Sunday, May 1, 2016

The Actor's Church - The Little Church Around the Corner

Louise Brooks' first film was an uncredited bit in The Street of Forgotten Men, directed by Herbert Brenon. Production took place during May, 1925. Brooks played a moll to Bridgeport Whitey. She appears in only one scene, in a barroom where a fight breaks out, near the end of the movie.

The Street of Forgotten Men was shot at Paramount’s Astoria Studios on Long Island (located at 3412 36th Street in the Astoria neighborhood in Queens). Additional location shooting was done elsewhere on Long Island, as well as on the streets of Manhattan, including on Fifth Avenue and importantly at the landmark Little Church Around the Corner, where a key scene, a wedding between characters played by Neil Hamilton and Mary Brian, takes place.

The Little Church Around the Corner, properly known as the Church of the Transfiguration, is an Episcopal parish church located at 1 East 29th Street, between Madison and Fifth Avenues in the NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan.

From Wikipedia: "Actors were among the social outcasts whom Houghton befriended. In 1870, William T. Sabine, the rector of the nearby Church of the Atonement, which is no longer extant, refused to conduct funeral services for an actor named George Holland, suggesting, "I believe there is a little church around the corner where they do that sort of thing." Joseph Jefferson, a fellow actor who was trying to arrange Holland's burial, exclaimed, "If that be so, God bless the little church around the corner!" and the church began a longstanding association with the theater.

P. G. Wodehouse, when living in Greenwich Village as a young writer of novels and lyrics for musicals, married his wife Ethel at the Little Church in September 1914. Subsequently, Wodehouse would set most of his fictionalized weddings at the church; and the hit musical Sally that he wrote with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton ended with the company singing, in tribute to the Bohemian congregation: "Dear little, dear little Church 'Round the Corner / Where so many lives have begun, / Where folks without money see nothing that's funny / In two living cheaper than one."

In 1923, the Episcopal Actors' Guild held its first meeting at Transfiguration. Such theatrical greats as Basil Rathbone, Tallulah Bankhead, Peggy Wood, Joan Fontaine, Rex Harrison, Barnard Hughes, and Charlton Heston have served as officers or council members of the guild. The Little Church's association with the theatre continued in the 1970s, when it hosted the Joseph Jefferson Theatre Company, which gave starts to actors such as Armand Assante, Tom Hulce, and Rhea Perlman.

As well as being a guild officer, Sir Rex Harrison was memorialized at the church upon his death in 1990. Maggie Smith, Brendan Gill, and Harrison's sons, Carey and Noel, spoke at the service."

Thursday, April 28, 2016

The Louise Brooks Society is on Twitter @LB_Society

The Louise Brooks Society is on Twitter @LB_Society. In fact, the LBS is followed by more than 2,700 fans and other interested individuals. Are you one of them? Be sure and check out the LBS Twitter profile, and check out the more than 4,700 LBS tweets so far!

 

Louise Brooks ✪

@LB_Society

Louise Brooks Society - all about the silent film & Jazz Age icon who played Lulu in Pandora's Box. Visit our website, blog & online radio station!

Joined January 2009
Born on November 14, 1995

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

TCM airs two Louise Brooks films today



As part of its special "From Caligari to Hitler" series, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is set to air two Louise Brooks films later today. Pandora's Box (1929) is set for 8:00 pm, followed by Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) at 10:30 pm. Check your local listings for local times.  More information can be found HERE.


To learn more about these films, visit the Louise Brooks Society film pages devoted to either Pandora's Box or Diary of a Lost Girl.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Louise Rutkowski, Diary of a Lost Girl, album taster


Attention fans of Louise Brooks and fans of contemporary music: Here is an album taster from the Louise Rutkowski recording Diary of a Lost Girl (released February 21, 2014). The artist is an acknowledged fan of the actress.


Monday, April 25, 2016

Louise Brooks - More Visions of Beauty, from 1940

Two years after Louise Brooks retired from film (and she was largely forgotten by the American public), her name was still evoked as an example of beauty. This two page article dates from 1940.







