When You’re in Love, with Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1937

When You’re in Love, with Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1937. When You’re in Love is a romantic musical scripted and directed by long-time Frank Capra writer Robert Riskin and starring Grace Moore and Cary Grant. The enjoyable and fast-moving plot turns on high-spirits and high-notes. Louise Brooks makes an uncredited appearance as one of a number of dancers in a musical sequence near the end of the film. More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society filmography page.

Louise Brooks, third from the left, is obscured by Grace Moore's hand.

Production of the film took place at Columbia Pictures studios in Southern California between October 5 and December 20, 1936 . The musical pageant at the end of the film, which likely includes Louise Brooks, was likely shot in part at the Hollywood Bowl.

For When You’re in Love, Brooks accepted work as an extra (its almost impossible to spot her) with the promise of the feminine lead in another Columbia film. To exploit the situation, the studio put out the word that Brooks was willing to do anything to get back into pictures. “Louise Brooks is certainly starting her come-back from the lowest rung of the ladder,” wrote Wood Soanes of the Oakland Tribune. “She is one of a hundred dancers in the ballet chorus of Grace Moore’s When You’re in Love.” Brooks kept her part of the bargain, but the studio did not. Brooks’ lead in a Columbia film never materialized.

The film proved especially popular, and was seen as a worthy successor to Moore’s triumph in the 1934 film One Night of Love, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The Hollywood Reporter stated, “With a more substantial story than the last two Grace Moore vehicles, When You’re in Love is a signal triumph for the foremost diva of the screen, for Cary Grant who should soar to stardom as result of his performance in this, and for Robert Riskin, here notably handling his first directorial assignment.” The Hollywood Spectator added “It is unquestionably her best to-date and never has she appeared to better photographic advantage.” Rob Wagner, writing in Rob Wagner’s Script (a trade journal), was especially enthusiastic. “Here is the perfect combination – the director who writes his own script and delivers perfectly . . . Yes, I’m raving, … but because I’m a priest of beauty; and this picture thrilled me.”

The film was held over in New York City, as well as in Baltimore, Seattle, Detroit, New Orleans, Trenton, Tacoma, and Springfield (Massachusetts and Illinois). The same was true in Atlanta, Georgia. The Atlanta Constitution wrote that the film, the “best picture made by Grace Moore” was “now in its third week at the Rialto Theater, with the demand for seats showing no signs of easing.” The same was true in Hartford, Connecticut. The Hartford Courant wrote “Don’t look now, but Loew’s Theater appears to be starting another one of those record-breaking picture engagements with When You’re in Love.”

The great British novelist Graham Greene, writing in Night and Day, was tempered in his assessment. “Miss Moore, even in trousers singing Minnie the Moocher, can make the craziest comedy sensible and hygienic. In For You Alone, the story of an Australian singer who buys an American husband in Mexico so that she may re-enter the States where her permit has expired, Mr. Riskin, the author of Mr. Deeds and (let’s not forget) Lost Horizon, has tried his best to write crazily, but he comes up all the time against Miss Moore.”

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, Dutch Guiana (Surinam), Haiti, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Palestine (Israel), Papua New Guinea,  The Philippines, and South Africa. As well, it was once advertised in Canada as When You Are in Love. In the United States territory of Puerto Rico, the film was exhibited under the title Preludio de amor (Spanish-language press).
 
