Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers

Earlier this year, when Kino Lorber released the five-disc Pioneers of African-American Cinema, J. Hoberman wrote in The New York Times, "From the perspective of cinema history — and American history, for that matter — there has never been a more significant video release.” Inspired by the enthusiastic grassroots support that enabled the creation of the project, Kino Lorber has decided to expand the foundation of Pioneers with a new, equally ambitious project: PIONEERS: FIRST WOMEN FILMMAKERS.

Like Pioneers of African-American Cinema, this new project will be a deluxe five-disc box set, with a booklet of historical essays, film notes, and photos. And, as before, we are mounting a Kickstarter campaign to help defray the massive up-front production costs of such a huge undertaking.

Presented in association with the Library of Congress (and drawing from the collections of other world-renowned film archives), Pioneers will be the largest commercially-released video collection of films by women directors, and will focus on American films made between 1910 and 1929—a crucial chapter of our cultural history.

By showcasing the ambitious, inventive films from the golden age of women directors, we can get a sense of what was lost by the marginalization of women to “support roles” within the film industry.

The collection will be comprised of new HD restorations of both the most important films of the era, but also the lesser-known (but no less historically important) works: short films, fragments, isolated chapters of incomplete serials. The five-Blu-ray box set will include approximately twenty hours of material—showcasing the work of these under-appreciated filmmakers, while illuminating the gradual changes in how women directors were perceived (and treated) by the Hollywood establishment.

Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers is executive-produced by filmmaker and actress Illeana Douglas (Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Ghost World), and produced by BretWood, who previously produced Pioneers of African-American Cinema, as well as restorations of films of Buster Keaton, D.W. Griffith, Erich von Stroheim, and many others for Kino Lorber. The selection of films will be curated by Shelley Stamp, Professor of Film & Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz and author of two award-winning books, Lois Weber in Early Hollywood and Movie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture after the Nickelodeon.

Please visit their Kickstarter page for lots more information and consider making a contribution.

Louise Brooks Oddities #9, the last

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 about a week ago. It is an interview with the Nobel Prize winning Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez which appeared in the Brazilian edition of Playboy back in 2013. And, as I have underlined in red, the noted writer mentions Louise Brooks!

I wonder if the interviewer or Márquez knew that Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is a huge Louise Brooks fan?

Louise Brooks Oddities #8

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. The two images come from a Japanese film magazine and date from late 1929. Can anyone translate the text? I realize the images are a little rough, but this is the best quality available of these incredibly rare finds.

I am assuming that Brooks, and Pabst and Brooks, posed especially for these pictures in order to send a message to their Japanese fans. At least that is the way it looks to me. Brooks is even smiling in the right hand images, as if it were all a joke. The source of these images, and their context, will be revealed at a later date.

Might the chalkboards spell out their names? Or something else?

Louise Brooks Oddities #7

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 about a week ago ago. It is a bunch of reviews of a bunch of films, including A Social Celebrity, starring Adolphe Menjou and Louise Brooks. This piece is special because it appeared in a student publication, the University Hatchet, from George Washington University. A Social Celebrity is the last film reviewed. Apparently, Joe D. Walstrom liked Brooks. He said, "The girl, Louise Brooks, is a dazzling creature recently of the Follies. She's a brunette, and will make some people think twice before they accept the maxim of Anita Loos that Gentlemen Prefer Nordics."

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'."