Evening Clothes, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1927. The film is a romantic comedy about a gentleman farmer who — spurned by his bride, goes to the big
city to loose his rustic ways and win back his new wife. A stanza
printed in advertisements for the film put it this way, “He was a French
hick / Who didn’t please her / So he went to Paris and / Became a
Boulevardier.” Louise Brooks plays a character called Fox Trot, a hot-to-trot Parisian who some described as a lady of the evening. More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society filmography page.
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Adolphe Menjou, Louise Brooks, and Noah Beery Sr.
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The making of the film coincided with Paramount’s transition from its East Coast facilities to the West Coast. Evening Clothes
was the first film Brooks made in Hollywood, and at Paramount’s
suggestion, the first in which she did not wear her signature bob
hairstyle.
Evening Clothes was made to order for its star, Adolphe Menjou. And as with his similarly-themed prior films A Social Celebrity, Ace of Cads, The Sorrows of Satan, and Blonde or Brunette — Evening Clothes proved popular with moviegoers, though less so with critics. The New York Daily News
stated “There are a couple of really subtle spots, however, which
brighten up the film tremendously, raising it right out of the mediocre
class,” while adding “Louise Brooks is a perfect knockout as a
good-natured lady of the evening.” The New York Morning Telegraph
quipped, ” . . . as it stands, this latest Menjou vehicle offers
entertainment value equivalent to the Paramount admission charge.” Other
New York papers were more positive. The New York Telegram called the film “a delightful little comedy,” while the New York Journal
described it as “an entertaining comedy, with some good situations.”
All-in-all, the film received a cool critical response, though it
performed very well at the box office.
Thin story-line aside, many reviewers focused on the actors as well
as Brooks’ new hairstyle. Among them was Regina Cannon of the New York American,
“Louise Brooks is again cast as a ‘lady of the evening’ and makes her
role pert and amusing. You won’t recognize Miss Brooks at first, for she
is wearing her hair curled over her head. This is too bad, for it makes
her look just like a thousand other attractive girls. Louise achieved
distinction with her straight-banged bob.”
Louella Parsons of the Los Angeles Examiner added, “When you
see the show girl, Louise Brooks, cavorting about with a frizzled top
you will see why Famous Players Lasky is grooming her for bigger and
better things. She fares much better than either Miss Tashman or Mr.
Beery, who only appear at long intervals.” Welford Beaton of Film Spectator echoed Parson’s remarks, “There are three girls who do very well in Evening Clothes
— Virginia Valli, Louise Brooks and Lilyan Tashman. . . . I was glad to
see further evidence of Paramount’s dawning consciousness that Louise
Brooks is not composed solely of legs. They work her from the knees up
in this picture and it begins to look as if she were headed for a high
place.”
Herbert Cruikshank, who wasn’t enthused about the film, nevertheless liked Brooks. He wrote in the New York Morning Telegraph,
“It seems to me that Louise Brooks deserves first place. She is
charmingly piquant as a chic little gold-digger who turns out to be a
pretty good fellow after all — as many of the maligned sisterhood do.
While her part is merely a filler, she seems to have built it up
materially, and holds center stage in whatever scenes she has.”
And front-and-center is where Brooks’ next film placed her. Rolled Stockings — which featured Brooks in the lead — went into production just as Evening Clothes was opening around the United States.
Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada*, China, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, Panama, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, 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 El Traje de Etiqueta (Spanish-language press) and Roupas Noturnas (Portuguese-language press).
Elsewhere, Evening Clothes was shown under the title Un Homme en Habit (Algeria); El hombre del frac (Argentina); Eine Pariser ehe (Austria); Un homme en habit (Belgium, French) and Een Man in Habijt and Een Man in een Habijt (Belgium, Dutch); De Casaca e Luva Branca (Brazil); Las que no aman (Chile); El traje de etiqueta (Costa Rica); El Traje de Etiqueta (Cuba); Vecerní odev and Muž ve Fraku (Czechoslovakia); Ein Frack Ein Claque Ein Madel (Danzig); I kjole og hvidt (Denmark); In Rok (Dutch East Indies); El Marques de la Moda (Dominican Republic); Un Homme en Habit (Egypt); Mõistueaubielu and Mõistueaubielu abielu and Vernunftehe (Estonia); Frakkipukuinen herra and Parisin yökahviloissa (Finland); Un Homme en Habit (France); Ein Frack ein Claque ein Mädel (Germany); Estélyruha and Frakk És Klakk (Hungary); Il signore della notte and Signore della notte (Italy); 夜会服 or Yakai-fuku (Japan); Aprehķina laulības and Der Liebling der Gesellschaft (Latvia); Un Homme en Habit – Ein Frack, Ein Claque, Ein Madel! (Luxembourg); El traje de etiqueta (Mexico); In Rok (The Netherlands**); I Kjole og Hvitt (Norway); Szkoła Paryska (Poland); De Casaca e Luva Branca (Portugal); El Traje de etiqueta and El vestido de etiqueta and Vestido de etiqueta (Spain); En herre i frack (Sweden); L’homme en habit and Un homme en habit (Switzerland); and Un Homme en Habit (Vietnam).
* The film was banned in Quebec, Canada because of “concubinage” – the
suggestion of interpersonal or sexual relationship between a man and a
woman in which the couple are not or cannot be married.
** When the film was shown in The Netherlands in 1929, a cut was made
to the film and screenings were restricted to those 18 and over.
SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:
— Evening Clothes is based on a French play L’homme en habit by Andre Picard and Yves Mirande which debuted in Paris on March 25, 1920. The Man in Evening Clothes, an English-language version of the play translated by the noted actress Ruth Chatterton, had a brief Broadway run at the Henry Miller Theatre beginning on December 5, 1924.
— Evening Clothes had its
world premiere at the Metropolitan theater in Los Angeles, California on
March 4, 1927. Adolphe Menjou was in attendance at the special event,
as was the noted poet and then current French ambassador to the United
States, . Each were introduced from the stage. It’s now known if Brooks was in attendance at the premiere.
— Arnold Kent (billed as Lido Manetti) had a small role in the film. He began his film career in Italy after having started as a stage actor. (Among his Italian credits were Quo Vadis
and a few diva films directed by Augusto Genini.) In the mid-1920s, he
moved to Hollywood and worked as a contract player at Universal and
later at Paramount. He died in Hollywood in 1928 from injuries sustained
in an automobile accident.
— In 1931, Paramount produced two sound versions of the play at their studios in Joinville, France. A Spanish-language version, Un caballero de frac,
was directed y Roger Capellani and Carlos San Martín and starred
Roberto Rey and Gloria Guzmán. And a French-language version, Un home de habit,
directed by René Guissart and Robert Bossis, starred Fernand Gravey and
Suzy Vernon. Only the Spanish-language film was released in the United
States. Additionally, in 1938, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder outlined a treatment of the play, but nothing seems to have come of an American remake.
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.
