Girls Will Be Boys in San Francisco

For many moviegoers, characters that cross-dress might seem like a more recent phenomenon—as far as mainstream films are concerned.

Some have proven popular, like Tootsie (1982), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), The Birdcage (1996), and even White Chicks (2004). Others, like the brilliant and more somber Albert Nobbs (2011), have taken time to find an audience.

Looking back, there’s Some Like It Hot, in which Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon dress as women and join an all-girl band in order to hide from the mob. That was released in 1959. And then there’s Psycho, in which Anthony Perkins plays a killer who wears his dead mother's clothes. That debuted in 1960.

The depiction of characters that cross dress, in fact, goes back to the beginnings of film. And what’s more, gender bending wasn’t always played for laughs, nor was it always meant to show the unsavory side of a character. It could mean many things.

A new book by Laura Horak from Rutgers University Press, Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema 1908-1934, examines the history of gender-bending female characters in films made in the first decades of the 20th century. What’s surprising is that there were hundreds of such films, and that some of them included major stars we still know, like Katharine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, and Greta Garbo.

Marlene Dietrich in Morocco (1931)

Scouring film archives, as well as trade publications and old studio records, Horak uncovered 476 titles featuring cross-dressed women. Though many of these films no longer exist, as is the case with many early films, Horak was able to view nearly 200 surviving examples.

Girls Will Be Boys tells the story of what Horak found. The book takes its title from a line in a 1917 newspaper article about women who found freedom in acting like men in the movies, and how that gender mobility seeped into everyday life.

Surprisingly, Horak found that cross-dressed characters regularly appeared onscreen in the 1910s and were popularly regarded as wholesome. One-time superstar Marguerite Clark played both of the title roles in The Price and the Pauper (1915). There were also female Hamlets, Marie Doro in Oliver Twist (1916), female boys, and the “Thanhouser Kid” (Marie Eline, depicted on the cover of Girls Will be Boys).

As society began to change in the wake of the First World War, the perception of cross-dressed women also began to change. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Garbo, Dietrich, and Hepburn all made strong impressions with their onscreen (and sometimes off screen) cross-dressing. These seemingly daring performances came at the end of a long wave of gender-bending films. And things would change again.

Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema 1908-1934 is a good read. It is thoroughly researched, well argued, insightful and readable. Anyone interested in LGBT history, film studies, or the early 20th century will appreciate this recommended book.

Horak, a U.C. Berkeley grad, is now an assistant professor of film studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. On May 31, Horak returns to the Bay Area to speak about her book at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco. Horak will discuss her work with Jenni Olson, filmmaker, author and LGBTQ cinema expert. Additional information on the event can be found on the GLBT Historical Society website.

And on June 5, Horak will introduce a special program at this year’s San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Inspired by her new book, this two-film thematic program includes two comedies that feature cross-dressing protagonists.

I Don’t Want to Be a Man (1918), courtesy of SFSFF

One of the films is Ernst Lubitsch’s 1918 German comedy I Don’t Want to Be a Man (Ich möchte kein Mann sein), in which a high-spirited teenage tomboy (played by German film star Ossi Oswalda) longs for the freedom to smoke and drink and carouse just like a man. As a result, she has herself fitted for a tuxedo. Trouble ensues.

Also on the bill is a restoration of the 1926 Hal Roach production What’s the World Coming To?, which takes place in a future “one hundred years from now—when men have become more like women and women more like men.” The film opens with the “blushing groom” approaching the altar where his tuxedoed bride awaits.

What’s the World Coming To? (1926), courtesy of SFSFF

The Festival’s opening night film also features a character who assumes a different gender. Beggars of Life (1928) is a terse drama about a girl (played by Louise Brooks) dressed as a boy who flees the law after killing her abusive stepfather. Though not discussed in her new book, Horak wrote about the film back in 2007, when the SFSFF first screened the William Wellman-directed silent.