Sunday, April 24, 2016

In the kitchen with Louise Brooks' friends - part 2

Celebrity newspaper columns devoted to recipes as well as celebrity cookbooks were commonplace during the silent film era. The Louise Brooks Society archive contains a few recipes and menus attributed to Louise Brooks. Here is part two of a two part series devoted to recipes from Louise Brooks' friends and colleagues.

First up is Chester Conklin, a bushy mustached silent era comedian who appeared i the 1926 Brooks film, A Social Celebrity. Here, he contributes his recipe for a Yorkshire Tart.



And here is another silent era comedian, the great Charlie Chaplin, with whom Brooks had an intimate friendship in the summer of 1925. Here's Chaplin's recipe for an apple roll.


Saturday, April 23, 2016

In the kitchen with Louise Brooks' friends - part 1

Celebrity newspaper columns devoted to recipes as well as celebrity cookbooks were commonplace during the silent film era. The Louise Brooks Society archive contains a few recipes and menus attributed to Louise Brooks. Here is part one of a two part series devoted to recipes from Louise Brooks' friends and colleagues.

First up is Ruth St. Denis, who along with Ted Shawn headed the Denishawn Dance Company during the two seasons the teenage Brooks toured with the famed troupe. It is known that the company ate together on occassion, once even at Brooks' parent's house in Wichita, Kansas. I wonder if Ruthie ever made Chicken Creole for her company?


And next is Blanche Ring, an American singer and actress in Broadway theatre productions, musicals, and motion pictures. She acted in the 1926 Brooks' film It's the Old Army Game, which was directed by her nephew Eddie Sutherland, who shortly after married Louise Brooks.

At one time, Blanche Ring was married to Charles Winninger, who acted in the 1931 Brooks' film, God's Gift to Women. Her sister Frances Ring was married to Thomas Meighan, the popular silent film actor who starred in 1927 Brooks' film, The City Gone Wild.


Be sure and check back tomorrow for recipes from Charlie Chaplin and Chester Conklin.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Louise Brooks declared second most beautiful woman by Carl Van Doren

Back in 1929, a syndicated article ran in newspapers in which the noted literary critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Carl Van Doren declared Louise Brooks the second most beautiful woman in the world. Carl Van Doren was also the brother of critic Mark Van Doren and the uncle of Charles Van Doren, who was famously involved in a television quiz show scandal in the 1950s. Unfortunately, this instance of the article has the wrong image for Brooks.


Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Rare Louise Brorks product card

You remember Louise Brorks? She starred in such memorable films as Rolled Socks (1927), The Canard Murder Case (1929), and Diary of a Lost Grill (1929).

This scarce tobacco card was recently offered on eBay. It was issued in the early 1930s in Uruguay by Julio Mailhos with "Crack" cigarillos. From a series D of 50 Movie Stars; stamped on reverse, assuming this was a redemption offer. (Star's name miss-spelt on front and reverse.)


Tuesday, April 19, 2016

The United States Coast Guard visits A Girl in Every Port

From the Louise Brooks Society archive, this rare image depicting the the United States Coast Guard visiting a screening of A Girl in Every Port (1928), starring Victor McLaglen and an All Star cast (including Richard Armstrong, Louise Brooks, Sally Rand, Myrna Loy, Maria Casajuana and others). My vintage print of this images measures over 29 inches wide and 10 inches tall.




Monday, April 18, 2016

Beautiful art deco Louise Brooks portrait

For your enjoyment and appreciation, a beautiful art deco Louise Brooks portrait, circa 1927 / 1928.




Sunday, April 17, 2016

Louise Brooks asks just how short is a short skirt?

From the Louise Brooks Society archive, a rare newspaper advertisement: "How short is a short skirt? says Louise Brooks, movie darling. Let it be short enough to take advantage of all good points -- if any."


Saturday, April 16, 2016

Louise Brooks: Beauty in the Breakdown

Here is another musical video tribute to Louise Brooks, titled "Louise Brooks: Beauty in the Breakdown." I am not sure who the artist is.

