Some Miscellaneous Images from the Jazz Age

Recently, I was looking through an online magazine archive and came across a handful of interesting, appealing and and novel images. And here they are -- a small gathering of miscellaneous images from the 1920s and 1930s ....

 

 

It's the Old Army Game announced for release on DVD / Blu-ray

It's the Old Army Game, the delightful 1926 comedy starring W.C. Fields and Louise Brooks, has been announced for release on DVD / Blu-ray by Kino Lorber.

The film was directed by A. Edward Sutherland, who was known as Eddie Sutherland. Brooks and Sutherland met during the making of the film (which was in production during February 1926). They were married in June, 1926 and divorced a couple of years a later.

From Kino: "It’s the Old Army Game (1926) is an uproarious silent comedy in which the inimitable W.C. Fields finds it impossible to get some sleep. It was the fourth film in which Fields appeared, but the first over which he had some control, as it was adapted from his own stage play. Co-starring Louise Brooks (also in her fourth feature), and directed with verve by A. Edward Sutherland, It’s the Old Army Game is a non-stop comedy of errors. Fields plays Elmer Prettywillie, a druggist kept awake by clamorous garbage collectors, a nosy woman seeking a 2-cent stamp, bogus land deals, and phony fortunes."


DVD Extras Include:

Mastered in 2K from 35mm film elements preserved by The Library of Congress
Audio commentary by film historian James L. Neibaur, author of THE W.C. FIELDS FILMS
New score by Ben Model

Some Trivia from the Louise Brooks Society:

It’s the Old Army Game was originally announced as starring Fields and future “It girl” Clara Bow, but as she was shooting Mantrap (1926),  the female lead fell to Brooks. Clarence Badger was originally assigned to directed the film.

The film features the popular stage actress Blanche Ring (1871 – 1961) in one of her few film appearances. Ring was Eddie Sutherland’s aunt. Ring’s sister was Frances Ring, who was married to Thomas Meighan, a popular stage and film actor who appeared with Brooks in The City Gone Wild (1927). Blanche Ring was married four times, the last time being to Charles Winninger, a popular character actor who appeared in God’s Gift to Women (1931) with Brooks.

Outdoor scenes in Palm Beach, Florida were shot at El Mirasol, the estate of multi-millionaire investment banker Edward T. Stotesbury. In 1912, after having been a widower for thirty-some years, Stotesbury remarried and became the stepfather of three children including Henrietta Louise Cromwell Brooks (known simply as Louise Brooks), an American socialite and the first wife of the war hero General Douglas MacArthur. In her heyday, she was “considered one of Washington’s most beautiful and attractive young women”. Because of their names, the two women were sometimes confused in the press.

It’s the Old Army Game received mostly positive reviews, though some critics noted its rather thin plot. Algonquin Round Table playwright Robert E. Sherwood (who would go on to win four Pulitzer Prizes and an Academy Award) was then writing reviews for Life magazine. His pithy critique read, “Mr. Fields has to carry the entire production on his shoulders, with some slight assistance from the sparkling Louise Brooks.”

Louise Brooks is not from these parts, by Luca Spagnoletti

I don't know what it's about (except that it is a novel), or if it has much of anything to do with our Miss Brooks, but there is a new book out in Italy called Louise Brooks non è di queste parti (Louise Brooks is not from these parts). It is authored by Luca Spagnoletti, and was issued by ilmiolibro self publishing. The book is 140 pages, and is available as an e-book and on amazon Italy and at the store Feltrinelli.

Here is an image of the front and back covers.

And here is a page from the publisher, with a description of the book very roughly translated into English:

A veteran, after World War II, looking for his ex-girlfriend, Zoe Lennie. But where is Zoe now, and above all who is she really? The rebellious and apathetic that the mother encouraged to conform, in New England in the early forties or the one that, wandering in a country that is changing face, makes existential questions that nobody seems to be able to - and want to - respond? The author tells us, without pretense, of this oscillating traveler and his "strange" friends, between realism and madness. With her sad look, her jaunty haircut, which makes her look so much like a diva of silent cinema, Zoe will accompany us in her resignation, until she sees that there is a present with which to cohabit, beyond the consolation of the memories and time that often betrays. A novel without concessions, ostentatiously out of fashion: that's why it's already a classic. By Luca Spagnoletti my book has published the collections of poems Lulù of the overhangs and Biancaneve at the Excelsior.

Beggars of Life, starring Louise Brooks, screens May 18th at Yorkshire Silent Film Festival (UK)

On May 18, the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival in Scarborough, England will screen the now classic 1928 Louise Brooks' film, Beggars of Life. More information about this event can be found HERE.

