Friday, November 9, 2018

Louise Brooks' film Diary of a Lost Girl to screen at New York Public Library

The sensational 1929 Louise Brooks' film, The Diary of a Lost Girl, will be shown at the New York Public Library on Sunday, November 25th at 2:00 pm. This special event is part of a two-part series called "Silent Sirens on Sundays!" More information can be found HERE.

Silent Sirens: Olive Thomas and Louise Brooks
Writer and producer Michele Gouveia will introduce both films. 
Presented in the first floor Willa Cather Community Room, NYPL.
All events are free and open to the public.
 
The Flapper, Sunday, November 11 at 2:00 pm

The Flapper (1920), directed by Alan Crosland, tells the story of Ginger King (Olive Thomas), a bored schoolgirl who dreams of romantic adventures. In an attempt to become more sophisticated, she unwittingly gets mixed up with some crooks who entrust her with stolen jewels. When they come after her, she realizes that she must forget her childish dreams and save the day.

Olive Thomas (1894-1920) was a model and Follies girl who was named the most beautiful girl in New York City. She made her screen debut in 1916 in the serial Beatrix Fairfax and would go on to make 22 films before her untimely death at the age of 25. The Flapper, one of her biggest films, marked the first time the term “flapper” was used in an American film.


Diary of a Lost Girl , Sunday, November 25 at 2:00 pm

Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), directed by G.W. Pabst, tells the story of Thymian Henning (Louise Brooks), a naïve young girl who after getting pregnant by her father’s assistant, is sent by her family to a repressive reform school from which she eventually escapes. Penniless and homeless, she winds up in a brothel where she lives for the moment with physical abandon.

Louise Brooks (1906-1985), the girl with the black bob, was a dancer and actress who after making a string of films in Hollywood gave it all up to go to Germany and play the lead in G. W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box (1928). After living in obscurity for years, film historians rediscovered Brooks’ films in the 1950s, and she was proclaimed a film icon.




Diary of a Lost Girl is based on a controversial and bestselling book first published in Germany in 1905. Though little known today, it was a literary sensation at the beginning of the 20th century. By the end of the 1920s, it had been translated into 14 languages and sold more than 1,200,000 copies - ranking it among the bestselling books of its time.

Was it - as many believed - the real-life diary of a young woman forced by circumstance into a life of prostitution? Or a sensational and clever fake, one of the first novels of its kind? This contested work - a work of unusual historical significance as well as literary sophistication - inspired a sequel, a play, a parody, a score of imitators, and two silent films. The best remembered of these is the G.W. Pabst film starring Louise Brooks.

In 2010, the Louise Brooks Society published a corrected and annotated edition of the original English language translation, bringing this important book back into print in the United States after more than 100 years. It includes an introduction by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society, detailing the book's remarkable history and relationship to the 1929 silent film. This special "Louise Brooks Edition" also includes more than three dozen vintage illustrations and is available through amazon.com


In 2015, Kino Lorber released the best available print of the film on DVD and Blu-ray. This recommended release features an audio commentary by Thomas Gladysz. Like the book, the film is also available through amazon.com

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Frank Buxton Silent Film Festival to feature two Louise Brooks films on November 17

Thomas Gladysz and Frank Buxton
The Frank Buxton Silent Film Festival, a two-day celebration of silent film, is scheduled to show two seldom exhibited Louise Brooks' films, It’s the Old Army Game (1926), and the surviving fragment of Now We’re in the Air (1927). For the latter film, the event marks the film's first screening in the Pacific Northwest in nearly 90 years!

According to it's website, the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art in Bainbridge, Washington is proud to present the debut of the Frank Buxton Silent Film Festival, a two-day cinematic excursion exploring the pleasures, history and lost art of American silent film.

The Festival is a tribute to the late Frank Buxton (1930-2018), a local resident and longtime champion, advocate and appreciator of the arts. Programming for the Festival was curated by Frank's friend and program collaborator John Ellis in partnership with the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. More information HERE.

