Brennan and Karl Hajos song “Beggars of Life” were released. The label on some of those 78 rpm recordings describe it as the “Theme Song of the Motion Picture production.” One was by The Troubadours (with male quartet), another by Scrappy Lambert. Here is the Troubadours' recording. It was issued as Victor 21683-B in 1928.

The lyrics to "Beggars of Life" go this way:

"Beggars of life, beggars of life;
Gypsy hearts that are sighing
For skies of blue, sunlight and dew,
Out where swallows are flying.
Each one longing to be led
To a happy homestead,
Where love will cry,
'Don't pass me by!'
Beggars of life, come home!"

Below is the Scrappy Lambert recording. Lambert (1901 – 1987) was an American dance band vocalist who appeared on hundreds of recordings from the 1920s through the 1940s. Might his or The Troubadours recording have been appended to the film, the so-called "sentimental music" referenced by the New Yorker?

There was also a cylinder recording of "Beggars of Life" released at the time. A copy of this  recording, housed in a rectangular box and with a paper label, is in the archive of the Louise Brooks Society. However, it being a cylinder recording, the LBS doesn't have a way to play and record it.
To conclude, here is more vintage recording, a cover version on 78 rpm, dating from 1928. It is the Bar Harbor Society Orchestra featuring vocals by Irving Kaufman.

While discussing the use of sound in Beggars of Life, it's worth mentioning that it was during the making of this transitional film that the "boom mic" was perhaps first used. According to David O. Selznick, "I was also present on the stage when a microphone was moved for the first time by Wellman, believe it or not. Sound was relatively new [this was Beggars of Life, 1928] and at that time the sound engineer insisted that the microphone be steady. Wellman, who had quite a temper in those days, got very angry, took the microphone himself, hung it on a boom, gave orders to record--and moved it." In the annals of film history, others have been credited with moving a microphone during the production of a film. Selznick's anecdote, which comes from Kevin Brownlow's The Parade's Gone By, is one account.

William Wellman blogathon: William Everson on Beggars of Life

In yesterday blog post, it was mentioned that the George Eastman House optically enlarged its 16mm print of Beggars of Life (which once belonging to William Everson) to 35mm. As part of the William Wellman blogathon, the Louise Brooks Society presents William K. Everson's thoughts on the 1928 Wellman film, starring Wallace Beery, Richard Arlen and Louise Brooks. These notes date from May 31, 1966.

William Wellman blogathon: An appreciation of Beggars of Life

William Wellman (far left) and Wallace Beery (far right) during the making of Beggars of Life (1928)

Directed by William Wellman the year after he made Wings (the first film to win an Academy Award), Beggars of Life (1928) is a gripping drama about a girl (Louise Brooks) dressed as a boy who flees the law after killing her abusive stepfather. On the run, she rides the rails through a male dominated hobo underworld in which danger is close at hand. Picture Play magazine described the film as "Sordid, grim and unpleasant," adding, "it is nevertheless interesting and is certainly a departure from the usual movie."

Beggars of Life is based on the 1924 novelistic memoir of the same name by Jim Tully, a once celebrated "hobo author" whose own reputation is also on the rise. Kent State University Press in Kent, Ohio (Tully's one-time hometown) has in recent years reissued the author's books, including Beggars of Life -- his best remembered work. They have also recently published an excellent biography of the author called Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler.

Author Jim Tully and actors Louise Brooks, Wallace Beery and Richard Arlen, during the making of Beggars of Life.

Though shot as a silent and released in that format, Beggars of Life also has the distinction of being considered Paramount's first sound film: a synchronized musical score, sound effects, and a song were added (against the director's wishes) at the time of its release. Early advertisements for the 1928 film boasted "Come hear Wallace Beery sing!" The gravel-voiced character actor and future Oscar winner plays Oklahoma Red, a tough hobo with a soft heart. Richard Arlen, who the year before had starred in Wings, plays a vagabond and Brooks' romantic interest.