The description read: Uploaded on Apr 11, 2009
 
Louise Brooks. Brooksie. Lulu. A tribute to the actress, icon, writer, timeless beauty, free spirit, dancer, ahead of her time, and all around fabulous Louise, with clips from Pandora's Box, Diary of a Lost Girl and the documentary Looking for Lulu. 

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Television series, Hollywood and the Stars

I came across this early 1963 newspaper advertisement for the short-lived television series, Hollywood and the Stars, narrated by Joseph Cotten. A little digging led me to discover the series is available on YouTube. I love documentary histories of Hollywood, and the earlier the better: older histories of early Hollywood are especially revealing, as perceptions of the past change as well. THis series and other like it are really about how Hollywood sees itself, and in the early 1960's, it really didn't see the silent film era.


Here is the embedded video to the one of the episodes, "Hollywood & the Stars: The Wild and Wonderful Thirties." Look it up on YouTube to find the rest. The series doesn't seem to have covered the silent era, but did look at early comedians and horror films and a handful of contemporary actors, as well as the period after the coming of sound.



Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Silent era stars speak! includes Louise Brooks

They have voices then too. Here silent film stars speak in this YouTube compilation, which includes Louise Brooks, Lon Chaney, Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino, Nita Naldi, Buster Keaton, Theda Bara, and Clara Bow.



Tuesday, April 12, 2016

1920s Jazzmania Quintette


From YouTube: A late 1920's eccentric musical medley short film featuring Georgie Stoll, who became a well known bandleader.

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Louise Brooks for Lux Toilet Soap

Louise Brooks appeared in many advertisements for Lux Toilet Soap, including this one from 1929. She was in good company, which suggests to me both her beauty and her popularity was seen to rank with the others stars pictured in this advertisement.


Friday, April 8, 2016

Louise Brooks grande vedette


A 1929 article from a French publication.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Beggars of Life to screen at San Francisco Silent Film Festival

Beggars of Life is the opening night presentation at this year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival! The acclaimed 1928 Louise Brooks' film will be shown on Thursday, June 2nd at 7:00 pm at the historic Castro Theater, with live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. More information, including ticket availability, may be found at HERE.

Beggars of Life first showed at the Castro Theater on February 17, 1929. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival screened it 2007.


The SF Silent Film Festival site notes "Louise Brooks, in her best American film, is luminous as a freight-train-hopping runaway who dresses in a flat cap and trousers to escape capture by the police. She joins up with young vagabond Richard Arlen, and along the way they encounter a hobo encampment and its charismatic leader, played by Wallace Beery in a performance that Brooks later called “a little masterpiece.” William A. Wellman, whose Wings (1927) had just won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Picture, directs with nuance and grace."

Check out Wayne Shellabarger's groovy art for the Silent Film Festival schedule. I hope this becomes a poster!


Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Turner Classic Movies to air Louise Brooks #silentfilm double bill



As part of its special "From Caligari to Hitler" series, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is set to air two Louise Brooks films on April 27th. Pandora's Box (1929) is set for 8:00 pm, followed by Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) at 10:30 pm. Check your local listings for local times.  More information can be found HERE.


To learn more about these films, visit the Louise Brooks Society film pages devoted to either Pandora's Box or Diary of a Lost Girl.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Louise Brooks Society on Twitter

The Louise Brooks Society is on Twitter @LB_Society. In fact, the LBS is followed by more than 2,700 fans and other interested individuals. Are you one of them? Be sure and check out the LBS Twitter profile, and check out the more than 4,700 LBS tweets so far!


Louise Brooks ✪

@LB_Society

Louise Brooks Society - all about the silent film & Jazz Age icon who played Lulu in Pandora's Box. Visit our website, blog & online radio station!

Joined January 2009
Born on November 14, 1995
326 Photos and videos 

Monday, April 4, 2016

The Week's News, a humor column by Buster Keaton

From 1922, the "Week's News", a humor column by Buster Keaton, along with other bits from the time, including a few words about the Denishawn Dance Company, with which Louise Brooks was on tour.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Diary of a Lost Girl two months from today

The 1929 Louise Brooks film Diary of a Lost Girl will be screened two months from today -- that is June 3rd, 2016 at the Leominster Theatre and Cinema at the Leominster Community Centre in England (that's south of Liverpool. west of Manchester, and north of Bristol. Wurlitza will provide live musical accompaniment.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Lulu in Hollywood photo composition by Hal Wilson


Here is something rather nifty, a photo composition entitled "Lulu in Hollywood." It is by Hal Wilson.