WEEKEND PROGRAM

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2018

- 6:30 pm - Opening Party
Visiting artists, guests and weekend pass holders enjoy a pre-screening reception with food and refreshment in the Museums First Floor Gallery

- 7:30 pm - Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929)Original score from Erin O'Hara

The Buxton Silent Film festival kicks off with a rare screening of Alfred Hitchcock's silent version of Blackmail, one of his earliest and most atmospheric films. The dark drama is orchestrated by Erin O'Hara, who created the entire score from the point of view of Alice, Anny Ondres character who murders her would be rapist with a bread knife. With an ensemble of electric and acoustic instruments and voices, O'Hara expresses the interior voice of heroine Alice, as she navigates her way through a journey of assault, survival and the murky search for justice. One reviewer said, Her soundtrack is both a signal contribution to Hitchcock's art and a bold rejoinder to it.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2018

- 10 am - Classic Comedy ShortsMusical accompaniment by Miles and Karina (David Miles Keenan and Nova Karina Devonie)
Featured films:
  • One Week (1920) with Buster Keaton
  • The Immigrant (1917) with Charlie Chaplin
  • Battle of the Century (1927) from Laurel & Hardy
- 2:00 pm - Louise Brooks TributeMusical accompaniment by Miles and Karina (David Miles Keenan and Nova Karina Devonie)
Featured films:


- 7:30 pm - The Unknown starring Lon Chaney (1927)
Original Score composed and performed live by Jovino Santos Neto Quarteto
The Unknown is an American silent horror film directed by Tod Browning, a story of yearning, frustration, resentment and betrayal. Lon Chaney stars as carnival knife thrower Alonzo the Armless and Joan Crawford is the scantily clad carnival girl he hopes to marry. The film is brought to life by a live score composed and performed by Jovino Santos Neto Quinteto, a five-piece local jazz ensemble led by Brazilian jazz pianist Jovino Santos Neto. Neto offers a fresh take on the musical conventions of silent film accompaniment. Instead, he mines the deep, dark melancholy conveyed by the actors' facial expressions to create a 50-minute suite that blends sounds, textures and improv from vibraphone, bandoneon, bass, drums, percussion, piano, flute, melodica and electronics. Special thanks to Seattle Theater Group. Join film-goers for a short after-party.



I knew Frank Buxton, and know that he loved silent film, comedy, and Louise Brooks! He was a many of many accomplishments in a remarkable and eclectic career. Read the obits from Variety and the Hollywood Reporter and KitSap Sun. This event, the Frank Buxton Silent Film festival, is fitting tribute. Above is a picture of Frank on stage with Buster Keaton in 1949. Frank had autographed the page in my Keaton book where this picture appeared, and pointed himself out. (Buxton was also the co-author of a classic book on early radio, The Big Broadcast.)

Frank Buxton and I kept in touch over the years, chatting about film books and our favorite stars. Not long before he died, I was able to share with him a copy of my recent book, Now We're in the Air, a Companion to the Once "Lost" Film.

Monday, October 29, 2018

Louise Brooks, Lee Israel, and Dorothy Kilgallen

The newly released film, Can You Every Forgive Me?, is getting a lot of attention. Many, if not most of the articles and reviews about the film have name-checked Louise Brooks. And just as many have name-checked Dorothy Kilgallen.

For those who haven't yet seen the film (and we recommend that you do), Can You Every Forgive Me? is a biographical drama based on Lee Israel's 2008 memoir of the same name. It stars Melissa McCarthy as Israel and follows her as she tries to revitalize her failing writing career by forging letters from deceased authors and celebrities, including Brooks. (Louise Brooks receives a shout-out in the film itself, and her portrait can be seen in the film hanging above Israel's desk.)

Dorothy Kilgallen, a popular newspaper columnist, is also mentioned because she (along with actress Talullah Bankhead) were both the subject of earlier bestselling books by Israel. Though not well remembered today, Kilgallen was a major celebrity in her time who was once called “One of the greatest women writers in the world” by Ernest Hemingway. Famed attorney F. Lee Bailey called Kilgallen “A very bright and very good reporter of criminal cases, the best there was,” and as one of the first female media icons, her accomplishments rival modern day legends like Oprah Winfrey, Barbara Walters, and Diane Sawyer.  Kilgallen also played a small but significant role in helping keep Louise Brooks' name in the public eye. (More on that below.)