Beggars of Life is a film about the desperate and the downtrodden. And in some ways, it anticipates films made during the Depression, which was just a few years off. Among them is Wellman's own 1933 effort Wild Boys of the Road, whose premise echoes that of Beggars of Life.

In 1928, Beggars of Life was named one of the six best films for October by the Chicago Tribune, and, it made the honor roll for best films of the year in an annual poll conducted by Film Daily. (On the basis of Beggars of Life and Wings, Film Daily named Wellman one of the world's best directors for the year's 1928-1929.) Musical Courier called Beggars of Life " . . . one of the most entertaining films of the littered season.” Photoplay thought it "good entertainment." Nevertheless, it is not especially well known today, and its grim story set among tramps drew mixed reviews upon release. One Baltimore newspaper said it would have limited appeal, quipping, "Tully tale not a flapper fetcher for the daytime trade."

Louella Parsons, writing in the Los Angeles Examiner, echoed the sentiment when she stated, "I was a little disappointed in Louise Brooks. She is so much more the modern flapper type, the Ziegfeld Follies girl, who wears clothes and is always gay and flippant. This girl is somber, worried to distraction and in no comedy mood. Miss Brooks is infinitely better when she has her lighter moments." Her cross-town colleague, Harrison Carroll, added to the drumbeat of disdain when he wrote in the Los Angeles Evening Herald, "Considered from a moral standpoint, Beggars of Life is questionable, for it throws the glamour of adventure over tramp life and is occupied with building sympathy for an escaping murderess. As entertainment, however, it has tenseness and rugged earthy humor."

Critics in New York were also divided on the merits of Beggars of Life, and many of them instead focused on Brooks' unconventional, cross-dressing role. In the New York Times, Mordaunt Hall noted, "Louise Brooks figures as Nancy. She is seen for the greater part of this subject in male attire, having decided to wear these clothes to avoid being apprehended. Miss Brooks really acts well, better than she has in most of her other pictures."

The New York Morning Telegraph stated, "Louise Brooks, in a complete departure from the pert flapper that it has been her wont to portray, here definitely places herself on the map as a fine actress. Her characterizations, drawn with the utmost simplicity, is genuinely affecting." While Quinn Martin of the New York World wrote, "Here we have Louise Brooks, that handsome brunette, playing the part of a fugitive from justice, and playing as if she meant it, and with a certain impressive authority and manner. This is the best acting this remarkable young woman has done."

Also getting attention for their role in Beggars of Life was Edgar “Blue” Washington, who played Black Mose. Washington (1898 – 1970) was a prizefighter and noted semi-pro baseball player before entering films in the late Teens. He was a pioneer among African-American actor, and was given the nickname “Blue” by friend Frank Capra. Washington’s career was of interest to the Negro press. The Afro-American newspaper wrote, “In Beggars of Life, Edgar Blue Washington, race star, was signed by Paramount for what is regarded as the most important Negro screen role of the year, that of Big Mose. The part is that of a sympathetic character, hardly less important to the epic of tramp life than those of Wallace Beery, Louise Brooks and Richard Arlen, who head the cast.”

Girls dressed as boys, pastoral life gone wrong, the mingling of the races, desperation depicted among the glitz and glamour of the twenties -- there is a lot of friction in Beggars of Life. It's a more than worthwhile film and one well worth watching.

Until a few years ago, when the George Eastman House optically enlarged its 16mm print (once belonging to William Everson) to 35mm, Beggars of Life had been seldom screened and seldom seen. That will change next year.

Wellman was one of the great directors -- and he made a lot of great movies; among them Wings (1927), The Public Enemy (1931), A Star is Born (1937), Beau Geste (1939), Roxie Hart (1942), The Ox Bow Incident (1943), and Battleground (1949).

Actor and author William Wellman Jr., who has recently completed a biography of his father titled Wild Bill Wellman: Hollywood Rebel, told the Louise Brooks Society, "Beggars of Life was one of my Father's favorite silent films. He loved it. He talked about it a great deal with appreciation and GUSTO."