Elsewhere, When You’re in Love was shown under the title Le Cœur en fête (Algeria); Preludio de Amor (Argentina); Sérénade and Interlude (Austria); Sérénade (Belgium); Prelúdio de Amor (Brazil); 鳥語花香 (China);  Preludio de amor (Cuba); Když vy jste v lásce (Czechoslovakia) and Ked si zalúbeny (Slovakia, unconfiirmed); Serenade (Denmark); Preludio de Amor (Dominican Republic); Ma olen armunud (Estonia); Rakastuessa and När man är kär (Finland); Le Cœur en fête (France); Otan i kardia ktypa (Greece); Közjáték and Preludio de Amor (Hungary); Serenade (Iceland); Amanti di domani (Italy); 間奏楽 or Kansō-raku (Japan); Wenn die Liebe erwacht (Latvia); Serenade (Luxembourg); Preludio de amor (Mexico); Le Cœur en fête (Morocco); Als je verliefd bent (The Netherlands); Forelsket (Norway); Kiedy jestes zakochana (Poland) and חפּחדדה (Yiddish in Poland); Prelúdio de Amor (Portugal); A rioi szerenad (Romania); Preludio de amor (Spain); När man är kär (Sweden); Le Cœur en fête and Wenn Du verliebt bist (Switzerland); Bir ask macerasi and Sen aska dusunce and Yalniz senin için (Turkey); and Preludio de amor (Uruguay). 

The film was also shown under the title For You Alone in British Malaysia (Singapore), Ireland, and the United Kingdom (including England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, and Scotland).

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— Grace Moore (1898–1947) was an American operatic soprano and actress in musical theatre and film. She was nicknamed the “Tennessee Nightingale.” During her sixteen seasons with the Metropolitan Opera, she sang in several Italian and French operas as well as the title roles in Tosca, Manon, and Louise. Louise was her favorite opera and is widely considered to have been her greatest role. Moore is credited with helping bring opera to a larger audience through her popular films. Moore died in a plane crash near Copenhagen’s airport on January 26, 1947, at the age of 48. Moore’s life story was made into a movie, So This Is Love, in 1953.

— Attracted to Hollywood in the early years of talking pictures, Moore’s first screen role was as Jenny Lind in the 1930 MGM film A Lady’s Morals. Later that same year she starred with the Metropolitan Opera singer Lawrence Tibbett in New Moon, also for MGM. After a hiatus of several years, Moore returned to Hollywood under contract to Columbia Pictures, for whom she made six films. In the 1934 film One Night of Love, she portrayed a small-town girl who aspires to sing opera. For that role she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The last film that Moore made was Louise (1939), an abridged version of Gustave Charpentier’s opera of the same name, with spoken dialog in place of some of the original opera’s music. The composer participated in the production, authorizing the cuts and changes to the libretto, coaching Moore, and advising director Abel Gance.

— In the film, Moore sings “Siboney“. Xavier Cugat’s version of “Siboney” was recommended by Brooks in her self-published booklet, The Fundamentals of Good Ballroom Dancing.

— The New York Times noted that the lyrics of Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher” had been censored, writing “we did notice that the censors took out the reference to the King of Sweden who gave Minnie whatever she was needin’. Now it’s the King of Rythmania, who filled her full of vintage champagnia.” Although Daily Variety noted that preview audiences enjoyed Moore’s swing rendition of the classic song, it was not included in the general release print. 

—  Back in 2016, I wrote an article for Huffington Post on When You're in Love when it debuted on the cable station, getTV.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited.

In memoriam Stephen Salmons

I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Stephen Salmons, co-founder of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, a personal friend, and friend to the Louise Brooks Society. I am passing along the following message from the SFSFF.

STEPHEN SALMONS 1958–2023 Stephen Salmons, cofounder of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and its artistic director through 2009, died on February 10. We join his friends and loved ones in mourning this great loss. A writer, performer, and filmmaker born in Santa Cruz in 1958, he made his home in San Francisco, where he became half the team that turned SFSFF from a dream into a reality. His knowledge ranged widely and deeply across literature, music, film, theater, and he drew from it all to the benefit of our festival audiences. In 2006, he received the Marlon Riggs Award from the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle in recognition of his unique contribution to the city’s cultural landscape. Steve, of course, was much more than titles, accomplishments, or a list of works can convey. He was modest about his own artistic endeavors but was the first to encourage and applaud the artistic pursuits of others. He especially relished when he could inject a bit of ballyhoo into a festival program and the kinships that quickly form over a fresh insight or discovery made chatting between shows. Above all he valued kindness and that came through in his dealings every day. We will remember him most as a warm and witty colleague and friend who took visible delight in the playful exchange of ideas. He will be sorely missed. We send our most heartfelt condolences to his wife Melissa Chittick, with whom he cofounded SFSFF and shared a life for 24 years. Our thoughts are with her at this difficult time.

