Friday, May 12, 2017

Tomorrow: Beggars of Life with Louise Brooks in the UK

The outstanding 1928 Louise Brooks film, Beggars of Life, will be shown at Stoller Hall in Manchester, England on Saturday, May 13th. This screening will feature live music and will be accompanied by The Dodge Brothers and the fabulous Neil Brand. More information about this event can be found HERE.



The Stoller Hall web page reads:

25% discount when you book full price tickets for both Beggars of Life and the Dodge Brothers at 9pm. That means you can see the brilliant Dodge Brothers for just £5.50 each!

The classic silent film with live music from the Dodge Brothers and Neil Brand.

Film and cinematic landscapes come together when The Dodge Brothers – Mike Hammond, Mark Kermode, Aly Hirji and Alex Hammond – join forces with premiere Silent Film pianist Neil Brand to accompany rare Silent features. Their accompaniment to the Louise Brooks/Wallace Beery 1928 film Beggars of Life was greeted with great acclaim. Performing this at The British Silent Cinema Festival, The Barbican & The BFI Southbank has prompted glowing reviews and the band became the first ever to accompany a silent film at Glastonbury Festival in 2014.

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Louise Brooks Double Feature in Los Angeles on May 20

New 2K restoration of two Louise Brooks films, Beggars of Life (1928) and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) will be shown at the Egyptian Theatre (6712 Hollywood Boulevard) in Hollywood, California on Saturday, May 20th at 7:30 pm. More information may be found HERE.

DIARY OF A LOST GIRL
DAS TAGEBUCH EINER VERLORENEN

1929, Kino Lorber, 112 min, Germany, Dir: G.W. Pabst

Seduced and abandoned by her father’s assistant, Louise Brooks descends into a lurid hell of reformatories and whorehouses. For a debauched party scene, Pabst insisted on realism – so Brooks complied by playing “the whole scene stewed on hot, sweet German champagne.” See the movie, read the book.



BEGGARS OF LIFE

1928, Kino Lorber, 100 min, USA, Dir: William A. Wellman

Rough-and-tumble writer Jim Tully’s autobiography served as the basis for what many consider Louise Brooks’ best American film. She plays a young woman who kills her abusive stepfather and hits the road (in the company of Richard Arlen) hoping to make it to safety in Canada. Wallace Beery delivers a memorable performance as hobo Oklahoma Red in this beautifully shot silent. See the movie, read about the movie.



Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Restoring Treasures of the Silent Screen talk May 4

San Francisco Silent Film Festival Board President and noted preservationist Rob Byrne will lead a talk at the gorgeously restored Presidio Officers' Club in San Francisco on Thursday, May 4, at 6:00 pm. In his presentation, "Restoring Treasures of the Silent Screen," Byrne will give a sneak peek into the three SFSFF restoration projects that will have their world premieres at the festival in June. More information about the talk can be found HERE.
"Only ten to fifteen percent of the motion pictures created during the silent film era still survive in complete form today. The other 85-90% of all motion pictures created prior to 1930 are considered “lost” – titles for which not a single surviving print is known to exist in any form. Fortunately, remnants of these long-lost treasures occasionally come to light, providing the opportunity to restore and enjoy films that have not been seen for generations.

Just as diverse as the films themselves are the various techniques employed to recover, reconstruct, and restore them, a process that unites scholarship, technical skill, luck, and fascinating detective work. Join film restorer Robert Byrne as he presents a sneak peek into three recent restoration efforts, all of which will have their world premieres at the 2017 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, June 1 to 4 at the Castro Theatre:

The Three Musketeers (1921): Douglas Fairbanks original swashbuckling saga, restored from a copy of Fairbanks’s own 35mm negative that had been donated to the New York Museum of Modern Art.

Silence (1926): Produced by Cecil B. DeMille, this classic melodrama had been considered lost for generations until a complete tinted nitrate copy of the film surfaced in Paris at the Cinémathèque Française.

Plus a special surprise – fragments of a previously lost feature, Now We're in the Air (1927), provide a tantalizing glimpse of one of the silent screen’s greatest icons (Louise Brooks).

Robert Byrne specializes in the restoration of early and silent era motion pictures, and also serves as President of the Board of Directors for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. This special event is presented in association with the San Francisco Silent Film Festival."


Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Help support The Commentary Track podcast - a great cause

Please consider supporting The Commentary Track podcast. If you love the movies and movie history, it is a more than worthy cause. I made a small donation, and so should you. Every little bit helps! More information can be found HERE.

Frank Thompson started The Commentary Track podcast five years ago. It was created to feature in-depth conversations with film historians and archivists as well as actors, composers and filmmakers who have a deep knowledge and love for films of the past. Until February, 2016, Thompson did just that.