Please nominate the the 1928 film BEGGARS OF LIFE to the 2016 National Film Registry. It's easy. All you have to do is send an email to filmregistry@loc.gov

Oh, and don't forget to nominate the 1928 film BEGGARS OF LIFE to the 2016 National Film Registry. All you have to do is send an email to filmregistry@loc.gov

Really. If you haven't already, please nominate the the 1928 film BEGGARS OF LIFE to the 2016 National Film Registry. It's easy. All you have to do is send an email to filmregistry@loc.gov

William Wellman blogathon starts tomorrow

The William Wellman blogathon starts tomorrow. Hosted by Now Voyaging, the blogathon runs September 10-13, and will feature nearly four dozen blogs from across the web covering many of the director's best known silent and sound films.

The Louise Brooks Society is participating, and will cover Wellman's Beggars of Life (1928), starring Louise Brooks. We'll be posting some amazing and little know material on this singular Louise Brooks film. See you tomorrow. . . .

William Augustus Wellman (February 29, 1896 – December 9, 1975) was an American film director. Although he began his film career as an actor, he went on to work on over 80 films, mostly as as director, and sometimes as a producer, screenwriter, and consultant.

His ouevre is notable for his work in crime, adventure and war films, with a handful focusing on aviation themes. He also directed several well-regarded satirical comedies.

Wellman directed the 1927 film Wings, which became the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture at the 1st Academy Awards ceremony. His other best regarded silent film is Beggars of Life (1928).

Wellman's notable films include The Public Enemy (1931), Night Nurse (1931), the first version of A Star Is Born (1937) which he also wrote, Nothing Sacred (1937), the 1939 version of Beau Geste starring Gary Cooper, Roxie Hart (1942), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Lady of Burlesque (1943), The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), The Iron Curtain (1948), Battleground (1949) and two films starring and co-produced by John Wayne, Island in the Sky (1953) and The High and the Mighty (1954).

Wellman managed to elicit Oscar-nominated performances from seven different actors: Fredric March and Janet Gaynor (A Star Is Born), Brian Donlevy (Beau Geste), Robert Mitchum (The Story of G.I. Joe), James Whitmore (Battleground), and Jan Sterling and Claire Trevor (The High and Mighty).

In his career, however, Wellman won only a single Academy Award, for the story of A Star Is Born. He was nominated as best director three times, for A Star Is Born, Battleground and The High and Mighty, for which he was also nominated by the Directors Guild of America as best director. In 1973, the DGA honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Wellman also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.


Wellman is the subject of an outstanding biography, William Wellman: Hollywood Rebel, authored by his son, William Wellman Jr. The LBS has read it and cannot recommend it highly enough.

Please nominate the the 1928 film BEGGARS OF LIFE to the 2016 National Film Registry. It's easy. All you have to do is send an email to filmregistry@loc.gov     Read more about William Wellman on his Wikipedia page or IMDb page.

Q & A with Johann M.C. Laesecke, author of the Louise Brooks inspired Roaring Road novels

Recently, author Johann M.C. Laesecke agreed to answer a few questions about The Roaring Road: Book 1 The Road West and The Roaring Road: Book 2 The Road East, two new works of Louise Brooks-inspired historical fiction. This blog post is a follow up to yesterday post about the books themselves.

Louise Brooks is a character in your two novels. What inspired you to write about her?

I will admit to falling a little bit in love with Louise. As I searched for a Hollywood star who could also serve as someone who stirred things up, there was Louise and within a few minutes I knew she was the one that could certainly stir things up. Her character was so perfect it seemed she had lived just to be in movies and in books that other authors and myself have written. I already had plenty of bad people, I wanted a person on Dan and Laure’s side to create mayhem in their favor. Learning about Louise confirmed that she lived the lifestyle to do just what I needed for the story. These were interesting scenes to write.

As a fiction writer, were there specific incidents in Brooks' life that attracted you? Or was your inspiration found in Brooks' personality?