Wilson stated, "I guess you could say I make “Photo Compositions”. In the wee hours of the morning I'll be clipping images from vintage pictures (primarily from the Library of Congress). I take the parts that I like and move them around. A flapper-girl happily sitting in a treehouse-speakeasy might find herself transported into an oyster boat off Virginia.  Poor dear.

I became intrigued with Louise Brooks while researching techniques of classic Hollywood photography. From all the movie stars in the heavens (Garbo, Gable, Bogart or Bacall) it is Louise Brooks who appears on the front cover of John Kobal's Hollywood Glamour Portraits. I have a little crush on Lulu."

How many of the individuals in the above composition can you name?

Friday, April 1, 2016

Louise Brooks Silent Film Star on 3min Late Night talk Show

I don't understand the point of it all . . . but here ya go, another faux interview: "Louise Brooks Silent Film Star on 3min Late Night talk Show." Published on March 24, 2016, and featuring Sarah Quiroz and North Roberts, who "welcomes dead silent film era star Louise Brooks to the studio."

Thursday, March 31, 2016

C.B. DeMille pastoral silent film with Louise Brooks

In November, 1927 a person named T.J.G. sent a note to Motion Picture Arts and Sciences magazine (their very first issue, it turns out) humorously suggesting that a film be made by C.B. Demille based on the names of film stars whose names evoke something pastoral. Among them is Louise Brooks.


Wednesday, March 30, 2016

"King of Jazz" kickstarter campaign

There is a new Kickstarter campaign I would encourage everyone to check out. It's for a new book about the production, release and restoration of the 1930 musical film King of Jazz starring Paul Whiteman.


King of Jazz: Paul Whiteman’s Technicolor Revue tells the untold story of the making, release and restoration of Universal’s 1930 Technicolor musical extravaganza King of Jazz. This special limited edition hardcover book needs your help to get published!

King of Jazz was one of the most ambitious films ever to emerge from Hollywood. Just as movie musicals were being invented in 1929, Universal Pictures brought together Paul Whiteman, leader of the country’s top dance orchestra; John Murray Anderson, director of spectacular Broadway revues; a top ensemble of dancers and singers; early Technicolor; and a near unlimited budget.

The film’s highlights include a dazzling interpretation of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” which Whiteman had introduced to the public in 1924; Walter Lantz’s “A Fable in Jazz,” the first cartoon in Technicolor; and Anderson’s grand finale “The Melting Pot of Music,” a visualization of popular music’s many influences and styles.

The film is not only a unique document of Anderson’s theatrical vision and Whiteman’s band at its peak, but also of many of America’s leading performers of the late 1920s, including Bing Crosby in his first screen appearance, and the Russell Markert Dancers, who would soon become Radio City Music Hall’s famous Rockettes.



And that's not all. The film also includes the first screen appearance by the one and only Bing Crosby!

Authors James Layton and David Pierce have uncovered original artwork, studio production files, behind-the-scenes photographs, personal papers, unpublished interviews, and a host of other previously unseen documentation. The book will offer a richly illustrated narrative of the film’s origins, production and release, with broader context on its diverse musical and theatrical influences. The story will conclude with an in-depth look at the challenges Universal has faced in restoring the film in 2016, as told by the experts doing the work.

The 256-page book will be illustrated with over 200 color and black & white images, many of which will showcase the never-before-published Academy Award winning designs of Herman Rosse. Intricate behind-the-scenes stills will give insight into the scale of the film’s ambitions, while other full-color reproductions of original music arrangements, storyboards, posters, magazine ads, programs and frame enlargements will appear throughout.

The future of film history is in your hands. Find out more, watch the video below and visit the Kickstarter campaign page for this worthy project.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Mae Murray Speaks on Heart Throbs of Yesterday, 1950

In one of her last screen appearances in 1950, silent film star Mae Murray discusses the famous "heart throbs" of yesterday, interviewed by Ralph Staub.

