Louise Brooks Oddities #6

In my ongoing research, I come across all sorts of material which is a little odd or unusual, and sometimes entertaining. Here is something I found a few days ago. It is the first clipping I have found / have been able to find from the Philippines! The article, "Una estrella olvidada," talks about Louise Brooks as a forgotten star. Interestingly, the article mentions both Pandora's Box and Prix de Beaute.  The article dates from May, 1932. The publication, Voz Espanola, is from Manila.

Louise Brooks Oddities #5

In my ongoing research, I come across all sorts of material which is a little odd or unusual, and sometimes entertaining. Here is something I found a few days ago. It is a mention of Louise Brooks and Pandora's Box in a 1943 Nazi publication, Kladderadatsch, filled with anti-Jewish and anti-American propaganda. The best I can tell, Pandora's Box is referenced in the service of a joke. 

See the short piece below titled "Der Jagdfilm." It reads:

"Lange bevor man beschloss, Wedekinds Buchse der Pandora mit Louise Brooks zu drehen, kam ein Schriftsteller zu einem Munchner Filmproduzenten und sagte: 'Herr Direktor, ich habe eine ausgezeichnete Idee. Konnte man nicht mal Die Buchse der Pandora verfilmen?'

Der grosse Filmmann sah ihn an, wiegte den Kopf him und her, dann meinte er: Buchse der Pandora? Garnicht schlecht. Jagdfilme gehen bei uns in Baiern immer!"

If anyone can offer a translation or interpretation of this piece, it would appreciated.

I also found a couple of Charlie Chaplin cartoons in this issue of Kladderadatsch. Here is one of them. It is an anti-Chaplin cartoon, with the punchline being "Charlie Chaplin cannot sit idly by as his double go off to war."

Here is the other, a two page spread. I am not sure what it is about, but it seems anti-Semitic. (Chaplin, who was anti-Nazi, was said to be Jewish by Nazi propagandists.)

Louise Brooks Oddities #4

In my ongoing research, I come across all sorts of material which is a little odd or unusual, and sometimes entertaining. Here is something I found a few days ago. It is a humorous piece from the April, 1928 issue of Amateur Movie Maker. Louise Brooks figures as part of a running joke from the pen of Creighton Peet. The piece, a kind of column, is title "Film Flam." If this bit of humorous daydreaming seems a little New Yorker, you have good sense. Peet contributed to the New Yorker in the 30's, 40s, and 50's.

Louise Brooks Oddities #3

In my ongoing research, I come across all sorts of material which is a little odd or unusual, and sometimes entertaining. Here is something I found two days ago. It is a rare 1931 issue of Inside Facts of the Stage and Screen, which touted itself as the "Only Theatrical Newspaper on the Pacific Coast." I am pretty familiar with the various film publications of the time, and have even gone through regional trade publications like Weekly Film Review out of Atlanta, George and Detroit Saturday Night out of the Motor City, BUT, had never heard of this one!

This particular issue ran a review of the 1931 William Wellman film, The Public Enemy, which lists Louise Brooks among the "fem members" appearing in the film. She didn't, of course. Inside Facts of the Stage and Screen wasn't the only publication to make this mistake. It was a mistaken credit that lingered for years, even making its way into film reference books. Years later, in 1965, Brooks wrote "What happened was that William Wellman had offered me a part in Public Enemy and I turned it down to go to New York. But the advance publicity had gone out with my name in the cast (the part Wellman then gave to Jean Harlow), so when people see an extra girl walk through a scene with a black bob and bangs, they say 'There is Brooks'."

Louise Brooks Oddities #2

In my ongoing research, I come across all sorts of material which is a little odd or unusual, and sometimes entertaining. Here is something I found yesterday. It is a couple of pages from a 2004 Arabic publication possibly about beauty and film culture. If anyone can help translate the text shown below, I would appreciate it.

 

Louise Brooks Oddities #1

Louise Bridges -
"By diligence she wins her way"

In my ongoing research, I come across all sorts of material which is a little odd or unusual, and sometimes entertaining. Here is something I found yesterday. It is a page from The Oak Leaf, a 1929 high school year book from the Hugh Morson High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. I flipped through its pages, and I found it to be a typical high school year book, filled with portraits, a class poem, school history, bits of humor and the like.

What caught my eye was a reference to the silent film star Louise Brooks by Hazel McDonald, the "class prophet." In a two page spread, McDonald predicted the future's of various students, not doubt based on some characteristic of the student. One, she predicted, would become an opera singer, one a pianist, one a veterinarian, one the heavy weight boxing champion, one a race car driver, etc.... It is the sort of thing one might find in other yearbooks, and perhaps even your own.