Her personality was the main hook. What made her interesting to write about is that she was interesting. I didn’t have to make up stuff. She wasn’t afraid to go places and do things. Louise went back and forth across the country on the railroads and I make reference to a Pullman porter who watches out for her on his train because she treats him with respect. I have no basis for that assumption except my feeling that as an intelligent and well-traveled woman, loyal and generous to her friends, she would recognize those who worked hard for their living. She might have had fights with Eddie Sutherland and later on George Marshall, but those were different kinds of relationships.

However I would be remiss if I did not admit that her beauty was a factor. When Dan meets Louise he becomes muddle-headed and somehow fails to introduce her to Laure. Billie Dove later tells them that “Louise has that effect on men, and many women too.” It happens to me every time someone posts a new photo of Brooksie on the LBS Facebook page.

You've mentioned trying to be true to Brooks' voice. Was that a challenge?

My guideline in writing historical fiction was to stay true to events, places and characters as much as possible. In truth, there are a small number of inconsistencies and they will be disclosed on the website along with more information including maps, sources for more information and even author interviews with my main characters so they can explain why they did certain things. This proved a comment that I found on an author’s forum website: “Editing your manuscript is the revenge your characters get on you for thinking you’re running their lives.”

I decided to write Louise Brooks into The Roaring Road and to use her natural personality traits that were uncovered in my research to serve the story instead of vice-versa. Louise is sexy and sexual, and nearly destroys Dan and Laure’s relationship but Louise being Louise, they understand her and still love her afterward. 

Louise’s role does is not one of going into battle with guns blazing, in fact she only touches a gun once, and that is to smuggle a derringer to Laure. She accomplishes this by making use of her talent as an actress. I got the impression that she enjoyed playing practical jokes. That photograph of Louise dressed as a policeman stopping a car is hilarious and the look on her face indicates she was having a great time doing it. Of course it was all a setup, but still. Her appearance in The Roaring Road begins when she sets up a prank to play on the Hollywood elite at a garden party. Using Louise’s disdain for the way business is done in Hollywood, she enlists Dan and Laure and a few others to start a rumor and it takes hold, becoming a truth on its own without anyone outside the participants in the prank suspecting it. Today we would say it went viral, but that wasn’t in the vocabulary in 1926. It was fun to write and became a secondary story-line that continues through the rest of the book, and will continue on into the sequel, Road Trip Blues. 

Lois Long wrote in The New Yorker “We women had been emancipated and we weren’t sure what we were supposed to do with all the freedom and equal rights, so we were going to hell laughing and singing.” One could make the point that was exactly what Louise Brooks was doing with her life at the time and I tried to replicate a slice of that. I am left with the feeling that I only touched the surface.

When and how did you first come across Louise Brooks?

In researching the 1920s I came across Wallace Reid who was one of the top stars of his day. He came to a sad ending from his morphine addiction which was caused by his injuries from a train wreck, and the studio gave him morphine to get through the movie. They continued to give him morphine and eventually his wife tried to get him into rehabilitation but the doctors of the day did not know what to do and with his body weakened by years of addiction, he died. I have Wallace Reid appear in 1921, early in the book. He was one of those stars who appealed to men and women. He was an accomplished musician, actor and did many of his own stunts. He was a handsome man and by accounts was a nice guy as well. The guys liked his race car driver movies, the women swooned over him as they thought of him as their lover.

This led me to find 1920s stars like Colleen Moore, Clara Bow, Alice White, Billie Dove and others and then Louise Brooks appeared on my radar. I was immediately enthralled by Louise Brooks, bought the two biographies and in trying to learn more about her I found the LBS, which I joined. I plan to read the other books about Louise but in the last few months I’ve been too busy with The Roaring Road to do much other reading. 

I didn’t realize until later that the best loved of my lady friends in my life had similar hairstyles to Louise’s bobbed hair. This includes Lori, who transmogrified into Laure in The Roaring Road. When I found Louise I knew I had seen her photos before but didn’t know anything about her until I started researching for the novel. As I said above, I included Louise because of my attraction to her and because she is a most interesting woman in many ways. She fit the need in my story for a female character who would be a hell raiser and a shit-stirrer, who would easily do things that would cause other interesting things to happen. Louise Brooks added a whole new dimension to my plot lines, causing much rewriting. She did this just by being Louise Brooks.