The Commentary Track’s guests have included many top film historians – Kevin Brownlow, David Shepard, Sam Gill, Bob Birchard, Rudy Behlmer, Leonard Maltin, Richard M. Roberts, Jordan R. Young, Jerry Beck, John Bengtson and many others. Actors such as Jim Beaver, Trace Beaulieu and George Chakiris; filmmakers Joe Dante, Craig Barron and Ben Burtt; authors James Curtis, Steve Bingen, Marilyn Moss, Tracey Goessel and Matthew Kennedy – in fact, too many guests to list them all here.


In late 2015, a perfect storm of technical issues combined with a series of financial reversals made it impossible to continue. Now, Thompson wants to get the podcast up and running again. He already have five episodes ready to post and many more interviews lined up.

Thompson need funds to rebuild his website, thecommentarytrack.com. He also need to invest in new equipment so that I can begin doing phone interviews at an acceptable sound quality. And if there’s any money left over, he wants to explore ways to more aggressively advertise the podcast. So far it has been a labor of love. He can’t afford labors of love anymore, so he wants to find a way to make the podcast sustainable.

Any contribution is welcome. If you can’t toss any money his way – please spread the word to your friends who might want to be a part of this podcasts’ resurgence.

Monday, April 17, 2017

Sneak peak at the forthcoming Louise Brooks / Beggars of Life book

Here is a sneak peak at my new book, which is inching toward publication. Since first announced, this project has "suffered" a bit of project creep. I've added about 30 more pages, including a bit more text and a half-dozen especially rare and newly acquired images, as well as a foreword by actor and writer William Wellman, Jr.

Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film (100 pages, 15,000 words, & 50+ illustrations)
by Thomas Gladysz, with a foreword by William Wellman, Jr.

This first ever study of Beggars of Life looks at the film Oscar-winning director William Wellman thought his finest silent movie. Based on Jim Tully’s bestselling book of hobo life—and filmed by Wellman the year after he made Wings (the first film to win the Best Picture Oscar), Beggars of Life is a riveting drama about an orphan girl (screen legend Louise Brooks) who kills her abusive stepfather and flees the law. She meets a boy tramp (leading man Richard Arlen), and together they ride the rails through a dangerous hobo underground ruled over by Oklahoma Red (future Oscar winner Wallace Beery). Beggars of Life showcases Brooks in her best American silent—a film the Cleveland Plain Dealer described as “a raw, sometimes bleeding slice of life.”

FRONT COVER

BACK COVER


Thursday, April 13, 2017

Louise Brooks inspired Lulu Soda Pop

Ray Ryan tweeted this snapshot of Lulu soda pop. It sure seems Louise Brooks inspired to me, though the image seems a little Betty Boop!


That pic led me to do a google image search on Lulu soda pop, and here's what I found. Seemingly, Lulu soda comes from Mexico or Latin America. And it may be vintage. Anyone know more about it?





Tuesday, April 11, 2017

New book: Lulu in New York and Other Tales

A forthcoming book, Lulu in New York and Other Tales, has more than a little connection to Louise Brooks. The book, by Robert Power and featuring paintings by Max Ferguson, features an image of the actress on the cover.

From the publisher: "American Artist Max Ferguson’s paintings often feature solitary figures, brooding atmospheres, and urban landscapes whose narrative and cinematic qualities hint at hidden stories, secrets, and conversations waiting to happen. Writer Robert Power’s fiction of longing and resolution, alienation and loving, provide the perfect voice to give life to Ferguson’s mysterious paintings. Lulu in New York and Other Tales brings their work together in a unique collaboration.

Lulu in New York and Other Tales presents an exquisite and beautifully crafted volume of sixty stories from Power, inspired by paintings from throughout Ferguson’s career. Some of the pictures, like Chess Players and Interiors lend themselves to whimsical or heart-rending conversations. Others, such as Woman in Bath, Subway, and Billy’s Topless have violence and menace simmering at their core. Other paintings that inspire tales of reflection, reminiscing on love both lost and found.

Binding Ferguson’s paintings and Power’s storytelling together is a shared appreciation of the nuances, agonies and ecstasies, complexities and delicacies, of the human condition. The result is a lushly produced book that is at once powerful and beautiful, and will appeal to both art and short story lovers."

Max Ferguson is an American artist best known for his realistic paintings of vanishing urban scenes in and around New York City.  His work has been widely exhibited in such venues as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum. Robert Power lives in Melbourne. His other books include Meatloaf in Manhattan and Tidetown.

Lulu in New York and Other Tales is due out in July, though there will be an earlier release party in New York City in May at the famous Strand bookstore.

LULU IN NEW YORK AND OTHER TALES
Wednesday, May 24th  
6:30 - 9:30 pm

828 Broadway
New York
                                 

In conjunction with the book launch, 
there will be an exhibition of  Max Ferguson paintings.

SOLO EXHIBTION

May 4 - May 27

37 West 57th Street
New York
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