Photo by Pamela Gentile

 

A Girl in Every Port, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928

A Girl in Every Port, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1928. A Girl in Every Port is a classic early “buddy film,” On loan to Fox, Louise Brooks plays Marie (Mam’selle Godiva), the girl in Marseille, France. The film was directed by Howard Hawks, and stars Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong as the two sailors, and features Marie Casajuana, Sally Rand, Natalie Kingston, Leila Hyams, and Myrna Loy as the women they romance in various ports of call. More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society filmography page. 

The film was shot in November and December, 1927 at Fox’s studios in Hollywood. Location shooting was done on a boating trip to Santa Cruz Island, located along the California coast. The film debuted at the mammoth Roxy theater in New York City. Fox claimed, and Film Daily reported, that A Girl in Every Port had broke the “world’s record” for a single day’s box office receipts, when on February 22, 1928 it premiered at the Roxy in New York and grossed $29,463.00. A hit, the film was written up in just about every NYC publications, from the German-language New Yorker Volkszeitung to Women’s Wear Daily to the socialist Daily Worker.

The film received glowing reviews. TIME magazine stated, “A Girl in Every Port is really What Price Glory? translated from arid and terrestrial irony to marine gaiety of the most salty and miscellaneous nature. Nobody could be more charming than Louise Brooks, that clinging and tender little barnacle from the docks of Marseilles. Director Howard Hawks and his entire cast, especially Robert Armstrong, deserve bouquets and kudos.” Weekly Film Review noted that the audience “Cheered it – and loved it!”

What many critics focused on was the bond between the two male characters, sailors played by Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong. Bland Johaneson of the New York Daily Mirror wrote, “A Girl in Every Port at the Roxy is a man’s picture. It’s a good character comedy. But the love interest is the love of two men friends. The girls are all rats. And that limits the picture’s appeal to the romanticists. . . . Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong do fine acting, and the comedy is neatly handled.” Limitations aside, women also liked the picture, according to the Newark Star-Eagle. “Women laughed delightedly in the Fox Terminal yesterday at what was supposed to be exclusively a he-man picture. Victor McLaglen starred as a true adventurer in A Girl in Every Port, and although the film was mostly fast battling, feminine spectators found delightful entertainment in it. . . . He has a prize associate in Robert Armstrong, who was the fighter in the stage version of Is Zat So, and Louise Brooks, cast as a sideshow siren, does capitally as the crisis of McLaglen’s career as a seaport Don Juan. . . . This is a salty, virile picture, full of flying fists and colorful rows in strange climates and distinguished by the unmovie like and emphatic characterizations of the two leading males.” 

The salty nature of the picture did not go unnoticed. According to Irene Thirer of the New York Daily News, “Director Howard Hawks has injected several devilish touches in the piece, which surprisingly enough, got by the censors.” An exhibitor from Michigan wrote in the Exhibitor’s Herald, “the salesman said that this was a good picture when he sold it to me… time must have rotted it for it is one of the smuttiest pictures on the market. If you want to promote immorality, by all means play this one. I have to use care and precaution in the selection of pictures, and this one brought plenty of criticism”.

Aside from its popularity in the United States, the film had an even bigger impact in Europe, especially France. Writing in 1930 in his “Paris Cinema Chatter” column in the New York Times, Morris Gilbert noted “ . . . there are a number of others – mostly American – which have their place as ‘classics’ in the opinion of the French. . . . They love A Girl in Every Port, which has the added distinction of being practically the only American film which keeps its own English title here.” The film enjoyed a long run in Paris, where to this day it is still highly regarded.

Notably,  Jean-Paul Sartre hoped to take Simone de Beauvoir to see the film on one of their first dates. Later, the writer Blaise Cendrars stated the film “marked the first appearance of contemporary cinema”.