Louise Brooks in Beggars of Life (1928)

A variant on this post first appeared in the Huffington Post

Silent Women: New Books on Pioneers of the Cinema

There are a handful of new books on the silent film era focusing on women. Each are worth a look. Follow the links for more information or to make a purchase.

Silent Women: Pioneers of Cinema (Aurora Metro Press)
edited by Cheryl Robson Melody Bridges 

From the publisher: "It now emerges that more women were working at every level in the first 20 years of the film industry in the USA than at any point since. Early pioneers, such as Alice Guy Blaché, directed hundreds of films, invented techniques, ran businesses and set up distribution but with the rise of the male-dominated studio system, their significant contribution to the dawn of the movies has long been forgotten.

With chapters on the writers, directors, producers, stars, film editors, designers and camera women of the silent era this book acknowledges and celebrates the many talented women who were significantly involved in the rise of the industry and explains why the coming of the talkies and big business led to the inequality which exists today."

I was drawn to this book because it includes Kevin Brownlow's never before published interview with Dorothy Arzner, which is highly recommended. There is also a piece by Shelley Stamp, an academic film historian who I find interesting. Sadly, the short passage on Louise Brooks in "Female Legends of the Silver Screen" contains four factual errors.

Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema, 1908-1934 (Rutgers University Press)
by Laura Horak

From the publisher: "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."

I've written about this book elsewhere. Suffice to say, it is a revelation. It's thoroughly researched, well argued, insightful and readable. Anyone interested in LGBT history, film studies, or the early 20th century will appreciate this recommended book.

REELS & RIVALS: Sisters in Silent Films (BearManor Media)
by Jennifer Ann Redmond 

From the publisher: "Female silent film stars possessed beauty, persistence, flair, and probably a sister in the business. You may have seen Mae Marsh in The Birth of a Nation (1915), Constance Talmadge in Intolerance (1916), or Lillian Gish in Broken Blossoms (1919), but their sisters also starred in major motion pictures, such as Marguerite Marsh in The Master Mystery (1919), Norma Talmadge in The Battle Cry of Peace (1915), and Dorothy Gish in Orphans of the Storm (1921). These six appeared in countless movies. Most of their films are lost, but their legends remain. Few knew at the time that these extraordinary women were more than just faces on a screen; they were complex and human, with sometimes strange parents, body image issues, and relationship struggles. Their mistakes and triumphs often mirrored our own, though they were miles away in Hollywood. Their stories of violent marriages, heartbreaking tragedies, drastic surgeries, and secret identities are finally revealed in a candid exposé of the truth behind the tinsel.

Sister stars in Reels and Rivals that are profiled include: Norma and Constance Talmadge; Lillian and Dorothy Gish; Edna Flugrath and sisters Shirley Mason and Viola Dana; Helene and Dolores Costello; Poly Ann and Loretta Young with sister Sally Blane; Constance and Faire Binney; Priscilla and Marjorie Bonner; Grace and Mina Cunard; Alice and Marceline Day; Marion and Madeline Fairbanks; Laura and Violet La Plante; Mae and Marguerite Marsh; Ella, Ida Mae, and Fay McKenzie; Beatriz and Vera Michelena; Mary and Florence Nash; Sally O’Neil and sister Molly O’Day; Mabel and Edith Taliaferro; Olive and Alma Tell; and famous Vaudevillians The Duncan Sisters and The Dolly Sisters. Illustrated with 94 studio portraits, film stills, and candid photos that capture the glamour and excitement of Hollywood’s Golden Era. Indexed"

I found this book to be a lot of fun. It is illustrated, well researched, and full of fun facts about silent era personalities both famous and not so famous (though deserving of greater recognition). Heck, there is a whole chapter on Voilet and Laura La Plante.

Theda Bara, My Mentor: Under the Wing of Hollywood's First Femme Fatale (McFarland)
by Joan Craig with Beverly F Stout

From the publisher: "As movie patrons sat in darkened theaters in January 1914, they were mesmerized by an alluring temptress with long sable hair and kohl-rimmed eyes. Theda Bara--"the vamp," as she would come to be known--would soon be one of the highest paid film stars of the 1910s, earning an unheard of $4,000 per week, before retiring from the screen in 1926.

