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
During this pandemic era, I continue to stay home and conduct what research I can over the internet. And recently, I came across a few items which I had never seen before. I thought I would share them with readers of this blog. Here is the fourth installment in a short series of new finds.
I have long felt that Louise Brooks carried the shame of her 1924 dismissal from the Denishawn Dance Company for the better part of her life. I think Brooks viewed herself as a dancer, an artist if you will, and her dismissal from the company by Ruth St. Denis -- an artist she early admired, was a cause of personal shame. Brooks rebounded of course, and found work with the George White Scandals and Ziegfeld Follies before moving on to a successful career in the movies. But still, I think, she never really let go of that early humiliation.
I say this because Brooks, to some degree, continued to follow the careers of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. They were long in her thoughts, I believe, and Brooks likely desired some sort of closure, or at least understanding. In a 1964 letter to Jan Wahl, Brooks mentioned that she once attended one of Shawn's classes in 1926, while she was making pictures for Paramount on Long Island. Who knew?
Brooks never again danced with Ruth St. Denis or Ted Shawn, but she did go see them dance in 1949, twenty-five years after she was dismissed from Denishawn. On November 10, 1949, Brooks saw Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn perform "Creative Dances on Ethnic Themes" at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Brooks letters, especially those to Wahl, are sprinkled with references to Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, and Brooks' time with Denishawn. In the same 1964 letter referenced above, Brooks said she had even received an invitation to Jacob's Pillow, where the 50th Golden Wedding anniversary of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn would be celebrated. I don't think she went.
In their later years, Brooks carried on a correspondence with Ted Shawn. Brooks also wrote about her time with Denishawn in her private journals, and in her book, Lulu in Hollywood. Brooks' time with Denishawn was important to her, and as late as 1979, Brooks wrote a letter to dance historian Jane Sherman (herself a one-time Denishawn dancer) saying she believes she was omitted from accounts of Denishawn.
I mention all this because just recently I came across an extraordinary March 1929 Los Angeles clipping which by chance juxtaposes Louise Brooks and Ruth St. Denis. Brooks was starring in The Canary Murder Case, which had just opened. And Ruth St, Denis was dabcing at a venue in Los Angeles. At the time this clipping was published, Brooks was in New York City, so she likely never saw this obscure bit. But I wonder if Ruth St. Denis did, and what she might have thought. The famed dancer did have a clipping service (which gathered publicity from magazines and newspapers, I once had the chance to look through her scrapbooks), and Ruthie may have checked out what press she had received from time to time. If she had seen it, I wonder what went through her mind about her once wayward student?
In the nearly 80 years since its release, Citizen Kane is still regarded as one of the – if not the greatest film ever made. So much so, a handful of related films have sprung up in its wake, as well as a shelf of books exploring the life and work of the film’s rightly celebrated director, Orson Welles.
The latest is Mank, David Fincher’s cinematic look at the life of hard-drinking screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. Its story centers on Mankiewicz’s life as he was writing the script for Citizen Kane (1941), and the difficulties which arose between the screenwriter and Welles, the producer, director and star of the film who is also credited as co-screenwriter. Fincher’s film, which is now streaming on Netflix, is based on a script by his late father, Jack; it stars Gary Oldman as Mankiewicz and Amanda Seyfried in the role of Marion Davies, a famed actress of the time who is widely thought to be the model for a key character in Citizen Kane.
The film is a flashback to a Hollywood that was (and still is) wrestling over creative control . . . . and writing credits. As a look back, a number of Hollywood personalities are portrayed. Besides Marion Davies, also depicted are producer Irving Thalberg and his wife, actress Norma Shearer, studio head Louis B. Mayer, actor John Gilbert, and possibly, obliquely, Charlie Chaplin; there may be others. There are also shout-outs to actors Wallace Beery and Lon Chaney. Louise Brooks is not portrayed or mentioned, but she does have a possible small part to play in the story behind the story of Citizen Kane.