Dorothy Kilgallen (July 3, 1913 – November 8, 1965) was an American journalist and television game show panelist. She started her career shortly before her 18th birthday as a reporter for the Hearst's New York Evening Journal. In 1938, she began her newspaper column "The Voice of Broadway,", which was eventually syndicated to more than 140 papers. Her radio program, also called "Voice of Broadway," was broadcast on CBS during World War II. In 1950, she became a regular panelist on the television game show What's My Line? (pictured at the end of this blog), continuing in the role for 15 years until her death. (Read more about Kilgallen on Wikipedia.)

Kilgallen's columns featured mostly show business news and gossip, but ventured into other topics, such as politics and organized crime. She wrote front-page articles on the Sam Sheppard murder trial, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy;  the latter infuriated President Lyndon Johnson and his administration. (Kilgallen was publicly skeptical of the conclusions of the Warren Commission's report into the assassination of Kennedy and wrote several newspaper articles to that effect.) Kilgallen also feuded with Frank Sinatra, and was one of four witnesses who testified for the defense of comedian Lenny Bruce during his obscenity trial in New York City.

Kilgallen has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard - in fact, she is among the first 500 people who were chosen to receive the first stars on the walk of fame. (The stars were installed on sidewalks in 1960 and 1961, several years before her passing.)




Kilgallen died in 1965, under what some consider mysterious circumstances. A 2016 book on Kilgallen by Mark Shaw, titled The Reporter Who Knew Too Much, looks at her life and death.


But what about Kilgallen and Brooks?

From a survey of Kilgallen's many, many columns, it seems that the reporter had a something of an interest in the former silent film star, as Kilgallen wrote about Brooks at a time when the former film star was well out of the public spotlight. And, she wrote about her in affectionate terms. Both were smart women trying to make their mark in a man's world; I suspect Brooks herself fed Kilgallen bits of information over time (in order to keep herself from being forgotten), and these bits ended up in Kilgallen's newspaper pieces.

I don't know that the two women ever met, but I wonder if they did.

Here are a few instances over a 23 year period of Brooks' being mentioned in Kilgallen's column. Dates are approximate, as Kilgallen's syndicated columns appeared in various newspapers on various dates. (These dates are drawn from the extensive Louise Brooks Society chronology on the Louise Brooks Society website.)

June 26, 1941
Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen writes: "Louise Brooks, the silent screen star, suffered severe burns recently. Had all her hair singed off."

Nov. 11, 1941
Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen notes Brook is "stranded in Wichita, Kan. and s-o-s-ing friends for any kind of job."

January 29, 1943
Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen writes, "Do you know that Louise Brooks, the black-haired silent cinema star, is in town looking unbelievably young and pretty and in the mood to do a show?"

August 20, 1946
Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen writes "Remember Hollywood When - Louise Brooks was a flapper siren with the Rivoli Theater in New York City."

May 31, 1952
Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen notes, "Remember a silent screen actress named Louise Brooks? She is writing an autobiographical novel which is said to be a sizzler. Several Hollywood personalities have begged her to include them out...."

Nov. 28, 1952
Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen reports Brooks will marry merchant marine Jimmy Dunn.

August 7, 1957
Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen writes "Remember Louise Brooks, the cutie-pie of the early movies? She's living in Gotham now, and has just finished a book about her life in the turbulent twenties. Those who've previewed it say it's hilarious."

August 14, 1959
Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen writes "The Museum of Modern Art's recent homage to Marlene Dietrich will be emulated by the 92nd St. YMHA when they inaugurate a similar tribute to Louise Brooks, a star of the silent screen. Miss Brooks, now in Rochester doing research for a book on famous women in cinema history, will come to Gotham for the festivities in October."

December 18, 1964
Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen writes "Louise Brooks, a cinema star of long ago (no living in Rochester N.Y.) is almost finished writing her autobiography, titled Naked on My Goat. It's reported to be 'really wild,' and quite a few Hollywood old-timers are worrying because word is around that she's naming names and pulling no punches."


Thursday, October 25, 2018

San Francisco Silent Film Festival announced

SFSFF is happy to announce the complete program for its holiday extravaganza A DAY OF SILENTS: one glorious day of live cinema on December 1 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, California with six programs, 10 musicians, and plenty of holiday cheer.