Monday, March 28, 2016

The Silent Film episode of Petticoat Junction (1968)

Back on November 9, 1968 the cornball American sitcom Petticoat Junction aired an episode that was something of a love letter to the silent era. The season 6, episode 6 program, titled "Wings," starred early Hollywood actors Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen. Here is that episode.


Along with the appearance of Rogers and Arlen and a story that centers around a screening of Wings (1927), there are a handful of "shout-outs" to other films and actors of the silent era. There are also mentions of silent era stars Ken Maynard, Charlie Chase, Chester Conklin, Monte Blue, Clive Brook, Rin Tin Tin, and Rex the Wonder Horse. Three early films mentioned in the show are Tess of the Storm Country (1922), Cardboard Lover (1928), Nanook of the North (1922), and The Green Archer (1940.

The story revolves around an effort to save the local theater, the Pixley Bijou, from closing. One of the residents of Hooterville contacts Richard Arlen and Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, who were supposed to come to the Bijou 40 years earlier for a showing of Wings, but decided instead to attend a premiere at the Roxy in New York City.

Curiously, even though the story centers on a screening of Wings, one of the big stars of that film, Clara Bow, is never mentioned. There is only mention of the local "It Girl," who looks like a flapper and sports bobbed hair. Near the end of the episode, during the showing of Wings, a few brief passages from the film are shown including the scene where a young Gary Cooper enters the flier's tent. "Hey, there's Coop, Gary Cooper" character Sam Drucker says. "Shut up, I can't hear anything," Uncle Joe Carson responds. "It's a silent movie you blockhead," Drucker says.

Interestingly, the owner of the Pixley Bijou is played by Benny Rubin, who got his start in films in 1928 in a short titled Daisies Won't Yell.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Would you believe, Louise Brooks seat covers

I thought I had seen everything until I saw these Louise Brooks seat covers for sale on eBay France. Who-da thunk?


Thursday, March 24, 2016

When Knighthood Was In Flower - Marion Davies Kickstarter Campaign

You can help bring Marion Davies' breakout blockbuster hit movie WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER (1922) to DVD/Blu-Ray!

Be part of the 'somebody' in 'why doesn't somebody put that out on DVD?' and make a pledge to Ben Model's 5th silent film Kickstarter project. Pledge at http://kck.st/1UlnJZK


"When Knighthood Was in Flower" (1922) on DVD/Blu-Ray

This Kickstarter will fund a project that brings Marion Davies’ breakthrough feature film “When Knighthood Was In Flower” (1922) to home-video. The release will be made using a new transfer off the sole surviving 35mm nitrate print, with a brand new theatre organ score buy Ben Model. The 2K digital scan will be made for the project by video lab at the Library of Congress, the archive where the print is stored and has been preserved. The disc release will be a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack. The DVDs will be professionally authored, the box art will be created by professional graphic designer and silent era aficionado Marlene Weisman, and will be available for sale on Amazon.com. The Kickstarter covers all production costs for DVD release; BluRay disc portion of the project is made possible through Greenbriar Picture Shows.


The Louise Brooks Society has made a pledge. How about you? Pledge at http://kck.st/1UlnJZK

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Masculine Women! Feminine Men!

As the other video I had planned to blog about was just recently removed, I am instead posting this one instead, as a follow-up to the previous LBS blog. Thanks to Tor Lier for pointing it out.

Six Jumping Jacks (Harry Reser's Band) voc. Tom Stacks - - Masculine Women! Feminine Men! (Edgar Leslie - James V. Monaco) Brunswick 1926



Monday, March 21, 2016

Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema, 1908-1934

There is a fascinating new book from Rutgers University Press titled Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema, 1908-1934, by Laura Horak.

It is a book which should appeal not only to fans of Louise Brooks, but as well the context of Brooks' career, namely the silent and early sound era. Readable and scholarly, Girls Will Be Boys is also revelatory; the appendix of early films featuring cross-dressed women is a veritable checklist of films to track down and watch. Happily, Horak provides information on where to find many of them.