It is not known exactly when or where Brooks and Mankiewicz first met, but the showgirl and the writer likely became acquainted in 1925, around the time Brooks, a dancer in the chorus, was appearing in the Summer edition of the Ziegfeld Follies. According to the Barry Paris biography of Brooks (who cites earlier letters the actress wrote in the 1970s), Brooks’ Follies dressing room was regularly visited by a number of somewhat older men who enjoyed the company of the vivacious 18 year old. Among them were writer Michael Arlen, producer Walter Wanger, film star Charlie Chaplin, and Herman Mankiewicz, then a drama critic for the New York Times.
The showgirl and the writer-critic hit it off. She was a high school dropout with a literary bent. He was a wordsmith, part and parcel of NYC’s Jazz Age intelligentsia and someone who seemed to know just about everybody, including the personalities associated with the Algonquin Roundtable. (For a short time, Brooks lived at the Roundtable’s main stomping ground, the Algonquin Hotel ..., and perhaps that is where Mank and Louise met.) However they first became acquainted, Mankiewicz took Brooks under his wing, and gifted her with conversation as well as books by the likes of Aldous Huxley. She gifted him with her presence. They were literary friends. She called him “my favorite person.” (In the New York Times in 1982, John Lahr described Mankiewicz's mentor-ship as the "Louise Brooks Literary Society.")
Brooks’ restlessness – usually in the form an invitation to a night out, led to an increasing number of absences from the Follies. One such occasion was an invitation from Mankiewicz to attend the September 16th Broadway opening of No, No, Nanette, a stage play which Mankiewicz was assigned to review. At dinner before the show, Mankiewicz downed a number of cocktails, and according to the Paris biography, he was “too drunk to stay awake, much less write a coherent review.” And so, the Paris biography notes, “the secretly literate Louise rose to the occasion, took notes, and wrote it for him.” Brooks’ review, “No, No Nanette Full of Vigorous Fun,” which appeared under Mankiewicz’s byline, was published in the New York Times on September 17, 1925. At the time, no one knew the piece, which largely mirrored the opinion of other New York critics, was actually penned by a teenage chorus girl with a penchant for slightly purple prose.
Brooks, around the time she knew Mank in NYC
Brooks and Mankiewicz each headed to Hollywood around the same time. Brooks, then under contract to Paramount, relocated to Los Angeles at the beginning of 1927. And by the end of that same year, Mankiewicz was there as well as head of Paramount's scenario department. In 1927 and 1928, Mankiewicz wrote the titles (the printed dialogue and explanations) for a few dozen films starring the likes of Clara Bow, Wallace Beery, Adolphe Menjou, Esther Ralston and others – and beginning in 1929, the script and dialogue for dozens more talkies. In fact, Mankiewicz wrote the titles for two of Brooks’ films, The City Gone Wild (1927), the lost James Cruze-directed gangster film, and The Canary Murder Case (1929), the celebrated murder mystery based on the bestselling book by S.S. van Dine. Brooks had starring roles in each.
Brooks's arrival in Los Angeles on Jan. 6, 1927
In the 1920s and 1930s, newspaper and magazine columnists regularly reported on the Hollywood social scene. But surprisingly, Mankiewicz and Brooks’ name never show up together in reference to their attendance at a movie opening, Hollywood nightclub, or party. The closest the two came to any sort of documented contact was in August, 1930 when Los Angeles Times columnist Myrna Nye reported that Brooks attended a Russian themed party at the home of Dimitri Tiomkin in Los Angeles. Also in attendance among the many guests** was Herman Mankiewicz’s younger brother Joseph, another prominent character in Mank. I would assume that Brooks and Joseph Mankiewicz were, at least, acquainted, if only because one says hello to the brother of friend. But whether Herman Mankiewicz and Brooks met again after New York City we don’t know.
