Louise Brooks' film, Beggars of Life, shows in Boulder, CO in August

Beggars of Life, the sensational 1928 William Wellman directed film starring Louise Brooks, will be shown in Boulder, Colorado on August 15 with live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. More information can be found HERE.

"An American silent film classic, Beggars of Life (1928) stars Louise Brooks as a train-hopping hobo who disguises herself as a boy to survive. After escaping her violent stepfather, she befriends a kindly drifter (Richard Arlen). They ride the rails together to escape the police and reach Canada, until their fateful encounter with blustery Oklahoma Red (Wallace Beery) and his rambunctious band of hoboes. What happens is an incredibly cinematic event of daring and desperate conflict – atop a moving train. Based on the memoir of real-life hobo Jim Tully, and directed with adventuresome verve by William Wellman, Beggars of Life is a must-see."

Total running time: 100 minutes

Want to learn more about the film?  

Last Spring saw the release of my well reviewed 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. (The DVD features a commentary by your's truly, Thomas Gladysz, as well as an outstanding musical score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.) If you haven't secured your own copy of either the book or the DVD / Blu-ray, why not do so today? Each is available on amazon.com. And each is an essential addition to your Louise Brooks collection.

Book review: Two film books about the bad old Pre-code days

Here is a short write up about two recent books on Pre-code film, an endlessly fascinating period in American film history. The two books are Sex In the Cinema: The Pre-Code Years (1929-1934)
by Lou Sabini, and Hollywood’s Pre-Code Horrors 1931-1934 by Raymond Valinoti Jr. Both were published by Bear Manor Media. [The only one of Brooks film's which would count as Pre-code is the less than racy God's Gift to Women (1931), directed by Michael Curtiz.]

As right-wing conservatives try to push the country back to a time which never really existed, it’s worth noting that mainstream movies of their grandparent’s era were nearly as lurid as movies today. These two worthwhile titles shine a spotlight on the pre-code era, when gangster films, horror films, and social problem films depicted sex, violence, and drugs with pointed honesty and stylistic flair.

Among the many movies under consideration are I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) and Call Her Savage (1932), as well as Freaks (1932), Frankenstein (1931), and Dracula (1931). The most jaw dropping of them all may be Baby Face (1933), starring Barbara Stanwyck. It’s a Nietzschean use-or-be-used story of an attractive young woman who climbs the ladder of success by using sex to advance her social status. The reaction to it and other films like it was the enforcement of the Production Code, a set of guidelines which restricted Hollywood filmmakers in what they could show or even suggest. Call it censorship or self-censorship, the Production Code reigned until the late 1960s, when the MPAA film rating system we know today took effect. Sabini’s and Valinoti’s books survey the time when strong female characters, miscegenation, profanity, promiscuity, abortion, homosexuality and other taboos were once seen on the screen.

Sex In the Cinema: The Pre-Code Years (1929-1934)
Lou Sabini

From the publisher: "Hollywood movies in the 1920s depicted sex, violence, and alcohol and drug abuse with freewheeling abandon, but filmmaking freedom halted with the mysterious murder of director William Desmond Taylor, the drug death of writer-director-actor Wallace Reid, and the rape trials of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Hollywood had to choose self-censorship or face the moral indignation of the law. They chose to manage movie madcaps themselves. Will H. Hays, President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945, prescribed the Production Code in 1930 and began strictly enforcing it in 1934. The Production Code spelled out a set of moral guidelines that were popularly known as the Hays Code. For decades, moviemaking was never the same. Rediscover 107 spicy films from the Pre-code era, including Stolen Heaven (1931), The Night of June 13th (1932), Three on a Match (1932), Red-Headed Woman (1932), Call Her Savage (1932), This Reckless Age (1932), Young Bride (1932), Panama Flo (1932), and Baby Face (1933)."

Hollywood’s Pre-Code Horrors 1931-1934
Raymond Valinoti Jr.

From the publisher: "In the first few years of the Great Depression, before the Production Code was rigidly enforced in 1934, Hollywood took advantage of its laxity, producing racy and violent films that titillated film goers and outraged reformers. The American horror genre blossomed during this time and the studios exploited its lurid possibilities. The results were both shocking and controversial. Some of these films remain unsettling today. Hollywood's Pre-Code Horrors 1931-1934 appraises all of these films, from Dracula (1931), which spearheaded the American horror market, to The Black Cat (1934), the last chiller released before the strengthening of the Code. Each film is thoroughly analyzed, not only in its insinuations and/or portrayals of sex and violence, but in the context of the era in which it was made and the reactions of critics and film goers during this time."

Pandora's Box (under the title LouLou) shows in Paris tomorrow, 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

A couple of rather odd Louise Brooks related videos found on YouTube, including a singing shirt

Here they are, a couple of rather odd Louise Brooks related videos which I recently came across on YouTube, including a singing shirt, seen below, and a quirky song, which follows. I like the song by the Tombstone Teeth well enough, but don't know what to think of the shirt short.

And there is this music video, which is odd in a different way.

Louise Brooks Society on Twitter @LB_Society

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Toronto Silent Film Festival set for April 6 - 9

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).