In 2007, Horak, who is now an assistant professor of film studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, wrote a fine essay on Beggars of Life for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. That film is noted in the appendix. In her new book, Horak considers Pandora's Box, the 1929 Brooks film and its prominent lesbian character, Countess Geschwitz. In doing so, she cites the 2012 essay I wrote for the Silent Film Festival on the G.W. Pabst film which discusses the film's turbulent reception in the United States.

Horak's anthology, Silent Cinema and the Politics of Space (Indiana University Press, 2014), co-edited with Jennifer Bean and Anupama Kapse, won the Society of Cinema and Media Studies’ Award for Best Edited Collection of 2014.

Horak's new book has received good reviews. Publishers Weekly said "Horak has produced a meticulously researched, astutely argued, and highly readable text … her use of archival materials is impeccable and her filmic and historical analyses clearly display a nuanced understanding of her topic." I agree.

Girls Will Be Boys considers "Cowboy Girls, Girl Spies, and the Homoerotic Frontier," "Cosmopolitanism, Trousers, and Lesbians in the 1920s," and "The Lesbian Vogue and Backlash against Cross-Dressed Women in the 1930s" and other topics.

Publicity still from lost film The Amazons (1917)


The publisher's description of Girls Will Be Boys: "Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, and Katharine Hepburn all made lasting impressions with the cinematic cross-dressing they performed onscreen. What few modern viewers realize, however, is that these seemingly daring performances of the 1930s actually came at the tail end of a long wave of gender-bending films that included more than 400 movies featuring women dressed as men.

Laura Horak spent a decade scouring film archives worldwide, looking at American films made between 1908 and 1934, and what she discovered could revolutionize our understanding of gender roles in the early twentieth century. Questioning the assumption that cross-dressing women were automatically viewed as transgressive, she finds that these figures were popularly regarded as wholesome and regularly appeared onscreen in the 1910s, thus lending greater respectability to the fledgling film industry. Horak also explores how and why this perception of cross-dressed women began to change in the 1920s and early 1930s, examining how cinema played a pivotal part in the representation of lesbian identity.

Girls Will Be Boys excavates a rich history of gender-bending film roles, enabling readers to appreciate the wide array of masculinities that these actresses performed—from sentimental boyhood to rugged virility to gentlemanly refinement. Taking us on a guided tour through a treasure-trove of vintage images, Girls Will Be Boys helps us view the histories of gender, sexuality, and film through fresh eyes."

Marlene Dietrich in Morocco (1930)
Here are a few more blurbs from early reviews:

"Drawing on the early archives of American cinema, Horak questions the assumption that cross-dressing actresses were inherently transgressive ... and provides a new lens through which to view gender, sexuality and film." (Autostraddle 15 Queer/Feminist Books To Read In Early 2016)

"Who knew how important were those girls who would be boys? Not only as signs of 'deviancy' but as ideals of red-blooded boyhood itself? This engaging, well-researched book tells more than we ever knew about the many and various reasons 'girls will be boys.'" (Linda Williams University of California, Berkeley)

"Laura Horak's Girls Will Be Boys is without peer as a historical contribution to queer scholarship on early film. It is a revisionist work that draws upon a wealth of historical research to completely overturn previous accounts." (Robert J. King, author of The Fun Factory: The Keystone Film Company and the Emergence of Mass Culture).

Here are a few related images of Brooks not discussed in Horak's book which further support its thesis. These images not only range across gender, but also class.


Saturday, March 19, 2016

Lulu in New York: Pandora's Box at Film Forum

Today, Pandora's Box is considered a classic, a masterpiece of the silent era and a landmark work in the history of world cinema. Its reputation is due largely to the riveting, red hot performance given by its star, Louise Brooks, in the role of Lulu.

Few can match Brooks' intensity and erotic allure. Pauline Kael called her Lulu "The archetype of the voracious destructive women." Brooks is that, and more. In fact, she's stunning--and those who see the film for the first time often say they can't take their eyes off the actress.



Pandora's Box and its star, however, have not always enjoyed the reputation they do today. When the film first showed in New York--back in December of 1929--it received mostly negative reviews. Just about everyone, including its star, thought it stunk.