A significant part of Mank is set at San Simeon, William Randolph Hearst’s estate on the Central Coast of California. Brooks spent time there in the late 1920s, at the height of her fame in America. Brooks recalled those visits in her essay “Marion Davies’ Niece,” which first appeared in Film Culture in 1974 and later in her 1982 book, Lulu in Hollywood. Brooks’ essay centers on Pepi Lederer, Davies’ niece and the brother of screenwriter Charles Lederer (another friend of Mankiewicz, and another character in Mank). Brooks and Pepi, a distraught personality who later committed suicide, were close – likely as close as or even closer than Brooks was with Marion Davies, Hearst’s longtime mistress. Brooks knew them all as a regular guest at both Hearst Castle and Davies’ Santa Monica beach house. (The home movie screen capture below shows Brooks sipping a drink at Davies' Santa Monica beach house sometime in 1927 or 1928.)
Brooks at Davies' Santa Monica beach house
Brooks spent only a few years in Hollywood in the 1930s, mostly at the beginning of the decade and then at the end. She left Hollywood for good in 1940, right around the time Mankiewicz was penning the script for Citizen Kane. About two-thirds through the Netflix film, Mank's brother Joe visits him after reading the script. He asks whether Mank wrote the script as a way of getting back at Hearst for various personal and political slights, and if the rumors are true that “Rosebud” is actually named after Hearst’s “pet name for Marion’s genitalia," adding, “I know you would never stoop to that.” Mank laughs it off, and says “only because I haven’t heard.”
In “Remembering Orson Welles,” a 1989 piece by Gore Vidal which first appeared in the New York Review of Books (and later in his book, United States: Essays 1952-1992), the famed novelist states, “In actual life, Rosebud was what Hearst called his friend Marion Davies’s clitoris.” Really? How does Vidal, a latter day figure who claimed no interest in the sex lives of others, know this to be true? Inquiring minds want to know.... Or at least I do. In a follow-up letter to the editor of the New York Review of Books in defense of his claim (which otherwise seems a tossed off sentence in Vidal's remembrances of the director), Vidal notes he had met both Hearst and Davies, but admits neither told him about the significance of Rosebud. Vidal also notes Herman Mankiewicz was a visitor to San Simeon and friend of Davies, and then leaves it at that, but not before referencing some of Louise Brooks' observations of San Simeon and the then just published biography by Barry Paris.
Vidal is being coy… and inquiring minds still want to know who told Vidal Rosebud was Hearst’s pet name for Davies’ clitoris? And ever so long ago, how might that information have gotten to Mankiewicz? If in fact it did? Vidal mentions that he would spill the beans “at a later date” (but seemingly never did), and relates how he also knew Charles Lederer, Davies’ screenwriter nephew. Vidal’s friendship with Lederer came about in the late 1950s, around the time according to Vidal the “matter of Rosebud was much discussed”. The only other clue Vidal offers readers is this, “After all, alcoholic ladies often discuss intimate matters with intimates.” Is Vidal referring to Davies, Brooks, or even himself?
Between the lines, Vidal infers that Davies let slip the meaning of
Rosebud to another women friend who also liked to drink. But who might
that other female drinking buddy have been? Inquiring minds still want to know. It might have been Pepi Lederer, who is known to have had problems with substance abuse.
Or it could have been someone we don't know about, or don't suspect. Brooks is also a possible, or even a probable, candidate. She was friendly
with Marion and knew her circle of friends; and significantly, she had been friendly with Mankiewicz. And
she also liked to drink. However, the question remains, did Mankiewicz and Brooks have any sort of contact in the late 1920s or 1930s?
But let's get back to Gore Vidal. I don't think Vidal ever met Brooks, or corresponded with her. But I do know that she knew who he was. In a March 1977 letter to biographer Tom Dardis, she wrote: "I hope you got more nourishing stuff out of me on Keaton and Schenk than I got out of Ish-Ish on Auden and Vidal." Starved for gossip in her Rochester, New York apartment, Brooks is referring to the English novelist Christopher Isherwood, whom she had met just the month before in February 1977 when he and his partner, the artist Don Bachardy, came to visit. At the time, Isherwood told Bachardy, "She's much the most intelligent actress I've ever met."