Was there a novel or book that inspired you or that served as a model for your books?

I love history but before writing The Roaring Road I had little interest in the 1920s until it became the backdrop for my first novel. I work in the Sonoma/Napa wine industry and read an excellent documentary by Lin Weber titled Prohibition in the Napa Valley. The first part is rather dry (pun intended) as it describes how Prohibition came about. The second part reads like a novel as the author describes the shenanigans that happened in Wine Country. Another Wine Country Prohibition book is Rumbling Wine Barrels by Bruno Buti, which he maintains is the story of his family’s activities during Prohibition. The things that went on in California’s Wine Country during Prohibition rival the happenings on the East Coast, Detroit, Chicago and St. Louis. 

I have been influenced by many authors over the years and I filtered through my mind and made up my own story. I wanted to write my own train chase after I read Clive Cussler’s The Chase. I read about the gritty side of Prohibition in Whiskey River by Loren D. Estleman. The two Wine Country books I listed above, of course. The interest in Hollywood side started when I read Stuart Woods’ novels with his characters Vinnie Calabrese and Rick Barron, although they were set in the 30s and 40s, they give an interesting picture of the way Hollywood did business. A lot of additional information came from local wineries which often research and use their historical background for presentations to tour groups. Other ideas came from my own family history. My grandfather bought a tavern in 1918, two years before Prohibition began and it stayed open until he sold it in 1924. Sometimes the town constable was in the tavern having a beer with his neighbors. 

None of the stories or events in these sources except for the documentaries are repeated in The Roaring Road. The fiction is entirely my own. My train chases are completely different from Cussler’s, and although I tried to portray the grittiness and the ‘above the law’ attitude of the local crime organizations as the book about Detroit does, my characters and their actions are a synthesis of my own imagination. 

I have to add something rather incredible and humorous here. Another influence, and possibly the one that got me thinking about writing a Prohibition era novel, is the graphic webcomic Lackadaisy by Tracy J. Butler. Now don’t laugh or think I’ve lost my marbles, because Lackadaisy is so far from my normal genre interests that it seems nearly impossible, but then that’s how things are sometimes. The novel is populated by furries, in this case anthropomorphic cats. Normally I stay far away from that kind of thing but someone got me to look at Lackadaisy and it hooked me right off the bat. If you look at the story line development, the realistic dialog and characters (except for the fur) and direct correlation to real history (Tracy has done a lot of research) and you’ll see what I mean. The artwork is superb. I have no relationship or link to Tracy or the Lackadaisy webcomic except for my admiration. 

I pay homage to Lackadaisy in The Roaring Road. In the webcomic, Lackadaisy is the name of the café above the speakeasy. In my book, the café above the speakeasy is named Café Lulu and you can see the double meaning in that, but in 1926 Louise would have no foreknowledge of what that meant. And yes, in one scene Louise and Laure put on a Charleston dance show in Café Lulu. I just had to do that. . .

Any favorite LB films or books?

Louise Brooks: A Biography by Barry Paris

Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks

I haven’t seen all the existing LB films yet, but I’m getting around to them. I’ve seen all or a good portion of the following:

It’s The Old Army Game

A Girl In Every Port

The Canary Murder Case

Pandora’s Box

Prix de Beauté

God’s Gift to Women

Overland Stage Riders

I’ve seen clips of some other of Louise’s movies and through the LBS I’ve seen many publicity stills and other photographs. It’s like being in a long running treasure hunt, almost every day I find all sorts of interesting photos and movie clips and writings of and about our Lovely Louise. I’ve tried to think of what my story would be like had I written Clara Bow or Colleen Moore into The Roaring Road, but I always finish that wonderment with the thought that there is only Louise Brooks!

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Ten day from today, the Louise Brooks Society blog will run an excerpt from The Roaring Road: Book 2 The Road East. Stay Tuned.