From Laurel and Hardy to Beatrice Lillie, from French Impressionism to German Expressionism, from the romanticism of Frank Borzage to the feminism of Dorothy Davenport, plus live musical accompaniment by Wayne Barker, Jon Mirsalis, Alloy Orchestra, and Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra—an all-around wonderful day is in the offing. TICKETS and PASSES on sale now!


Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were part of Hal Roach's Comedy All Stars when filmmaker Leo McCarey had an inspiration—to team them up. McCarey served as the team's supervising director in the late silent era and he and Laurel developed the classic Laurel and Hardy slow-burn style that made them stars worldwide far into the sound era. As the brilliant new film Stan & Ollie—starring Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly—prepares for an early 2019 release, it's time to check in with the comedy duo that inspired it.

The program includes THE FINISHING TOUCH (1928, d. Clyde Bruckman, Leo McCarey), LIBERTY (1929, d. James W. Horne, Leo McCarey), and BIG BUSINESS (1929, d. James W. Horne, Leo McCarey). Total running time approximately 65 minutes

Live musical accompaniment by Jon Mirsalis

Prints (35mm and DCP) from the Library of Congress and Lobster Films with permission by Jeff Joseph 


Inspired by a true story in ripped-from-the-headlines style, The Red Kimona was the third in a trilogy of social-issue dramas by actress/screenwriter/director Dorothy Davenport. The story of a small-town teacher lured into prostitution was adapted for the screen by Dorothy Arzner from Adela Rogers St. John’s sensational story, and produced and co-directed by Davenport (as Mrs. Wallace Reid). Gabrielle (Priscilla Bonner) is a young naïf who’s swept off her feet by a Lothario, who abandons her in New Orlean’s red-light district. When she sees him buying an engagement ring for another woman, she shoots him dead. At trial Gabrielle becomes a cause celebre—and the pawn of a self-aggrandizing socialite.

USA, 1925. Directed by Walter Lang and Dorothy Davenport. With Priscilla Bonner, Nellie Bly Baker, Carl Miller, Mary Carr, Virginia Pearson, and Tyrone Power Sr.

Live musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra Print (DCP) courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive. The film is part of Kino Lorber’s Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers collection. Preservation was funded by The Stanford Foundation, George Eastman Museum, and UCLA Film & Television Archive
 

One of legendary stage actress Beatrice Lillie’s few films—the superbly comic Exit Smiling, her debut and her only silent—demonstrates why theater audiences found her so captivating. Lillie’s character works wardrobe in a touring theatrical company—“Violet, the drudge of the troupe”—and she’s determined to break into the limelight. A talented crew in front of the camera (Jack Pickford, Franklin Pangborn in his feature debut!) and behind (writer/director Sam Taylor was a veteran of some of Harold Lloyd’s best comedies) adds nuance and grace to the hilarity. The portrayal of low-rent theater life is beautifully realized, with the seedy small-town halls, crummy dressing rooms, and camaraderie that come with the theatrical calling.

USA, 1926. Directed by Sam Taylor. With Beatrice Lillie, Jack Pickford, and Franklin Pangborn. 80 minutes

Live musical accompaniment by Wayne Barker

Print (35mm) courtesy of the British Film Institute with permission by Warner Bros.


Director Jean Epstein was one of the central figures in French cinema of the 1920s and his writings and cinematic innovations have inspired filmmakers from Buñuel to Cassavetes. The romantic triangle at the center of Couer Fidèle is played out on the streets and docks of working class Marseilles as Marie (the breathtaking Gina Manès) dreams of escaping a bad relationship with drunken layabout Petit Paul (Edmond van Daële) for dockworker Jean (Léon Mathot). Epstein aimed to create, in his own words, “a melodrama so stripped of all the conventions ordinarily attached to the genre, so sober, so simple, that it might approach the nobility and excellence of tragedy.” In Coeur Fidèle he achieves that nobility—his blend of experimentation and naturalism is visually and emotionally riveting. In Cahiers du Cinema, Henri Langlois wrote, “Coeur Fidèle is the triumph of impressionism of movement, but it is also something else – the triumph of the modern spirit. Its images were seemingly in 3D; they literally burst from the screen…”

France, 1923. Directed by Jean Epstein. With Léon Mathot, Gina Manès, and Edmond van Daële. 75 minutes

