Thursday, March 1, 2018

Some Polish movie posters from the 1920s and 1930s, part 1

I love looking around digital databases. And if those databases are located in other countries, all the better.

Recently, I returned to Polona, a digital archive from Poland which features Polish books, magazines, newspapers, and ephemera - such as movie posters. Except for the first poster shown in the first post, a 1939 poster for When You're in Love (1937), and the last poster in the last post, a 1932 poster for Prix de beaute (1930), I didn't find any other posters related to Louise Brooks career, but I did find a number of rather attractive posters promoting American films of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. (Most of the posters in this digital collection date from the 1930s, when Brooks' career was in sharp decline and her films were seldom shown in Europe.)

Interestingly, these posters are predominately typographical in design, with very few images. The best of them play with design, varying the size, color, orientation and type of font displayed. There are more than 1700 posters. Here are a few that caught my eye due to their design or the film or stars featured. Tomorrow's post will feature even more posters.

Louise Brooks had an uncredited part in When You're in Love
   


with Pandora's Box star Fritz Kortner!

a nice example of shaped text

an example of colored text





that's Bette Davis in Jezebel
and that's Renée Adorée, I think. But I can't figure out the title of the film
with Anna May Wong
Not a movie poster: "The Capital Labor Election Committee convenes on Sunday, October 26, at 11 am
in the 'Pola Negri Palace' cinema hall Pl. Theatrical pre-election meeting"

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Denver Silent Film Festival April 28 - 30

This year's annual Denver Silent Film Festival is set to take place April 28, 29, 30 in Denver, Colorado - of all places! This year's line-up of films has not yet been set, but what is known can be found below. Otherwise, find out more about the 7th annual event HERE.

The 7th Denver Silent Film Festival will open on Friday evening, April 27, 2018 with the 1927 CHICAGO. The movie tells a lurid story, based on actual events, of boozy flapper Roxy Hart (Phyllis Haver) on trial for killing her gangster lover (Eugene Pallette), and defended by her (temporarily) moral husband and a thoroughly dishonest lawyer.  It's a corrupt world -- and a delicious film. (I've seen it, and it's true, it is a riotously enjoyable movies.)


The 2018 David Shepard Career Achievement Award Recipient

The Denver Silent Film Festival's David Shepard Career Achievement Award for 2018 will go to Russell Merritt, who teaches film studies at the University of California-Berkeley. Russell Merritt has co-written (with J.B. Kaufman) two books on Walt Disney’s early films – the award-winning Walt in Wonderland (1993) and Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies (2016). He has also authored articles on D.W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein, animation, Sherlock Holmes, color aesthetics, and early film.  Merritt produces and directs the Great Nickelodeon Show, a recreation of a turn-of-the-century nickelodeon program which has played at the Telluride Film Festival, The TCM Classic Film Festival, Il Giornate del Cinema Muto, the Los Angeles Film Festival, The Pacific Film Archive, and assorted university campuses. (I'm acquainted with Russell Merritt. He is a fine fellow, and a bit of a Louise Brooks fan to boot.)

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Dance With Me. Nouvelle Vague, Louise Brooks & Anna Karina

Here is something cool I found on YouTube, the song "Dance With Me" by Nouvelle Vague put to video clips of GW Pabst's Tagebuch einer Verlorenen or Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) and Jean-Luc Godard's Bande à part or Band of Outsiders (1964).


And for fun, here is an another video remix of the Nouvelle Vague song and actress Anna Karina in Godard's film. As Brooks' devotees know, Karina has long been associated with Brooks. There are other video remixes of the Nouvelle Vague song out there as well. These two caught my attention.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Crowdsource question: Help identify the Tango artist in the Louise Brooks' film Prix de beaute

Can you help identify the musical artist/band seen in the Louise Brooks' film Prix de beaute (1930). They are shown in this brief film clip, with the small musical group entering the scene around the 50 second mark.

Friday, February 23, 2018

Louise Brooks seminar at Kansas State University on Feb 24

Announcing an important event: "Spotlighting Louise Brooks: From the Kansas Prairie to the German Silver Screen"

The German Program in the Department of Modern Languages is proud to present: "Spotlighting Louise Brooks: From the Kansas Prairie to the German Silver Screen" on Saturday, February 24th, from 10am-4pm.