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). In the United States, the film was also presented under the title Uma noiva em cada porto (Portuguese-language press).

Elsewhere, A Girl in Every Port was shown under the title Poings de fer, coeur d’or (Algeria); Una novia en cada puerto and Una chica en cada porto (Argentina); Das Verdammte Herz – Zwei lustige Matrosen (Austria); Une fille dans chaque port (Belgium, French) and Een liefje bij elke landing (Belgium, Dutch); Uma noiva em cada porto (Brazil); Una Novia en Cada Puerto (Cuba); Dívka v každém prístavu (Czechoslovakia) and Dievca v kazdom pristave and Vsade ine dievca (Slovakia); Blaue jungens, blonde Mädchen (Danzig); En Pige i hver Havn (Denmark); Una Novia en Cada Puerto (Dominican Republic); Een Liefje in iedere Haven and In iedere Stad een andere Schat! (Dutch East Indies - Indonesia); Poings de fer, coeur d’or and Une femme dans chaque port and Une fille dans chaque port (France); Blaue jungens, blonde Mädchen (Germany); Az ocean Don Juana (Hungary); Kærasta i hverri höfn! (Iceland); Capitano Barbableu and Il Capitano Barbableu and Capitan Barbablù (Italy); 港々に女あり or Minato Ni on'na ari (Japan); Ein zeitgemasser Don-Juan and Meitene katra osta (Latvia); Mergina kiekviename uoste (Lithuania); Poings de Fer – Coeur d’Or Blaue Jungen – Blonde Madchen (Luxembourg); Una novia in cada puerto (Mexico); In iedere Stad ... een andere Schat! and In elke stad een andere schat (Netherlands); En pike i hver havn (Norway); A kochanek miał sto and Dziewczyna w kaz.dym porcie and Era Pogoni Za Bogatym Memzem (Poland); Uma Rapariga em Cada Pôrto and Uma companheira em cada pôrto (Portugal); O fata in fiecare port (Romania); Una novia in cada puerto and Un Amor en Cada Puerto and Una xicota a cada port (Spain, including The Canary Islands); En flicka i varje hamn (Sweden); and Poings de fer et coeur dor (Switzerland).

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— Much was made over the “bevy of beautiful girls” appearing in the film. Writing in the Hollywood Daily Citizen, Elena Brinkley quipped, “It seems to me they’ll never finish signing girls for Victor McLaglen’s A Girl in Every Port.” Early on, among those she reports cast was Anna May Wong.

— Maria Casajuana, a Spanish-born dancer and one-time “Miss Spain,” made her screen debut in A Girl in Every Port. As a newcomer, her role was heavily promoted. Beginning with Road House (1928), Casajuana appeared in films as Maria Alba. She also appeared in Goldie, a 1931 remake of A Girl in Every Port.

— Casajuana was not the only actress working under another name. Gretel Yolz was actually Eileen Sedgwick, one of the Five Sedgwicks, a pioneering family in Hollywood.

— In 1931, Fox remade A Girl in Every Port as a sound film entitled Goldie. The remake was directed by Benjamin Stoloff and starred Spencer Tracy, Warren Hymer and Jean Harlow. The 1952 Marx Brothers’ film of the same name is unrelated.

Some day, I would like to see a proper DVD release of A Girl in Every Port. A few years back, there was talk of such a thing, but nothing ever materialized.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited.

More Bits and Pieces Found on The Street of Forgotten Men

In my forthcoming book, The Street of Forgotten Men: From Story to Screen and Beyond, I state "Bits and pieces of this book were first tried out on my Louise Brooks Society blog, where anyone interested in The Street of Forgotten Men can find additional material which didn’t make it into the book." This is one such post.