On March 19th, New Yorkers will have a chance to judge for themselves when Film Forum screens a 35mm print of Pandora's Box as part of "It Girls, Flappers, Jazz Babies & Vamps." The series showcases some of the silver screen's provocative early sex symbols.

Pandora's Box, a German-made film directed by the highly regarded G.W. Pabst, premiered in Berlin in February of 1929; reviews were mixed, even dismissive. Some months later, when Pandora's Box opened at a single theater, the 55th Street Playhouse in New York, American newspaper and magazine critics were similarly ambivalent, and sometimes hostile.



Photoplay, one of the leading fan magazines of the time, wrote "When the censors got through with this German-made picture featuring Louise Brooks, there was little left but a faint, musty odor." Billboard had a similar take, "This feature spent several weeks in the censor board's cutting room: and the result of its stay is a badly contorted drama that from beginning to end reeks with sex and vice that have been so crudely handled as not even to be spicily entertaining. Louise Brooks and Fritz Kortner are starred, with Miss Brooks supposed to be a vampire who causes the ruin of everyone she meets. How anyone could fall for la belle Brooks with the clothes she wears in this vehicle is beyond imagination."

The New York Times went further, "Miss Brooks is attractive and she moves her head and eyes at the proper moment, but whether she is endeavoring to express joy, woe, anger or satisfaction it is often difficult to decide." The critic for the New York World echoed the Times, "It does occur to me that Miss Brooks, while one of the handsomest of all the screen girls I have seen, is still one of the most eloquently terrible actresses who ever looked a camera in the eye."

The critics, it seemed, were ganging up. The New Yorker dismissed the film. As did the New York Post, who described it as "a rather dull underworld offering which makes very little sense." Film Daily thought the film "too sophisticated for any but art theater audiences." And the New York Herald Tribune said "Louise Brooks acts vivaciously but with a seeming blindness as to what it is all about."
Variety put the nail in the coffin when its opined "Better for Louise Brooks had she contented exhibiting that supple form in two-reel comedies or Paramount features. Pandora's Box, a rambling thing that doesn't help her, nevertheless proves that Miss Brooks is not a dramatic lead."



Despite such poor reviews, the film managed to draw an audience, albeit a modest art-house crowd. After the New York Sun reported Pandora's Box "has smashed the Fifty-fifth Street Playhouse's box office records," the film was held over for another two weeks.

With its New York run ended, Pandora's Box fell into an obscurity from which it would take decades to overcome. By then, sound had come in and poorly reviewed silent films from abroad were little in demand. Though exhibition records are fragmentary, the film was seldom if ever shown in the United States.

In fact, in the decades that followed, only one other screening is known to have taken place--in 1931 in New Jersey at a second-run house not above showing sensational or exploitative fare. Newspaper ads for the Little Theater in Newark warned "Adults Only," and Pandora's Box, synchronized with "thrilling" sound effects and English titles, was promoted as "The German sensation that actually reveals most of the evils of the world" offering "Raw reality! A bitter exposé of things you know but never discuss."




With its reputation in ruins, the film was little seen and little regarded, even by film curators. In 1943, Iris Barry, head of the Museum of Modern Art's film department, met with Brooks, who was then living in New York. Barry's opinion carried considerable weight (and did so for decades to come) in the film world; she told Brooks the museum would not acquire a copy of Pandora's Box for its collection, because "it had no lasting value."

Times change, and so do reputations. In the mid-1950s, Pandora's Box was rediscovered by a handful of European archivists and historians. Their enthusiasm would cross the Atlantic, and in the United States, the film was almost single-handedly championed by James Card, the founding film curator at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester. Year by year, screening by screening, a new and positive critical consensus grew around the once much maligned film.

Cut to 2006, the year which marked the Brooks' centenary. New York's Film Forum marked the occasion by screening a 35mm print of the film; remarkably, during its short run, Pandora's Box was reported to be the second highest grossing independent film in the United States.