This event is free, open to all, and appropriate for all ages. It will take place on the K-State campus in Justin Hall, room 109. Free parking is available in the lot behind the building.

Throughout the day, participants will examine the unique role Louise Brooks, a silent film star and native Kansan, had in shaping ideas about women’s roles in society through her work in silent film, particularly in Weimar Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.

 Please contact Nichole Neuman (nneuman@ksu.edu) with any questions. Principal funding for this program is provided by the Kansas Humanities Council, a nonprofit cultural organization connecting communities with history, traditions, and ideas to strengthen civic life. Additional funding provided by DOW Center for Multicultural and Community Studies at K-State Libraries.

 Event schedule:

    10:00-10:45: Welcome and presentation of silent student films

    11:00-1:30: Diary of a Lost Girl (GW Pabst, 1929) with live accompaniment by Matthew De Gennaro and a reception with light hors d'oeuvres to follow

    1:30-2:15: Moderated panel 2:30-4:00: Talk and Q+A session with Dr. Richard McCormick (University of Minnesota)
----- 

Want to  learn more about Louise Brooks and Diary of a Lost Girl? Check out this 2010 Louise Brooks Society publication, the "Louise Brooks edition" of The Diary of a Lost Girl, available wherever fine books are sold. Not long after this book was published, noted UK scholar Elizabeth Boa (University of Nottingham) said "It was such a pleasure to come upon your well documented and beautifully presented edition. "

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

News about Pamela Hutchinson's Book on the Louise Brooks' Film, Pandora's Box

Speaking of Pandora's Box (see yesterday's post about the film's upcoming showing in Paris, which we were alerted to by the one-and-only Pamela Hutchinson).... there is a new book out on the film from BFI Film Classics. The book, by the same Pamela Hutchinson, is highly recommended.

I read it and loved it. This book is smart, detailed, incisive, and gracefully written. And at 106 pages, it is a quick, enjoyable read. And a must have for every Louise Brooks devotee, not to mention anyone interested in early German film.

If you haven't already gotten a copy, do so today. Follow THIS LINK to order a copy. And after you've read it, be sure and leave a review. That's important in getting the word out about the things we care about: authors, silent film, and anything to do with Louise Brooks needs your support. (If you can't afford a copy, why not ask your local library to acquire a copy. Many local libraries have "suggest a purchase" forms.)

If you hang out on the silent film and Louise Brooks groups on Facebook, then you may recognize the author's name. She is the Editor of Silent London, and writes on early and silent film for the Guardian newspaper and Sight & Sound. The book has been in the news of late. Sight & Sound ran a great review of the book in its February 2018 issue by David Thompson, who called Hutchinson's book a
highly sympathetic and well researched book … a welcome and long overdue addition to the BFI Film Classics series … particularly valuable in detailing the origins of the film, how it came to be made at all and the striking personalities involved …

As this book makes very clear, rarely has the blurring of a screen role and real life been so fruitful for a creator and so tantalising for the audience.

Pamela was also a recent guest on the Nitrateville Radio podcast. She chatted about Pandora's Box, both the film and her new book. It is well worth listening to. Check it out below.



Have you ordered your copy? The book is available on amazon UK, USA and around the world) as well as where ever better books are sold.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Pandora's Box (LouLou) starring Louise Brooks screens in Paris on March 11

Pandora's Box (under the title LouLou) will be shown in Paris, France on March 11 in a special event put on by La cinémathèque française. More information about this event can be found HERE. The French language information about the vent is presented below, followed by a Google translation.


Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Allemagne / 1929 / 134 min
D'après Die Büchse der Pandora et Erdgeist de Frank Wedekind.

Avec Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Franz Lederer, Alice Roberts.