One chapter in the book focuses on the film's legacy, and the surprising way it impacted American culture. I discuss how the title of the film became a catchphrase, and survey some of the fiction, film, and other material which was "inspired" by The Street of Forgotten Men, including poetry. I found a handful of pieces, including a prose poem in a 1928 high school yearbook, which referenced the film title. In my book, I didn't have room to discuss each of the examples of poetry which I came across. Here, I foucs on the two poems whose titles were taken from the film.

The film's title-phrase became the subject of a newspaper poem titled “The Street of Forgotten Men.” At the time, many papers printed inspirational or humorous verse, much of which rhymed, was satirical, or sought to teach a lesson. (Today, Edgar Guest may well be the best known writer of such verse.) 

One piece I came across was Daniel J. Knott, Jr.’s “original composition,” which appeared on December 13, 1929 in the Putnam County Courier, published in Carmel, New York. Knott’s verse, which is a sing-songy tour of the Bowery, reflects on the hungry and homeless – the “bodies of wrecks caught in poverty’s mesh.” It ran just a couple of months after the stock market crash which began the Depression.

Another piece I came across was an anonymous poem published in a book, Seth Parker Fireside Poems, a 1933 collection of folksy poems originally broadcast on the radio by Seth Parker (aka Phillips H. Lord), a popular radio personality and the host of the long running program, Jonesport Neighbors. Parker was quite famous in his day, and in 1932 he starred in a motion picture produced by RKO Radio Pictures which was based on another of his books. In the film, Way Back Home, he starred opposite Bette Davis.

A note accompanying the poem reads, “This poem was handed to Mr. Lord during his Monday night broadcast from his ‘Bowery Den’ (the old ‘Tunnel Saloon’ on the Bowery) by one of the men in the bread-line, It was written in pencil on an old scrap of paper. When questioned as to why he had written this poem, the author’s only reply was, ‘My tribute to Phil Lord for what he is doing for us boys down here’.”

If you are wondering how it is that I am ascribing the title of these two poems to the film and not some other source, you will have to read my book. I trace the history of the phrases "forgotten man" (or "forgotten men") and "street of forgotten men," and note that the latter was not used in any print source I could trace until George Kibbe Turner's 1925 magazine story (upon which the 1925 film was based) was published. As I state in the book, "Herbert Brenon's 1925 film has a distinction few other movies can claim, namely, its title became a catchphrase."

The Street of Forgotten Men: From Story to Screen and Beyond is nearly done. I am waiting for one last document to arrive, and have begun a final edit and indexing of the book. As The Street of Forgotten Men is Louise Brooks' first film, this is a book fans of the actress and of the silent era will want to read.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited.

Louise Brooks and Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis

Thanks to Simon Werrett for tipping me off to the forthcoming screenings of Walther Ruttman's Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927) in Berlin! Curiously, posters for the event feature Louise Brooks. And what's more, those very posters are, according to Simon, "peppered" throughout Berlin's underground stations. More information about this pair of screenings (one on February 22, and the other on March 26) can be found HERE.

Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (also sometimes called Berlin: Symphony of a City) is an exceptional film. It is a thrilling non-fiction, poetic film, an example of the "city symphony" film genre. According to its Wikipedia entry, "it portrays the life of a city, mainly through visual impressions in a semi-documentary style, without the narrative content of more mainstream films, though the sequencing of events can imply a kind of loose theme or impression of the city's daily life." If you haven't seen the film, you must. I wish I could make it to Berlin, not only to snatch one of those posters, but to see this magnificent film on the big screen with live music IN BERLIN.

Here is information about the event both in German and in English:

Berlin – Die Sinfonie der Großstadt Live begleitet vom Babylon Orchester Berlin unter Leitung von George Morton (Sa, 11.2.)

So klingt #Berlin ! #TheSoundofBerlin
Walter Ruttmann's classic is a fascinating journey through time in the roaring twenties from Berlin.
… accompanied by #edmundmeisel‘s stirring original music!

Berlin – Die Sinfonie der Großstadt, D 1927, R: Walther Ruttmann, 65 Min., ohne Dialog/No dialog!