The Festival describes the film thus: "In this rarely-seen Hollywood classic, the great Louise Brooks stars as a train-hopping hobo who disguises herself as a boy and goes on the run. With dramatic American landscapes, a lyrical love story, and a daring, desperate final scene atop a speeding train, this is classic silent film entertainment."

Want to learn more about the film? Last Spring saw the release of my new book, Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film, and this past Summer saw the release of a new DVD / Blu-ray of the film from Kino Lorber. If you haven't secured your own copy of either the book or the DVD / Blu-ray, why not do so today? The book is also available on amazon.com in the UK at this link.

Louise Brooks adorns the cover of new edition of The Photoplay by Hugo Munsterberg

Louise Brooks adorns the cover of a new edition of The Photoplay by Hugo Münsterberg, as published by Duke Classics. First published more than 100 years ago, this early work of film theory is in the public domain and has been reprinted and reissued many times (and sometimes under slightly different titles) over the years. This is one of the latest editions. (Other notable actresses have also appeared on the cover of earlier editions.)

"In 1916, an eminent psychologist recorded his impressions of the fledgling film industry. His penetrating and prescient observations foretold the most modern developments of the cinematic art, and his classic survey, The Photoplay: A Psychological Study, remains a text of enduring relevance to movie historians as well as students of film and psychology.

Ranging from considerations of the viewer's perception of on-screen depth and motion to examinations of the cinema's distinguishing and unique characteristics as an art form, this study arrives at strikingly modern conclusions about movies and their psychological values."

Louise Brooks and Volker Kutscher’s Babylon Berlin (the book and the TV series)

Volker Kutscher’s bestselling work of crime fiction, Babylon Berlin, has just been published in the United States by Picador. The book was an instant hit in Germany. Part of a mutli-book series, it was awarded the Berlin Krimi-Fuchs Crime Writers Prize in 2011, and has sold more than one million copies worldwide.

Its American cover (seen here) is nearly identical to the English edition: both feature an image of the iconic Louise Brooks.

This book is the basis for the popular European TV series Babylon Berlin produced by Sky TV which has just debuted yesterday in the United States on Netflix (with subtitles). Vogue magazine calls it "the most bingeable new drama since The Crown."

National Public Radio ran a good piece on the show, "Germany's 'Babylon Berlin' Crime Series Is Like 'Cabaret' On Cocaine," which concludes "Babylon Berlin captures the dark glamour of a briefly exhilarating time between the wars. And for today's Berliners — faced with the city's steady, sterile gentrification — the show offers a welcome dose of escapism." Listen to the NPR piece below:

According to the publisher, "Babylon Berlin is the first book in the international-bestselling series from Volker Kutscher that centers on Detective Gereon Rath caught up in a web of drugs, sex, political intrigue, and murder in Berlin as Germany teeters on the edge of Nazism."

And according to the sometimes reliable Kirkus Reviews, the books has been "been wildly popular in Germany ... an excellent police procedural that cleverly captures the dark and dangerous period of the Weimar Republic before it slides into the ultimate evil of Nazism." Likewise, Publishers Weekly stated, "James Ellroy fans will welcome Kutscher’s first novel and series launch, a fast-paced blend of murder and corruption sent in 1929 Berlin. Kutscher keeps the surprises coming and doesn't flinch at making his lead morally compromised." The Sunday Times (London) concurred, stating the book “Conjures up the dangerous decadence of the Weimar years, with blood on the Berlin streets and the Nazis lurking menacingly in the wings.”

Writer Paul French, who I had the pleasure of meeting a few years back when he was touring for Midnight in Peking, has written a piece on LitHub titled, "How a German Detective Series Becomes an International Hit." It sums up the phenomenon that the books and TV series has become in Europe and as it might become in America (a la Philip Kerr, Joseph Kanon and Alan Furst). Give it a read.

So, you may ask, what has all this got to do with Louise Brooks? Very little, I am afraid, except that the story begins in 1929 and the actress - an icon of Weimar German cinema through her roles in two 1929 G.W. Pabst films, Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl - adorns the cover of this bestselling book and no doubt helped propel at least a few sales. Eugene R. Richee's iconic portrait of Brooks also lends a bit of atmosphere.

And, as Paul French explains in his LitHub piece, the American publisher knew they had a good thing keeping the Brooks cover, published in Scotland by Sandstone. "It’s also a tribute to Davidson’s clever marketing that Morrison has opted to stick with the cover Sandstone commissioned from Brighton-based designer Mark Swann. It’s a cover redolent of the period and the contents and has proved to be a great favorite of bookshop window decorators the length and breadth of the British Isles."

Below is a musical video derived from the television series which gives a sense of what this stylish show has to offer.