Loulou, orpheline perverse et manipulatrice, devient la maîtresse d'un directeur de journal, le docteur Schön, mais son autre amant voudrait qu'elle soit à lui seul. [Loulou, a perverted and manipulative orphan, becomes the mistress of a newspaper editor, Dr. Schön, but her other lover wants her to be alone.]
Version restaurée en 2009 par la Deutsche Kinemathek (Berlin) et la George Eastman House (Rochester) aux laboratoires Haghefilm. Numérisation par la Deutsche Kinemathek. Ressortie en salles par Tamasa à l'automne 2018. [Version restored in 2009 by Deutsche Kinemathek (Berlin) and George Eastman House (Rochester) at Haghefilm Laboratories. Digitization by the Deutsche Kinemathek. Released in theaters by Tamasa in autumn 2018.]

La Cinémathèque française et le Red Bull Studios Paris proposent une performance unique autour du film, dont la musique sera jouée en direct par la musicienne française Irène Dresel. [The Cinémathèque française and the Red Bull Studios Paris offer a unique performance around the film, whose music will be played live by the French musician Irène Dresel.]



Avec Loulou, Georg Wilhelm Pabst adapte L’Esprit de la terre et La Boîte de Pandore, deux pièces écrites par Frank Wedekind, toutes deux inspirées de sa rencontre douloureuse avec Lou-Andreas Salomé. De ces récits, toutefois, Pabst ne conservera qu’un souvenir lointain. Grand découvreur d’actrices (il donne, en 1925, l’un de ses premiers grands rôles à Greta Garbo dans La Rue sans joie), Pabst songe d’abord pour incarner Loulou à Marlene Dietrich, qui a déjà gagné une certaine notoriété en Allemagne. Il lui préfère finalement une actrice américaine de vingt-deux ans au jeu très physique, découverte dans Une Femme dans chaque port de Howard Hawks (1928) : Louise Brooks. [With Loulou , Georg Wilhelm Pabst adapts The Spirit of the Earth and The Pandora's Box , two pieces written by Frank Wedekind, both inspired by his painful encounter with Lou-Andreas Salomé. From these stories, however, Pabst will only keep a distant memory. Big discoverer of actresses (he gives, in 1925, one of his first great roles in Greta Garbo in Joyless Street), Pabst thinks first to embody Loulou to Marlene Dietrich, who has already gained some notoriety in Germany. He finally prefers a twenty-two-year-old American actress in the very physical game, discovered in A Girl in Every Port of Howard Hawks (1928): Louise Brooks.]

De Pabst, Brooks disait qu’il connaissait les réactions humaines comme personne. Il pouvait ainsi tourner « une scène avec peu de répétitions et de prises ». Cette faculté lui permet de façonner le jeu naturaliste et déconcertant de Loulou. Le metteur en scène et l’actrice travailleront beaucoup à partir des costumes du personnage qui jalonnent la tragédie : tenue de cabaret, déshabillés, robe de mariée, vêtements de veuve ou haillons – autant de tenues qui nourrissent le jeu de l’actrice, et marquent les étapes de la chute du personnage. [ From Pabst, Brooks said he knew human reactions as a person. He could thus shoot "a scene with few repetitions and shots". This faculty allows him to shape the naturalistic and disconcerting game of Loulou. The director and the actress will work a lot from the costumes of the character who punctuate the tragedy: cabaret outfit, stripped naked, wedding dress, widow clothes or rags - all outfits that nourish the actress's game, and mark the stages of the fall of the character. ]

Si Loulou s’offre aux hommes, elle reste insaisissable. Profondément amorale, il émane d’elle une innocence inaliénable. Elle évolue toujours libre, intacte et candide. Pourtant, Loulou est aussi un conte moral. Dans ses aspirations libertaires et son allant, la jeune femme se heurte à la société, à ses jeux de fausseté, de trahisons et d’humiliations. Loulou est le dévoilement cruel de l’abjection sociale qui dicte bien des aspects de la vie de l’héroïne : carrière, amours, mariage, justice, jeux ou prédation. [ If Loulou offers herself to men, she remains elusive. Deeply amoral, it emanates from her an inalienable innocence. She evolves always free, intact and candid. Yet, Loulouis also a moral tale. In her libertarian aspirations and her going, the young woman comes up against society, its games of falsehood, betrayal and humiliation. Loulou is the cruel disclosure of social abjection that dictates many aspects of the heroine's life: career, love, marriage, justice, games or predation. ]

Pauline de Raymond

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