In his acclaimed 1989 biography of Brooks, Barry Paris wrote: "A case can be made that Pandora's Box was the last of the silent films--not literally, but aesthetically. On the threshold of its premature death, the medium in Pandora achieved near perfection in form and content."


It's that "near perfection"--dark and riveting, that draws audiences time and again. Pandora's Box will be shown at Film Forum in New York (209 West Houston St. west of 6th Ave.) on Saturday, March 19 at 7:20 p.m. Steve Sterneron will accompany the film on piano.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Pandora's Box screens at Film Forum in NYC on March 19th

On Saturday, March 19th the Film Forum in New York City will screen Pandora's Box (1929), starring Louise Brooks in the role of Lulu. This screening is part of the two week series, "It Girls: Flappers, Jazz Babies and Vamps," running through March 24. It is a screening not to be missed. And what's more, it features live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner.

For more about this silent film masterpiece, visit the Louise Brooks Society filmography page devoted to Pandora's Box.





Monday, March 14, 2016

Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells: The Best of Early Vanity Fair

I recently acquired a copy of Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells: The Best of Early Vanity Fair, edited by Graydon Carter. What a stylish treasure chest.

First published by Penguin Press in 2014, this outstanding anthology gathers pieces from the golden age of the famous periodical--the predecessor to the magazine we find on newsstands today. (The American edition of Vanity Fair was launched by publisher Condé Nast in 1913. Under the stewardship of editor Frank Crowninshield, who assigned most of the pieces in this volume, the magazine was a literary and visual treasure of the Jazz Age and featured an incomparable slate of writers through 1936, when it was folded into Vogue as a casualty of the Great Depression. Vanity Fair was revived in 1983.)

Though there is no Louise Brooks material collected here (she was featured in the magazine back in the 1920's), there is much to recommend for anyone interested in the Roaring Twenties.

From the publisher: "In honor of the 100th anniversary of Vanity Fair magazine, Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells celebrates the publication’s astonishing early catalogue of writers, with works by Dorothy Parker, Noël Coward, P. G. Wodehouse, Jean Cocteau, Colette, Gertrude Stein, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sherwood Anderson, Robert Benchley, Langston Hughes—and many others. Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter introduces these fabulous pieces written between 1913 and 1936, when the magazine published a murderers’ row of the world’s leading literary lights.

Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells features great writers on great topics, including F. Scott Fitzgerald on what a magazine should be, Clarence Darrow on equality, D. H. Lawrence on women, e.e. cummings on Calvin Coolidge, John Maynard Keynes on the collapse in money value, Thomas Mann on how films move the human heart, Alexander Woollcott on Harpo Marx, Carl Sandburg on Charlie Chaplin, Djuna Barnes on James Joyce, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., on Joan Crawford, and Dorothy Parker on a host of topics ranging from why she hates actresses to why she hasn’t married.

These essays reflect the rich period of their creation while simultaneously addressing topics that would be recognizable in the magazine today, such as how women should navigate work and home life; our destructive fascination with the entertainment industry and with professional sports; the collapse of public faith in the financial industry; and, as Aldous Huxley asks herein, “What, Exactly, Is Modern?”

Offering readers an inebriating swig from that great cocktail shaker of the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age, the age of Gatsby, Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells showcases unforgettable writers in search of how to live well in a changing era."

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Let's Dance: Louise Brooks and the popular dances of her time


It is well known that Louise Brooks was a gifted dancer: she was trained in aesthetic dances, like those performed by Denishawn, and talented as well as in the popular dances of her time, like the Charleston and Black Bottom. In fact, she is thought to be the first person to dance the Charleston in London, at the popular Cafe de Paris nightclub. She did so in late 1924.




Later, in the mid-1930's, Brooks even made a living touring as a Ballroom dancer in nightclubs on the East Coast, Midwest, and South. And, in 1939, she self-published a booklet called The Fundamentals of Good Ballroom Dancing. Brooks could cut a rug.

What did the popular dances of the 1920's look like? Here are a few video clips, one vintage, the other contemporary, which give an idea of what Brooks was up to on the dance floor.








And here is a clip from Love Em and Leave Em (1926) which shows Brooks making moves on the dance floor.

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