In 1946, at age five, the author met Bara--then 61--at her Beverly Hills home and the actress became her mentor. This memoir is the story of their friendship."

There have been a few biographies of Theda Bara published in the past, each of which I enjoyed. That's why I was drawn to this new title. This book is something different. I found the first half to be an assemblage of memories and anecdotes which together shed a light on the later years of one of the great stars of the early silent era. The second half looks at Bara's films, including A Fool There Was (1914) and Cleopatra (1917). [The latter is the subject of just announced reconstruction.]  There is also a chapter on Charles Bradin, the British-born American film director who Bara married in 1921.

Mabel Normand: The Life and Career of a Hollywood Madcap (McFarland)
by Timothy Dean Lefler 

From the publisher: "American silent film star Mabel Normand (1892-1930) appeared in a string of popular movies opposite the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle during the 1910s and 1920s, before dying of tuberculosis at age 37. Her brief but remarkable career, which included director and writer credits as well as heading her own studio and production company, was marred by scandal--police connected her to the unsolved 1922 murder of director William Desmond Taylor--that defined her legacy. This book highlights Normand's substantial yet long overlooked contributions to film history and popular culture, tracing her life from humble beginnings on Staten Island to the heights of world superstardom."

As with Theda Bara, this new book is predated by an earlier biography from 1982 by Betty Fussell as well as the blog by Marilyn Slater. Nevertheless, this book proves its worth by bringing together these sources and others in what is, at this point, the best biography a silent film superstar.

When Louise Brooks almost signed with Pathe

These two clippings tell a story I don't think has been previously reported --  of the time in 1929 when Louise Brooks almost signed a contract with the Pathe studio. (Are there any Pathe scholars out there with access to company records who might be able to track down a copy of this contract?)

Who knows how her career would have changed had she followed through with this opportunity?

One week later, it was reported . . . . 

Louise Brooks first radio appearance, in 1926?

In the 1940s, Louise Brooks worked in radio. That's known. Her film career had come to an end, and she found work writing copy for Walter Winchell's broadcasts, and as well as voice work appearing on a small handful of CBS radio soaps. The question arises, where these her earliest radio appearances?

I am certain the answer is no. According to a letter to the editor published in Variety in 1937, Brooks appeared on the radio in the mid-1920, most likely in 1926 while she was still a resident of NYC. (It's possible she appeared on the radio in 1927, or even 1928, as she was known to criss-cross the country during that time.)

I feel claims of E.M. Orowitz can be believed. In the past, I have found radio listings and newspaper articles which corroborate his claim. One article I came across, for example, stated that while the Louise Brooks film, A Social Celebrity, was playing at the Rivoli in New York in April, 1926, Adolphe Menjou appeared on WGBS, the Gimbel Brothers radio station in NYC. According to this newspaper report, Menjou spoke about the film and the scenes shot locally on Long Island. 

This is a significant discovery, at least in terms of Louise Brooks biography. Should there be any surviving records, documents or even (unlikely) recordings, then its significance grows.

Beggars of Life - Comes the Revolution

Not the first, but one of the earliest mentions of Beggars of Life or any Louise Brooks film in a work of film history took place in 1943 with the publication A Pictorial History of the Movies, by Deems Taylor (who, incidentally, when he was working as a music critic in New York City in the early 1920 once reviewed a Denishawn performance and mentioned Brooks). This page from A Pictorial History of the Movies comes from the chapter "Comes the Revolution" concerning the coming of sound. The next page from the book pictures Al Jolson.

When Beggars of Life came to Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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

Check out this fabulous page of movie advertisements from a late, 1920s Milwaukee, Wisconsin newspaper. The description of Beggars of Life is especially intriguing. It reads "A startlingly different kind of sound and voice drama . . . . the story of love-starved, romance-hungry men . . . and a girl, their prey . . . written by the exiled literary genius, Jim Tully."