Live musical accompaniment by Alloy Orchestra

Restoration by Cinémathèque Française. Print (DCP) courtesy of The Festival Agency
 

One of three titles nominated for Best Picture at the very first Academy Awards, 7th Heaven helped to establish Fox Film Corporation as a major studio. Although it lost to Wings (the category was called Outstanding Picture at the time), director Borzage took the top prize for directing, star Janet Gaynor for acting, and screenwriter Benjamin Glazer for adaptation. Set in Paris on the cusp of WWI, 7th Heaven is the story of two ordinary people who become involved by chance, separated by war, and transfigured by love. Beautifully photographed and supremely romantic in the telling, 7th Heaven was the first pairing of Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, who would become the romantic duo of the era.

USA, 1927. Directed by Frank Borzage. With Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. 110 minutes

Live musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra


Restoration by MoMA. Print (DCP) courtesy of 20th Century Fox


Lotte Eisner’s groundbreaking history of cinema The Haunted Screen (1952) had the unintended effect of popularizing the idea of expressionism—suddenly every Weimar title was considered an example of German Expressionism. Eisner set out to redress that misreading and in 1958, she declared that there were no more than three genuinely expressionist films: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Waxworks, and From Morn to Midnight. With its painted sets, distorted perspectives, and artificial acting, Morn is quintessentially expressionist in style. The story is of a small-town bank teller who, after becoming bewitched by a glamorous customer, decides his own life is paltry, steals a large sum of money from his bank and flees to the big city to pursue fulfillment. Produced a few months after Caligari’s release, the film had a negligible release in Germany but it found success in Japan in 1922. The film was considered lost for many years but in one of those wonders of cinema history, a copy was found at the National Film Center, Tokyo (now the National Film Archive of Japan) in 1959. Our print from NFAJ is from the 2004 restoration with the Munich Filmmuseum.

Germany, 1920. Directed by Karlheinz Martin. With Ernst Deutsch, Roma Bahn, and Ema Morena. 69 minutes

Live musical accompaniment by Alloy Orchestra
Print (35mm) courtesy of National Film Archive of Japan

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Pandora's Box, starring Louise Brooks, screens in Brazil at MOSTRA

Pandora's Box, the sensational 1929 silent film starring Louise Brooks, will be shown in Brazil in the coming days. More information about this special screening, which is part of the 42nd International Film Festival in Sao Paulo (aka MOSTRA), can be found HERE, and below.

Pandora's Box will be shown with an orchestral accompaniment at the Ibirapuera Auditorium on October 27th at 7 pm. The live score, by the German composer Peer Raben, will be performed by the Symphonic Jazz Orchestra under the command of maestro Fábio Prado. Raben's score was composed in 1997 to accompany a recent restoration of the film.

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Diary of a Lost Girl screens in Italy

Diary of a Lost Girl, the sensational 1929 silent film starring Louise Brooks, will be shown in Italy. More information about this special event can be found HERE, and below.

Giovedì 18 ottobre 2018 ore 21.30 Auditorium Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca Chiesa di San Francesco Lucca Evento speciale in memoria di Riccardo Berutto DIARIO DI UNA DONNA PERDUTA di Georg W. Pabst – Germania, 1929 – 90' con Louise Brooks, Joseph Rovensky In collaborazione con Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca e Associazione Domenico di Lorenzo Thymiane, figlia di un farmacista, è violentata dall'assistente del padre e resa incinta.

Il bambino nasce ma muore quasi subito. Thymiane viene rinchiusa in una casa di correzione, da cui evade per lavorare in un bordello. Qui conosce un giovane ma dopo la morte di quest'ultimo ne sposa lo zio, diventando una signora per bene. Melodramma sulla complessa carriera di una ragazza che passa attraverso l'inferno della prostituzione per giungere ai fasti della società borghese: il regista Pabst sarcasticamente dipinge i crimini e misfatti di una società in disfacimento, avvalendosi del fascino morboso della bella e dotata Louise Brooks. Un capolavoro del cinema muto che vi proponiamo, in collaborazione con la Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca e Associazione Domenico di Lorenzo, nel ricordo dell'amico Riccardo Berutto.


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