Berlin, eine Stadt erwacht aus dem Schlaf und wird zur Legende, 1927, fünf Jahre vor dem Ende der Weimarer Republik. Elektrisierend!
Eine Stadt vor ihrem Untergang.

Ein Kaleidoskop von Eindrücken, die ein lebendiges Bild der Viermillionen-Metropole vermitteln: von der ersten Morgendämmerung, wenn die ersten Pendlerzüge einlaufen bis in die späte Nacht, wenn sich die Lichtreklamen der Kinos und Tanzpaläste auf dem regennassen Asphalt spiegeln.

Hektik und Beschaulichkeit, Armut und Reichtum, Angestellte, Flaneure, und immer wieder Busse, Straßenbahnen, Lastwagen, U-Bahnen, Züge, Autos, Fahrräder, Fußgängerströme als Pulsgeber des groß-städtischen Rhythmus: Walter Ruttmanns Klassiker ist eine faszinierende Zeitreise in die #goldenezwanziger

ENGLISH
A daily routine in Berlin's life, filmed in the late 1920s.

Berlin, a city awakens from sleep and becomes a legend, in 1927, five years before the end of the Weimar Republic. Electrifying! A city before its downfall.

A kaleidoscope of impressions that convey a vivid picture of the four million metropolis: from the first dawn, when the first commuter trains arrive, until late at night, when the neon signs of the cinemas and dance palaces are reflected on the rain-soaked asphalt.

Hustle and bustle and tranquility, poverty and wealth, employees, strollers, and again and again buses, trams, trucks, subways, trains, cars, bicycles, pedestrian streams as the pulse generator of the urban rhythm: Walter Ruttmann's classic is a fascinating journey through time in the roaring twenties from Berlin.

 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited.

The Canary Murder Case, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1929

The Canary Murder Case, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1929. The Canary Murder Case is a detective story involving an amateur sleuth, a blackmailing showgirl, and the “swells” that surround her. The film was initially shot as a silent, and shortly thereafter reworked for sound. Louise Brooks, who plays the canary, would not dub her lines for the sound version. Her refusal and perceived “difficulty” harmed her career, effectively ending her stardom in the United States. More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society filmography page.

Production of the film took place between September 11 and October 12, 1928 at Paramount’s studio in Hollywood. Sound retakes took place on and around December 19, 1928. Malcolm St. Clair directed The Canary Murder Case, with Frank Tuttle taking over the sound retakes. The film was released as an 80 minute talkie in most markets, and as a shorter silent in theater’s not yet “wired for sound.” A few publications, such as The Film Daily, reviewed both formats.

Based on a bestselling book of the same name, The Canary Murder Case was released to great anticipation. In February, 1929 Motion Picture named the film one of the best for the month, declaring “William Powell is superb. The rest of the players, including Louise Brooks, Jean Arthur, James Hall, Charles Lane, Gustav Von Seyffertitz and many others, win credit.” That opinion, however, was not shared by most. More typical of the reviews the film received was that of the New York World, who declared the film “an example of a good movie plot gone wrong as the result of spoken dialogue.”

Mordaunt Hall, writing in the New York Times, was more generous, “It is on the whole the best talking-mystery production that has been seen, which does not imply that it is without failings. It is quite obvious that Louise Brooks, who impersonates Margaret Odell, alias the Canary, does not speak her lines. Why the producers should have permitted them to be uttered as they are is a mystery far deeper than the story of this picture.” Billboard added “Louise Brooks is mediocre as the Canary, but this does not detract from the production, as she appears in but a few scenes.”

Louella Parsons, writing in the Los Angeles Examiner, stated St. Clair “was handicapped by no less a person than Louise Brooks, who plays the Canary. You are conscious that the words spoken do not actually emanate from the mouth of Miss Brooks and you feel that as much of her part as possible has been cut. She is unbelievably bad in a role that should have been well suited to her. Only long shots are permitted of her and even these are far from convincing when she speaks.” Parson’s comments were echoed by Margaret L. Coyne of the Syracuse Post-Standard, who observed, “The only flaw is the substitution of another voice for that of Louise Brooks — the Canary — making necessary a number of subterfuges to disguise the fact.”