In his highly regarded 2016 book, Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker's Journey, film historian and Welles scholar Harlan Lebo states “‘Rosebud’ may have been Hearst’s personal nickname for Davies’ genitalia—a bit of gossip that Mankiewicz supposedly learned from silent screen star Louise Brooks." The keywords in this sentence are not "Rosebud" and "genitalia," but "may have been" and "supposedly." Lebo doesn't know for sure, and he is making sure we note both his caution and his uncertainty. Lebo also states that Rosebud could also have been the name of a racehorse Mankiewicz knew of, as has been suggested by others, or the name of Mankiewicz's childhood bicycle. In Welles' film, Rosebud is the name of Kane’s childhood sled. Or perhaps. . . . this significant prop could merely be a McGuffin. For Welles, “It didn’t mean a damn thing … We inserted that as a dramatic gimmick, nothing more.” But if it was just a dramatic gimmick, or simply the name of Kane’s childhood sled, why did Hearst (as Vidal wondered) react as strongly as he did back in 1941, wanting at one point to destroy every known print of Citizen Kane?
Harlan Lebo is a widely respected Welles scholar, an author, and an academic. I mention his book because it is the only one on Welles which I am familiar with which references Louise Brooks in connection with Rosebud. But as is made clear in the above paragraph, Lebo mentions the connection in a qualified manner as one of a few theories (anatomical reference, racehorse, toy, etc...) related to the meaning of Rosebud. That's valid. In an email exchange, Lebo stated "I would like to think that the Rosebud = genitalia story is not true,
because if it was, Mankiewicz couldn't have picked a better way to
commit career suicide." That is also a valid point.
In his book, Lebo notes his attribution about Davies comes from "Fiery Speech in a World
of Shadows: Rosebud's Impact on Early Audiences," a chapter that Robin
Bates and Scott Bates wrote for Ron Gottesman's compendium called Perspectives on Citizen Kane. Lebo also noted that Bates' source was Kenneth Anger's 1984 book, Hollywood Babylon II.
As Lebo is certainly aware, and as anyone familiar with film history knows, Kenneth Anger is a problematic figure. His titillating and sometimes snarky books, Hollywood Babylon and Hollywood Babylon II,are full of unsubstantiated gossip.What's in them may be true, or not, or only partly true, but how are we to know? When you place an unflattering picture next to an unsubstantiated claim, a certain amount of implication arises. Like yeast.
On page 159 of Hollywood Babylon II, Anger notes that Rosebud was William Randolph Hearst's pet name for Davies' "pussy-poo". He also notes that Davies drank, and likely shared a "giggled confidence" with someone -- "was it Louise Brooks?" Anger then ads, "as secrets will, one whisper led from mouth to ear to the steel-trap mind of Herman Mankiewicz -- and he made a mental note: Marion Davies = Rosebud." Interestingly, Anger employs a question mark when asking "was it Louise Brooks?" Even he is unsure, or doesn't really know, or won't say.
Despite its unreliability, Anger's 1984 book is worth mentioning as it is the first published source for the Davies-Rosebud-Brooks connection that I have come across. But still inquiring minds want to know, where did Anger get his information? Was it Brooks herself? I think it unlikely, but nevertheless a possibility. Kenneth, if you are reading this, shoot me an email and let me know.
Brooks and Anger met in Paris in the Fall of 1958, while Brooks was being celebrated/rediscovered by Henri Langlois. Anger, along with Lotte Eisner, Preston Sturges, Thomas Quinn Curtis, Man Ray and others visited Brooks, who was holed up in her hotel, reluctant to face the renewed attention to her career. The friendship seemingly continued. Anger went easy on Brooks in Hollywood Babylon (a book first released in France in 1959), describing her as "one of the loveliest visions ever to grace a screen," and only mentioning how she "went from stardom to a Macy's counter in a vertiginous fall from glory." He could have said worse. In 1974, Anger mounted an Art Deco film festival in San Francisco, and among the films he screened was Brooks' sole French effort, Prix de Beaute -- then a rarity. In more recent years, Anger has dropped Brooks' name in reference to comments she supposedly made about his avant-garde films. Notably, when journalist Tom Graves visited Brooks in her Rochester apartment in 1980, one of the books he noticed laying about was a foreign edition of Hollywood Babylon.
