Diary of a Lost Girl screens in NYC on Jan 31

The new restoration of Diary of a Lost Girl (as seen on the new KINO DVD & Blu-ray) will be shown in New York City at the Schimmel Center at Pace University (home to "Inside the Actor's Studio") on January 31, 2016. Ben Model will provide musical accompaniment. More information about this special event can be found HERE.

Here is what film series description of the film. "After playing supporting roles in a string of light comedies at Paramount, Louise Brooks went to Germany and made two iconic and darkly dramatic films directed by G.W. Pabst. Her bobbed hair, charm and smoldering screen presence in the midst of the dark stories of PANDORA'S BOX and DIARY OF A LOST GIRL have made Brooks an icon of '20s culture. Her character in DIARY goes from one situation to another attempting to better her life, finding adversity, love, and tragedy."

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BTW: the Neue Gallery in NYC just purchased a couple dozen copies of the "Louise Brooks edition" of The Diary of a Lost Girl by Margarete Bohme (edited by Thomas Gladysz) for their museum giftshop. If you are looking to check out the book that was the basis for the film, copies can be found there. Their current exhibit, "Berlin Metropolis: 1918-1933" features a work by Rudolph Schlichter, the husband of Speedy Schlichter, who appears in The Diary of a Lost Girl.

Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays, including Halloween

There is a swell new book out from Schiffer, Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays: 1920-1970, by Karie Bible and Mary Mallory. Fans of silent film, of early Hollywood, and the studio era will all want to get a copy. At nearly 200 pages, this pictorial is chock-full of images you'll delight in looking at again and again. That's not a cliche, it's just the plain and simple truth.

The book description: "Marvelously illustrated with more than 200 rare images from the silent era through the 1970s, this joyous treasure trove features film and television’s most famous actors and actresses celebrating the holidays, big and small, in lavishly produced photographs. Join the stars for festive fun in celebrating a variety of holidays, from New Year’s to Saint Patrick’s Day to Christmas and everything in between. Legends such as Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and Audrey Hepburn spread holiday cheer throughout the calendar year in iconic, ironic, and illustrious style. These images, taken by legendary stills photographers, hearken back to the Golden Age of Hollywood, when motion picture studios devised elaborate publicity campaigns to promote their stars and to keep their names and faces in front of the movie-going public all year round."

Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays: 1920-1970 includes Louise Brooks in a Christmas themed pic. The book also includes many of Brooks' contemporaries and co-stars, including Esther Ralston and Clara Bow, shown below on pages featuring Halloween themed pics. The LBS recommends this new book.

About the Authors: Film historian and photo archivist Mary Mallory is the author of Hollywoodland and the eBook Hollywoodland: Tales Lost and Found. She writes on Los Angeles and film history for the blog The Daily Mirror and serves on the board of Hollywood Heritage. Karie Bible is the official tour guide at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and co-author of Location Filming in Los Angeles. She has lectured at numerous venues, including the RMS Queen Mary and the Homestead Museum, and has appeared on Turner Classic Movies.

Its the Old Army Game screens in NYC on November 29

One month from today, Its the Old Army Game (1926), starring W.C. Fields and Louise Brooks, screens in NYC at the Museum of Moving Image on Sunday, November 29th. The screening is part of the W.C. Fields in Astoria series. More information about this special event can be found HERE.

With live music by Donald Sosin Directed by A. Edward Sutherland. 1926. 70 min., 35mm print from the Library of Congress. With W.C. Fields, Louise Brooks. Fields plays a misanthropic, small-town pharmacist whose lovely shop assistant (Louise Brooks) gets him involved in a phony real estate scheme. The film is regarded as a high point of Fields’s silent filmography. The story was later revised and revamped in the talkies The Pharmacist (1933) and It’s a Gift (1934).

For more information about the film, check out the Louise Brooks Society filmography page. The film, especially interiors, were shot at Paramount’s Astoria Studios on Long Island (located at 3412 36th Street in the Astoria neighborhood in Queens) and in Manhattan. Location shooting, including exteriors, was done in Ocala and Palm Beach, Florida in February, 1926. The outdoor scenes in Palm Beach were shot at El Mirasol, the estate of multi-millionaire investment banker Edward T. Stotesbury. In 1912, after having been a widower for thirty-some years, Stotesbury remarried and became the stepfather of three children including Henrietta Louise Cromwell Brooks (known simply as Louise Brooks), an American socialite and the first wife of General Douglas MacArthur. In her heyday, she was “considered one of Washington’s most beautiful and attractive young women”. Because of their names, the two women were sometimes confused in the press. (Read more about the Palm Beach location on silentlocations.com.)

Tickets: $12 ($9 for senior citizens and students / free for members at the Film Lover level and above). Order tickets online. (Members may contact members@movingimage.us with any questions regarding online reservations.)
 
All tickets include same-day admission to the Museum (see gallery hours). View the Museum’s ticketing policy here.

You Must Remember This podcast - check it out

Recently, I have been checking out the "You Must Remember This" podcast hosted by Karina Longworth, a Los Angeles based film critic. It was recommended to me by longtime Louise Brooks Society member Amanda Howard. It's excellent and entertaining, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in classic and contemporary Hollywood, or at least "The secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century" as the show bills itself.