All were not fooled. The Oakland Post-Enquirer and other publications eventually caught on. “It is generally known by this time that Margaret Livingston doubled for Louise Brooks in the dialogue sequences. Hence the not quite perfect synchronization in close-ups and the variety of back views and dimly photographed profiles of the Canary.”

The Cincinnati Enquirer quipped “The role of the murdered girl is played by Louise Brooks, who is much more satisfying optically than auditorily.” Writing in Life magazine, Harry Evans went further, suggesting Brooks’ didn’t speak well. “Louise Brooks, who furnishes the sex-appeal, is evidently a poorer conversationalist than Miss Arthur, because all of her articulation is obviously supplied by a voice double.” It was an assertion that would haunt Brooks for years.

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), India, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, Trinidad, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales).

Elsewhere, The Canary Murder Case was shown under the title Die Stimme aus dem Jenseits (Austria); O drama de uma noite (Brazil); El Crimen de la Canaria (Cuba); Die Stimme aus dem Jenseits and Kanárkový vražedný prípad (Czechoslovakia) and Hlas Ze Záhrobí (Slovakia); Die Stimme Aus Dem Jensits (Danzig); Hvem dræbte Margaret O’Dell? (Denmark); De Kanarie Moordzaak (Dutch East Indies – Indonesia); Hääl teisest maailmast and Hääl teisest ilmast (Estonia); Salaperainen Rikos and Ett hemlighetsfullt brott and Det hemlighetsfulla brottet (Finland); Le meurtre du Canari (France); Die Stimme Aus Dem Jensits (Germany); Kandari Gyilkosság and Gyilkossag a szailoban (Hungary); La canarina assassinata and Il caso della canarina assassinata (Italy); カナリヤ殺人事件 (Japan); 카나리아 머더 케이스 (Korea); De Kanarie Moordzaak (The Netherlands); I Kanarifuglens Garn and I fristerinnens garn (Norway); Kryyk z za Swlatow (Poland); Die stimme aus dem Jenseits (Poland, German language publication); O Drama duma Noite (Portugal); Kdo je morilec? (Slovenia); ¿Quién la mató? (Spain, including The Canary Islands); Midnattsmysteriet (Sweden); and Дело об убийстве канарейки (U.S.S.R.).

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW: 

 —S. S. van Dine is the pseudonym used by art critic Willard Huntington Wright (1888 – 1939) when he wrote detective novels. Wright was an important figure in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-WWI New York, and under the pseudonym (which he originally used to conceal his identity) he created the once immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio in the following decades.

— Wright was one of the best-selling authors in the United States. The Canary Murder Case was the second book in a popular series featuring Vance — though the film made from it was the first in the series to feature the character. William Powell revived his role as Vance in four additional films, including The Greene Murder Case, released later in 1929. Other actors who played Vance include Basil Rathbone and Edmund Lowe.

— S.S. van Dine’s novel was loosely based on the real-life murder of showgirlDot King, which was never solved. King was among those nicknamed “Broadway Butterflies.”

— Glenn Wilson, a Federal investigator attached to the bureau of criminal investigation for Los Angeles county, reportedly served as an adviser on the film.

— In a 1931 article on the cinema in Singapore, the New York Times notes that “Asiatics love the gangster film, but very few are shown, owing to the censorship regulations which bar gun battles and will not tolerate an actual ‘kill’ on the screen. The first cuts made before they decide to ban all films of this type were very clumsy and made a mystery story a bigger mystery than ever. For instance, in the Canary Murder Case.”

— An Italian TV version of the story, directed by Marco Leto and featuring Giorgio Albertazzi as Philo Vance and Virna Lisi as the Canary, was broadcast in 1974.

Some day, I would like to see a proper DVD release of The Canary Murder Case which includes both the sound and (reportedly superior) silent versions.

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