A first French edition of Hollywood Babylon, like the one Brooks likely owned
However, in a 1962 letter to frequent correspondent Jan Wahl, Brooks was critical of Anger, and even more critical of Hollywood Babylon, describing it as "A bunch of old dead photographs. A lot of ridiculous mumbo junk. A bunch of old dead gossip. . . ." Had Anger learned the secret meaning of Rosebud during his 1958 meeting in Paris, one might guess that he would have used such a juicy morsel in the first volume of Hollywood Babylon. He didn't. It only shows up in Hollywood Babylon II, which was published in 1984. And so, if Anger deduced the meaning of Rosebud from Brooks, it likely happened in the 1960s or 1970s. And if it was through Brooks, she must have also suggested to Anger that she told Mankiewicz, or someone else, who then relayed it to the screenwriter.
"Rosebud"
With all this said, however, we still don't know and are likely to never know the origins of the tittle-tattle that Brooks supplied Makiewicz with the secret meaning of Rosebud. Perhaps she did, perhaps she didn't. Perhaps Kenneth Anger made it up.
If you haven't seen Mank, be sure and check it out. It is streaming on Netflix, and is an pretty decent if historically problematic film. Gary Oldman is terrific, as is Charles Dance as William Randolph Hearst. And if you haven't seen Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, check that out first. It is a great film. And then you'll understand why all the fuss over Rosebud.
1965 portrait of Brooks by Roddy McDowell
** Also at this notable party were Dashiel Hammett, Humphrey Bogart, Edmund Goulding, King Vidor and Eleanor Boardman, David O. Selznick, Irving Berlin, Colleen Moore, Ernst Lubitsch, Sam Goldwyn, Agnes DeMille, Constance Bennett, Paul Bern, Kay Francis, Benjamin Glazer, Basil Rathbone, Maurice Chevalier, Marie Dressler, and others.
During this pandemic era, I continue to stay home and conduct what
research I can over the internet. And recently, I came across a few
items which I had never seen before. I thought I would share them with
readers of this blog. Here is the third installment in a short series of
new finds.
This new find has to do with a rare personal appearance by Louise Brooks while she was a film star. By my count, Brooks made less than five or six such appearance. On most of these occasions, she appeared on stage prior to the showing of a film. On November 5, 1926, for instance, Brooks made a personal appearance at a benefit pre-release midnight showing of We're in the Navy Now at the Rialto Theater in New York City; We're in the Navy Now was directed by Brooks' then-husband, Eddie Sutherland, who was also on hand. (As were Paramount stars Betty Bronson, Ricardo Cortez, Richard 'Skeets' Gallagher, William Powell, Evelyn Brent, and Philip Strange. And Helen Morgan sang!) The event was a benefit showing in aid of the New York American Christmas and Relief Fund.
Another such occasion took place on April 9, 1927, while Brooks and the cast and crew of Rolled Stockings were filming in Berkeley, California; this time, Brooks (and James Hall) made a personal appearance prior to a screening of Evening Clothes at the nearby American theater in Oakland, California. Here is the advertisement for the occasion.
My new find documents the time in July 1927 when Brooks and other Paramount stars were asked (by the studio, no doubt) to attend the Pacific Coast premiere of the Emil Jannings' film, The Way of All Flesh, at the Criterion theater in Los Angeles. I don't know if Brooks appeared on stage, or merely was in the audience - but this was a special occasion as all loge seats for the evening cost $1.65, a large amount at a time when most seats cost less than one dollar.
Besides Emil Jannings himself (making his first American stage performance to mark his first Paramount film) were other Paramount stars such as Pola Negri, Clara Bow, Fay Wray, Bebe Daniels and others - including Brooks' past and future co-stars Esther Ralston (American Venus), Wallace Beery (Now We're in the Air, Beggars of Life), Noah Beery (Evening Clothes), Fred Kohler (City Gone Wild), Chester Conklin (A Social Celebrity), and Adolphe Menjou (A Social Celebrity, Evening Clothes). Their names are all listed at the bottom of this newspaper advertisement.
