There are a handful of new releases in 2015 which would make a great gift for the Louise Brooks or silent film fan on your list. Click on the title links to make a purchase.
The Diary of a Lost Girl (Kino Lorber)
by G.W. Pabst
The second and final collaboration of actress Louise Brooks and director
G.W. Pabst (Pandora's Box), DIARY OF A LOST GIRL is a provocative
adaptation of Margarethe Böhme's notorious novel, in which the naive
daughter of a middle class pharmacist is seduced by her father's
assistant, only to be disowned and sent to a repressive home for wayward
girls. She escapes, searches for her child, and ends up in a high-class
brothel, only to turn the tables on the society which had abused her.
It's another tour-de-force performance by Brooks, whom silent film
historian Kevin Brownlow calls an actress of brilliance, a luminescent
personality and a beauty unparalleled in screen history.
Special
Features: Mastered in HD from archival 35mm elements, and digitally
restored, Audio commentary by Thomas Gladysz, Director, Louise Brooks
Society,
Windy Riley Goes Hollywood (1930, 18 Min., featuring Louise
Brooks)
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Louise Brooks Detective (NBM Publishing)
by Rick Geary
A fictional story centered on actress Louise Brooks, this graphic novel
by Rick Geary is spun around her actual brief meteoric career as a
smoldering film actress who popularized bangs. Geary fantasizes about
her coming back to her home town of Wichita where she becomes intrigued
by a murder involving a friend, a famous reclusive writer and a shady
beau. Not before she gets herself in great danger will she emerge with
the solution the police fail to grasp.
The author, Rick Geary, is related to Louise Brooks.
"A fun, twisty mystery for both film buffs and crime fiction lovers, and the final revelation is satisfying." — Publishers Weekly
"He
knows his way around both history and crime stories. Geary is also
possessed of a unique and charming art style, something I've dubbed
'faux woodcut,' which makes everything he draws look like it's lifted
from some magical era of the past that never really existed, but should
have." — Andrew A. Smith, Tribune News Service
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Award-winning author and journalist Tom Graves in "Louise Brooks, Frank
Zappa, & Other Charmers & Dreamers" collects the best of his
long-form journalism and profiles as well as his in-depth interviews
with a variety of curious personalities. The lead piece is "My
Afternoon with Louise Brooks" about Graves's encounter in 1982 with the
reclusive silent film legend Louise Brooks. He was the last journalist
ever to sit bedside with Miss Brooks, who allowed very few people into
her life. Also included are Graves's 1979 sit down with the king of
Southern grit lit, Harry Crews, his discovery of the first Elvis
impersonator, his search with the help of Quentin Tarantino to find
actress Linda Haynes, who had vanished from Hollywood. Included are
also Graves's in-depth question and answer interviews with: Frank Zappa,
Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones, Lee Mavers of the cult band the
La's, and Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders. Some of Graves's
best essays are also part of this anthology: his piece on the Sex
Pistols in Memphis, an apology for biographer Albert Goldman, a revisit
of Woodstock, and more.
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by William Wellman Jr
The extraordinary life—the first—of the legendary, under celebrated
Hollywood director known in his day as “Wild Bill” (and he was!)
Wellman, whose eighty-two movies (six of them uncredited), many of them
iconic; many of them sharp, cold, brutal; others poetic, moving; all of
them a lesson in close-up art, ranged from adventure and gangster
pictures to comedies, aviation, romances, westerns, and searing social
dramas.
Among his iconic pictures: the pioneering World War I epic Wings (winner of the first Academy Award for best picture), Public Enemy (the toughest gangster picture of them all), Nothing Sacred, the original A Star Is Born, Beggars of Life (with Louise Brooks), The Call of the Wild, The Ox-Bow Incident, Battleground, The High and the Mighty...
Wellman directed Hollywood’s biggest stars for three decades, including Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, John Wayne, Lauren Bacall,
and Clint Eastwood. It was said he directed “like a general trying to
break out of a beachhead.” He made pictures with such noted producers as
Darryl F. Zanuck, Nunnally Johnson, Jesse Lasky, and David O. Selznick.