What caught Amanda's ear were the couple of references to Louise Brooks in the episode on John Gilbert and Greta Garbo, which was part of a seven part podcast on MGM. Give a listen here.



I recommend checking out the entire MGM series, which contains episodes on Jean Harlow, William Haines, Buster Keaton, Marion Davies and others. Earlier podcasts include episodes on John Wayne, Marlene Dietrich, Charlie Chaplin, Carole Lombard, Orson Welles, Kay Francis, Audrey Hepburn, Theda Bara, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and other stars of interest to those interested in Louise Brooks and early Hollywood. There are also episodes on Howard Hughes, Frank Sinatra and even a multi-part program on "Charles Manson's Hollywood."

Karina Longworth is the creator / host of You Must Remember This, a podcast about the secret / forgotten history of Hollywood's first century. She is the author of books about George Lucas, Al Pacino and Meryl Streep, and has contributed to LA Weekly, the Guardian, NPR, Vulture, and other publications. Her most recent book is Hollywood Frame by Frame: The Unseen Silver Screen in Contact Sheets, 1951-1997.

Koko’s Queen (1926) echoes the mid-1920's beauty contest craze

Six American silent-era films that were recently protected at EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam and preserved through a collaborative project organized by the San Francisco–based National Film Preservation Foundation can now be viewed online.

Among the newly viewable films are the Fleischer Brothers cartoon Koko’s Queen (1926), a delightful work which echoes the mid-1920's craze for feminine beauty and beauty contests. To watch Koko’s Queen (1926), visit this LINK.

Koko’s Queen was released in October of 1926, some nine months after the release of The American Venus, starring Esther Ralston, Lawrence Gray, Ford Sterling, and Fay Lanphier, the actual 1925 Miss America. The American Venus is a romantic comedy set against the backdrop of a beauty pageant, namely the actual 1925 Miss America contest in Atlantic City. The film is the second in which Louise Brooks appeared, and the first for which she received screen credit. Learn more about this lost film by visiting the Louise Brooks Society filmography page.

According to the National Film Preservation Foundation website: "The ending of Koko’s Queen is decayed in the Dutch copy—the only 35mm print thought to exist—but the story shines through. Koko and his dog Fitz emerge from the pen. When the pair learn that Fleischer’s girlfriend is a beauty contest competitor, they demand female companions too. The animator draws one for each but these fall short of expectations. Koko tries with beauty contraptions to remake his girl until—giving up—turns her head around backwards and substitutes a mask for her face. Fitz follows suit with similar results but, with shocking dream logic, grinds his mate into sausages. Losing patience, Koko draws his ideal—a beauty so perfect that she becomes human—and accosts her. The animator drinks “Shrinko” to save the damsel, battling the clown mano a mano. Only returning Koko to the bottle can clean the mess up."

What's interesting is that much of the promotional material around The American Venus reflected the era's obsession with determining and quantifying and even manufacturing beauty -- a conceit carried through to Koko's Queen.

Speaking of Fay Lanphier, the Louise Brooks Society archive recently acquired this uncommon vintage Italian postcard depicting Miss America and her role in the Paramount film, Trionfo di Venere (The American Venus).

Diary of a Lost Girl screens in Berlin, Germany today

American intersex-born, genderqueer performing artist, painter, independent curator, composer, and writer Vaginal Davis will presents Diary of a Lost Girl / Tagebuch Einer Verlorenen at Arsendal in Berlin, Germany today -- Sunday, October 26th at 8:00 pm. More information may be found HERE.

"Vaginal Davis As Bricktop" by dirty filthy socks from Los Angeles, USA - Vaginal Davis As Bricktop(s). Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vaginal_Davis_As_Bricktop.jpg#/media/File:Vaginal_Davis_As_Bricktop.jpg

Here is the event description: "Since 2008, film expert Vaginal Davis has been inviting audiences to her monthly film evenings. Her anniversaries are dedicated to actress Louise Brooks, this time round in TAGEBUCH EINER VERLORENEN (G.W. Pabst, Germay 1929). Thymian exudes a special attraction to men and falls pregnant. Cast out by her father, robbed of her child, and tortured at the facility where she lives, she ends up in a brothel. "And Louise Brooks", as the Berliner Tageblatt put it, "wanders in silent beauty through the film, scared, defiant, waiting, astonished, much like the girl to whom everything happens." (stss) (25.10.)"

More information about this 1929 film may be found on the Louise Brooks Society filmography page. 

"Louise Brooks As Vaginal Davis" by clean lieder hosen from San Francisco, USA - Louise Brooks As Vaginal Davis. Licensed under CC BY YOU

Nominate Beggars of Life with Louise Brooks to National Film Registry

It's that time, once more. The Library of Congress is now soliciting nominees for their 2016 National Film Registry list. Please take a moment to nominate one or both of these two American silent films, The Show-Off (1926) and Beggars of Life (1928). Each is a fine film, very American, and each star Louise Brooks.

You can nominate as many films as you like, so why not add a fave Colleen Moore or Clara Bow film as well. It is easy to do. Just send a simple email with your nominees (reasons optional) to filmregistry@loc.gov

Here is my short list:

The Show-Off (1926)
Beggars of Life (1928)
Love Em and Leave Em (1926)
What Price Hollywood? (1932)

More information HERE: 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