A cinephilac blog about an actress, silent film, and the Jazz Age, with occasional posts about related books, music, art, and history written by Thomas Gladysz. Visit the Louise Brooks Society™ at www.pandorasbox.com
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This year's annual Toronto Silent Film Festival is set to take place April 6 - 9. Further information, including the line-up of films and ticket availability, can be found HERE.
Their spotlight on Women in Film this year focuses on Producer (Asta
Nielsen for Hamlet); Director (Lois Weber for Sensation Seekers);
and Comedians (the criminally under seen Louise Fazenda, Alice Howell, Mabel
Normand, Anita Garvin & Marion Byron).
As a follow-up to the just concluded 4 part series of posts featuring
Polish film posters of the 1920s and 1930s, and as a nod to the
forthcoming Polish Film Festival in London which is about to take place (I wish I could be there), I present this Louise Brooks Society blog post from 2010 titled "Discovering a Polish Lulu."
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For those interested in European film history, in silent film, and in Louise Brooks - Marek Haltof’s Polish National Cinema (Berghahn Books) offers a little something for everyone. Haltof’s 300-page survey is the first comprehensive English-language study of Polish filmmaking and film culture from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 21st century. It’s also a groundbreaking work well worth checking out - whatever your interst.
The book's first two chapters, “Polish Cinema before the Introduction of Sound” and “The Sound Period of the 1930s,” are each fascinating and detailed accounts of the origins and development of the Polish cinema.
Buffeted as it was between Germany and Russia and by the more dominant film industry’s found in each of those countries, Polish cinema was, naturally, influenced by its neighbors. German and Russian as well as French and American films all showed in Poland – and each left their mark. It’s known, for example, that at least a few of Louise Brooks’ American silent films as well as her German-made movies were shown in Warsaw – the capitol of both Poland and the Polish film industry.
For example, Pandora’s Box, retitled Lulu, opened at the Casino Theater in Warsaw at the end of May, 1929. It ran for a few weeks, and was well received. In my research, I have been able to track down the Polish newspaper reviews and advertisements for that historic screening.
One striking example given by Haltof of the German influence on Polish cinema is noted in the book’s second chapter, on the films of the 1930s.
Haltof writes, “The treatment of women in Polish melodramas oscillates between presenting them as femme fatales in the tradition of Pola Negri’s silent features made for the Sfinks company, and as vulnerable figures at the mercy of the environment. The former representation, which is not very popular in Polish cinema, can be seen in Zabawka (The Toy, 1933), directed by Michal Waszynski. The title refers to the female protagonist Lulu (Alma Kar), a Warsaw cabaret star, who is invited to a country manor by a wealthy landowner. The landowner’s son and local Don Juan both fall in love with Lulu and pay for it. The name of the protagonist and the theme of the film suggest G.W. Pabst’s influence (Louise Brooks as Lulu in Pandora’s Box, 1929), and this inspiration has been emphasized by one of the scriptwriters of the film.” Pictured here is Alma Kar as Lulu in Zabawka.
Haltof, a Polish-born scholar, is now resident in the United States where he teaches Film in the English Department at Northern Michigan University. Via email, he confirmed the influence of one film on the other. He also supplied a photocopy of a page from a hard-to-find Polish work, Historia filmu polskiego (1988), which he cites in his own book. It quotes coscriptwriter Andrzej Tomakowski on the influence of Pandora’s Box on Zabawka.
A viewing of Zabawka itself confirms the influence (see video clip below - the entire film resides, in parts, on YouTube). The character, played by the charming Alma Kar, is named Lulu and is like Pabst’s version of Lulu a showgirl desired by many (including a Father and his son) with disastrous results. In one early scene, this Polish Lulu is surrounded by a line of chorus girls each wearing a sharp bob haircut just like that worn by Brooks in Pandora’s Box – except each of these Polish chorines are blonde!
Marek Haltof’s Polish National Cinema was first published in 2002, and was reprinted in softcover in 2008 by Berghahn Books. It is available online and at select independent bookstores.
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.
This Sonja Henie poster displays a sleek design
Daughter of Shanghai (1937)
the French actress Simone Simon can be heard on RadioLulu
Madame Sans-Gêne (1925), starring Gloria Swanson
a religious film
Elmo Lincoln was the first Tarzan; this poster promotes a later western called All Around Frying Pan (1925)
from the Jules Verne novel Michael Strogoff
Laurel and Hardy
King Vidor's The Champ (1931) starred Wallace Beery
a 1932 poster for the 1930 Louise Brooks' film Prix de beaute
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, 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.
Mazurka, starring the Polish born Pola Negri
Shadow of Sherlock Holmes ?
Love Me and the World Is Mine (1927)
Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler
Faust, with Emil Jannings and Camilla Horn (the first silent film I ever saw on TV)
this 1927 poster says that this military cinema in Dęblin was showing a German film
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.
King Kong, with Fay Wray (who I once had the pleasure to meet)
Monsieur Beaucaire, starring Rudolph Valentino
Monsieur Beaucaire as Mr Beaucaire
Buck Jones, in a "sensational film"
Had to include this because I'm reading the Miriam Hopkins bio by Allen Ellenberger, and loving it!
An odd pair: Heidi, with Shirley Temple, and La Grande Illusion, with Erich von Stroheim
My Man Godfrey, one of my favorite films, starring Carole Lombard and William Powell
Charlie Chaplin, in The Gold Rush
Buster Keaton, in Doughboys
Charlie Chan in Honolulu
Last of the Mochicans
an example of a dual language poster, in Polish and Yiddish