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Ziegfeld and His Follies: A Biography of Broadway's Greatest Producer (University Press of Kentucky)
by Cynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson
The name Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. (1867–1932) is synonymous with the revues that the legendary impresario produced at the turn of
the twentieth century. These extravagant performances were filled with
catchy tunes, high-kicking chorus girls, striking costumes, and talented
stars such as Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Marilyn Miller, W. C. Fields, Will Rogers.
and Louise Brooks. After the success of his Follies, Ziegfeld
revolutionized theater performance with the musical
Show Boat (1927) and continued making Broadway hits―including
Sally (1920),
Rio Rita (1927), and
The Three Musketeers (1928)―several of which were adapted for the silver screen.
In
this definitive biography, authors Cynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson
offer a comprehensive look at both the life and legacy of the famous
producer. Drawing on a wide range of sources―including Ziegfield's
previously unpublished letters to his second wife, Billie Burke (who
later played Glinda the Good Witch in
The Wizard of Oz), and to
his daughter Patricia―the Bridesons shed new light on this enigmatic
man. They provide a lively and well-rounded account of Ziegfeld as a
father, a husband, a son, a friend, a lover, and an alternately ruthless
and benevolent employer. Lavishly illustrated with over seventy-five
images, this meticulously researched book presents an intimate and
in-depth portrait of a figure who profoundly changed American
entertainment.
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The Roaring Road: Book 1 The Road West (Road Trip Dog Publishing)
by Johann M.C. Laesecke
(Jazz Age inspired fiction) 1924 – Prohibition has been the law since 1920 but that did not stop
people from wanting alcoholic beverages nor did it stop the
organizations that supplied them. Lack of good alcoholic beverages
causes many speakeasies and gangs to manufacture low quality substitutes
made from dangerous ingredients. Violence is on the rise as the gangs
protect their turf and their products. Dan and Laure grew up in small
villages in the far north and south areas of Chicago. They meet in
unusual circumstances and Dan loves her at first sight. Laure has the
same feelings for him but a past relationship causes her to be cautious
and Dan is forced to undertake an impossible mission. Thus begins the
adventure of The Roaring Road. Take a prototype Duesenberg and a Road
Trip Dog - add mayhem, a mob chief, a group of highwaymen and a gang of
bank robbers, a pair of kidnappers and assorted other villains, throw in
visits to speakeasies plus the lure of Hollywood in the form of a prank
devised by the infamous actress Louise Brooks that turns out to be
wildly successful, and Laure is offered a role in the 1926 movie 'The
Great Gatsby'. Automobiles, trains, aeroplanes, flapper glamour,
adventure, mayhem and lust on the roads and rails and in the speakeasies
and blind pigs of Prohibition. What could possibly go wrong?
The Roaring Road: Book 2 The Road East (Road Trip Dog Publishing)
by Johann M.C. Laesecke
(Jazz Age inspired fiction) 1926 - Laure and Dan are being drawn into Hollywood even as their
challenge of moving their contraband inventory becomes critical. Laure
is a dancer on the 1926 production of The Great Gatsby movie, while Dan
has an offer to become a movie producer. There are others who want
Laure, and not for her dancing. Trouble looms as kidnappers are sent to
grab Laure and send her to Chicago where her life expectancy will be
very short. The railcar full of wine and booze is hijacked and their
friend Scott is taken as a hostage and is forced to become a morphine
addict. Dan's crew captures the train and Scott back and they send him
to the rehab clinic Scott and Dan helped fund. Trouble continues to
come at Dan and Laure but they gather a small group of people with
unusual talents to help. The Chicago gangs become more involved and more
mayhem leads to a confrontation in Cherryvale, Kansas which happens to
be the
hometown of Louise Brooks. Come with us on our adventure tale
of captures, rescues, recapture, speakeasies, mayhem and lust on the
roaring roads and rails of the Prohibition era. What Could Possibly Go
Wrong?