Incidentally, also possibly present was Frederico Sagor Maas, who penned the story behind The Way of All Flesh. Notably, Maas also wrote the story that served as the basis for Rolled Stockings. I first met Frederica at a publisher's lunch at Musso & Franks in Hollywood in 1999. Enthused about her then forthcoming book, I arranged to put on an event with Maas at the bookstore where I worked in San Francisco. It was her first bookstore event. Because she was nearly blind and 99 years old, we sat together and I interviewed Maas before a a modest those enthusiastic store crowd. Later we went out to dinner and she told stories about Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, Eric von Stroheim and others, as well as what it was like to work in early Hollywood. Be sure and check out her recommended memoir, the Shocking Miss Pilgrim. The following day, she did a booksigning at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, something I helped arrange, and she sold more than 60 books in flash. No "swell fish" there.
To mark the occasion, the bookstore I worked at used to issue trading cards in conjunction with the various events we put on. Here is the card for Frederica Sagor Maas, which depicts her in the 1920s, around the time she worked with the film legends mentioned above.I treasure my autographed copy of her book, and my autographed copy of her trading card.Here is a LINK to the blog I wrote about her when she died in 2012 at the age of 111.
The Louise Brooks Society is on Twitter @LB_Society.
As of today, the LBS is followed by nearly 5000 individuals. Are you one of them? Why not join the conversation? Be sure and visit the official LBS Twitter profile,
and check out the more than 5,800 LBS tweets posted since January of 2009! (That's when the LBS joined Twitter.) For those who like to
follow the flow, the LBS twitter stream can also be found in the right
hand column of this blog.
Who
follows the LBS on Twitter? Along with many Louise Brooks fans, there are film historians, cine clubs
and film festivals, art deco collectors, Jazz Age aficionados, classic film
buffs as well as online profiles representing Greta Garbo, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Clara Bow, Rudolph Valentino and other stars of the silent and early sound era. As well as contemporary actors and actresses who love Louise Brooks. Are you among the LBS twitter followers? If not, sign up today and don't miss a tweet! Visit @LB_Society today!
And for those interested, be sure and check out the Twitter account of Thomas Gladysz, founding director of the Louise Brooks Society, at @thomas_gladysz
REMINDER: The little seen 1926 Louise Brooks film, The Show Off, will be shown in a theatre in Australia on Saturday, December 5th. This rare pandemic era screening will take place at The Majestic Theatre in Pomona, QLD. More information about this event can be found HERE. (I have seen The Show Off a number of times, and think it is one of Brooks' better comedies, though her role is that of a supporting player.)
The Majestic Theatre is located in the heart of the Noosa Hinterland in
the small historic town of Pomona, in Queensland, Australia. The Majestic Theatre is a not for
profit, small community run theatre and cinema that has been in
operation for almost 100 years as both a community hall and a silent
film theatre. They show silent films every Saturday at 12 noon, and claim to be the "World's Longest Running Silent Film
Theatre." Check their calendar for other silent film offerings,
including Clara Bow's It on November 28.
The Majestic Theatre description of its upcoming Louise Brooks screening reads: "The Show Off is a 1926 American silent film comedy produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures, based on the play of the same name by George Kelly. Directed by Mal St Clare, the film stars Ford Sterling, Lois Wilson and Louise Brooks. This film is one of two films that co-starred popular Broadway actor Gregory Kelly (first husband of Ruth Gordon who died shortly after The Show-Off wrapped production. The film was produced in Philadelphia and New York City thus becoming a sort of time capsule record of buildings long gone and neighbourhoods changed. No need to book. Tickets at the door. 12 noon to 2pm. Doors & Bar open 11.30am. $15 for adults & free for kids. Snacks & refreshments available."
Ford Sterling, Lois Wilson, Gregory Kelly, and Louise Brooks in The Show Off
Though released in the United States in August, 1926, The Show Off only debuted in Australia in mid-January, 1927 when it opened in Brisbane (Queensland), Sydney (New South Wales), and Hobart (Tasmania). To learn more about the film, visit the Louise Brooks Society webpage on the film.