McDonald predicted another classmate, named Louise Bridges, would find film stardom, writing "Last of all I saw Louise Bridges, who had taken Louise Brooks' place on the screen." (See the second from last line on page two of the "Class Prophecy" shown below.) This shout-out shows Brooks had a certain currency among high school students of the time.

That currency got me wondering. Why would McDonald had made such a particular prediction for this particular student. They were friends, apparently, and both were members of the Morson Literary Society as well as the school's Dramatic Club. But, did Louise Bridges share some trait with Louise Brooks, besides the same first name? Did Bridges and Brooks look-alike? Flipping through the yearbook, I found that a number of the girls wore bobbed hair, though Bridges' bob was closest to the style worn by Brooks, or Colleen Moore, another popular screen star. Bridges was pretty, like Brooks, and somewhat resembles the actress, in my opinion.

I also found the class prophet, Hazel McDonald, to have a rather interesting look, sporting a fashionable Eton Crop--unusual perhaps for a high school student for the time from the American south. I don't know what happened to either of these students, whether Louise became an actress, or whether Hazel became a writer, but each seemed to be pretty cool kids.

Hazel McDonald -
"I grow in with and worth and sense"

LOST CREATURES - New play about Louise Brooks opens in Denver, CO on November 3

Lost Creatures, a new play about Louise Brooks by Melissa McCarl, will be staged for the first time in Denver, Colorado on November 3, 2016. (A public reading of the play was given last year.) Here are the details about this exciting new project.

WORLD PREMIERE -- Thursday, November 3 at 7:30 PM MDT The play runs November 3rd through the 19th, 2016

Directed by Patrick Elkins-Zeglarski
Starring Billie McBride, Mark Collins and Annabel Reader

About the play: Lost Creatures follows the evening in May of 1978 when British theatre critic Kenneth Tynan met his long time cinematic idol Louise Brooks. He travels to her dingy little apartment in Rochester, NY where she has sequestered herself for many years. He is there ostensibly to write a profile on Brooks for the New Yorker, but he discovers that they are kindred spirits, and in spite of an age gap of twenty years, theirs becomes an unlikely love story discovered through a marathon dialogue about sex, philosophy, art, and criticism. There is also a silent third character, Lulu, (based on Louise’s role in her most famous silent film Pandora’s Box) who drives the action of the play.


Set/Sound Design-Darren Smith
Light Design-Emily Maddox
Costume Design-Susan Lyles
Stage Manager-Lauren Meyer

Venue: The Commons on Champa, 3rd Floor Studio, 1245 Champa Street
Support provided by The Next Stage NOW

About Melissa McCarl: Author of Painted Bread, a full-length play named Best New Work by the Denver Post, about the tumultuous life of Frida Kahlo (recently produced by the Aurora Fox.) Commissioned by the Mizel Arts Center to write Poignant Irritations, celebrating the unorthodox life and love of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Commissioned by the Curious Theatre Company to write for the War Anthology directed by Bonnie Metzgar of the Public Theatre. Winner of the Steven Dietz award for the one act Carlene Yakkin’. Melissa has been named best local playwright by Westword newspaper and the Denver Post.

TONIGHT Louise Brooks film screens in Chicago

The 1929 Louise Brooks' film, Diary of a Lost Girl, will be shown tonight in Chicago. The film will be shown at the Music Box Theater (3733 N Southport Ave, Chicago, IL 60613) and will feature  a live musical score on the Music Box organ by Dennis Scott, Music Box House Organist. More information can be found HERE.

Parking near the Music Box is limited. Parking availability may be scarce on days when the Chicago Cubs play home games. Public transportation or taxis are recommended on these dates. Please check the Chicago Cubs schedule for home game dates.

Diary of a Lost Girl

A FILM BY: Georg Wilhelm Pabst
STARRING: Louise Brooks, Josef Rovenský, Fritz Rasp

Thymiane is a beautiful young girl who is not having a storybook life. Her governess, Elizabeth, is thrown out of her home when she is pregnant, only to be later found drown.

That same day, her father already has a new governess named Meta. Meinert, downstairs druggist, takes advance of her and gets Thymiane pregnant. When she refuses to marry, her baby is taken from her and she is put into a strict girls reform school. When Count Osdorff is unable to get the family to take her back, he waits for her to escape. She escapes with a friend and the friend goes with the Count while she goes to see her baby. Thymiane finds that her baby is dead, and the Count has put both girls up at a brothel. When her father dies, Thymiane marries the Count and becomes a Countess, but her past and her hatred of Meta will come back to her.

See the film, then why not read the infamous book it was based on? And better yet, why not pick up the recently released DVD or Blu-ray from KINO?