Pomona, the site of next month's screening, is about 124 kilometers from Brisbane, the capital and the most populated city in the Australian state of Queensland. When The Show Off first opened in Brisbane, it played briefly at the Valley Theatre as part of a double bill with Romola, starring Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Ronald Colman and William Powell. Ahead of its showing, the local Brisbane Truth newspaper described The Show Off as a "sparking comedy," while the Sunday Mail described it as a "interesting and humorous production."
A couple of months later, The Show Off played elsewhere in Queensland, including March and April runs in Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, and the Toowoomba region. It was described favorably, and said to be "well worth seeing." None of the Queensland articles or reviews singled out Brooks beyond mentioning her and Lois Wilson were in the cast; instead, most of the coverage was focused on comedian Ford Sterling, one of the original Keystone Cops. Below is the advertisement which ran when the film showed in Mackay.
Looking for something good to read? In search of that special gift for
the Louise Brooks or silent film fan on your holiday shopping list?
The Louise Brooks Society is pleased to let everyone know that for a
limited time (through December 10) each of the following titles are available at a
special sale price. And what's more, the LBS will ship the book
for free within the United States. Send an order via email to silentfilmbuff AT gmail.com.The LBS accepts major credit cards through its safe and secure PayPal account. Want a special inscription? Send a note along with your order, and we'll be happy to oblige.
Louise Brooks, the Persistent Star (softcover 1st edition)
by Thomas Gladysz
-- This 296 page book brings together 15 years work by the Director of the
Louise Brooks Society. Gathered here are the author's best articles, essays, reviews and
blogs about the silent film star and her films: Beggars of Life, Pandora’s Box, and Diary of a Lost Girl are discussed, as are many other little known aspects of Brooks’ legendary career. With dozens of illustrations, many rare. AUTOGRAPHED by the author.
****************************
Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film (softcover 1st edition)
by Thomas Gladysz
-- This first ever study of Beggars of Life
looks at the film Oscar-winning director William Wellman thought his
finest silent movie. With more than 50 little seen images, and a
foreword by William Wellman, Jr. A must have addition to your library, and an essential companion to the KinoLorber DVD/Blu-ray. AUTOGRAPHED by the author.
Regular price$10.00 (includes shipping & handling within the USA)
****************************
Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film (softcover 1st edition)
by Thomas Gladysz
-- This first ever study of Beggars of Life
looks at the film Oscar-winning director William Wellman thought his
finest silent movie. With more than 50 little seen images, and a
foreword by William Wellman, Jr. A must have addition to your library, and an essential companion to the KinoLorber DVD/Blu-ray. AUTOGRAPHEDby the author AND BY WILLIAM WELLMAN JR. (Limited availability, act now.)
Special price, $75.00 (includes shipping & handling within the USA) With the Kino DVD of the film, featuring audio commentaries by Thomas Gladysz and William Wellman Jr., only 1 available (not autographed) OR With the Kino Blue-ray of the film, featuring audio commentaries by Thomas Gladysz and William Wellman Jr., only 1 available (not autographed)
****************************
Now We're in the Air (softcover 1st edition)
by Thomas Gladysz
-- This companion to the once "lost" 1927 film tells the story of the film’s
making, its reception, and its discovery by film preservationist Robert
Byrne. With two rare fictionalizations of the movie story, more than 75
little seen images, detailed credits, trivia, and a foreword by Byrne. AUTOGRAPHED by the author.
Regular price $15.00 (includes shipping & handling within the USA)
****************************
Now We're in the Air (softcover 1st edition)
by Thomas Gladysz
-- This companion to the once "lost" 1927 film tells the story of the film’s
making, its reception, and its discovery by film preservationist Robert
Byrne. With two rare fictionalizations of the movie story, more than 75
little seen images, detailed credits, trivia, and a foreword by Byrne. AUTOGRAPHED by the author AND BY ROBERT BYRNE. (Limited availability, limited time offer.)
Special price, $30.00 (includes shipping & handling within the USA)
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