Zine article

Yesterday, I won an copy of Debris, issue nine. This scarce British music 'zine from late 1985 (?) contains a one page article about Louise Brooks. Along with later issues of Stained Pages - a Canadian zine, and Telegraph - a music 'zine devoted to the band OMD - this is one of only a few articles I have collected about Brooks from which originally appeared in a 'zine.

Zines are ephemeral. Does anyone know of any other articles about Brooks which appeared in a 'zine? If so, please email the LBS.

Robert Olen Butler

A few nights ago, I had a chance to chat with Robert Olen Butler, the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist. He has a new book called Had a Good Time, a lyrical collection of short stories inspired by turn-of-the-century postcards - especially the sentiments written on the back of the cards. I would highly recommended this new book to any fiction readers in the crowd.

As it turns out, Robert Olen Butler collects many things - old postcards, vintage fountain pens, old-time product cards, etc .... The author said he has a few British cigarette cards depicting Louise Brooks. "I love her. She is a wonderful actress," declared Butler.

"Oh, Canada"

Canada is one area of research I have been pursueing as it relates to Louise Brooks.

The Denishawn Dance company performed in a handful of Canadian cities during their 1922/1923 and 1923/1924 tours - the two seasons Brooks was a member of that dance group. Over the last year and a half, I have managed to acquire a few reviews of performances in Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec. I hope to acquire more, but the process of obtaining microfilm of newspapers from north of the border is slow and a little complicated. Few American libraries, seemingly, own Canadian newspapers on microfilm from that time period. (Any Canadian citizen who reads this and wants to help is encouraged to send me an email.)

I have also, slowly, been collecting reviews and articles about Brooks' films which appeared in Canadian papers in the 1920's and 1930's. So far, I have managed to gather a handful of reviews from each of the following periodicals: Calgary Herald, Manitoba Free Press, Toronto Star, Toronto Globe, Montreal Gazette, and Ottawa Citizen. And again, I have plans to acquire more in the coming year.

It's interesting to get the Canadian perspective! A brief write-up in the Toronto Star from 1931, for example, is one of the very few newspaper items I have ever found regarding Windy Riley Goes Hollywood, then and now one of the most obscure films in which Brooks appeared.

Perhaps the most intrigueing item I located was an article in the Toronto Star from 1927 which told the story of a young Canadian swimmer - a star athlete - who went to Hollywood to test for motion pictures.

He recounted his experiences - visiting the studios, having make-up applied, the glare of the bright lights, etc... and, his chance encounter with a friendly young actress named Louise Brooks. Two long paragraphs are then given over to their meeting, his observations of her character and appearance, and the "love scene" he had to play with her. From the description of Brooks' hair as being in ringlets, I assume their encounter took place at the time of Brooks was making Evening Clotheswith Adolphe Menjou.

That article, and others from Canada, are cited in the various bibliographies on the LBS website.

Roger Ebert articles on-line

The Chicago Sun-Times has put thousands of Roger Ebert's film reviews and articles on-line. They can all be found in a searchable database at the Sun Timeswebsite. Ebert really loves "the movies," and he is an advocate for the greats of the silent film era, i.e., Charlie Chaplin, Lon Chaney, Buster Keaton, Lillian Gish, and Louise Brooks, among others. (See "Star Ranking Really Rankles.")

Included among the Ebert archive is a long article from 1998 on Louise Brooks and Pandora's Box (which quietly alludes to the LBS - "she is the most popular dead actress on the Web.") Another interesting item is a question and answer exchange from "Movie Answer Man."

"Q. I've been attending a series of silent films by the German director G.W. Pabst. While watching Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), I recognized a camera shot that is most often attributed to Conrad Hall (that of a face next to a window during rain, making it appear as if the raindrops are tears). Hall's use of that shot in In Cold Blood is certainly amazing, but it seems that the origin of that shot should be credited to the cinematographers Sepp Allgeier and Fritz Arno Wagner. I was amazed to find such a shot in a German film from the '20s.  --- Charles Modica Jr., Los Angeles

A. There are more amazing shots in German films from the 1920s than in most new releases. That film and Pandora's Box made Louise Brooks a movie immortal. Thanks for the insight; Bertolucci's new The Dreamers quotes the shot, and I credited Hall."

Louise Brooks of Kansas

Just out from the University of Nebraska Press is The Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, edited by David J. Wishart.

"With 1,316 entries contributed by more than one thousand scholars, this groundbreaking reference work captures what is vital and interesting about the Great Plains - from its temperamental climate to its images and icons, its historical character, its folklore, and its politics. Thoroughly illustrated, annotated, and indexed, this remarkable compendium of information and analysis will prove the definitive and indispensable resource on the Great Plains for many years to come."

This nearly 1000-page reference work also contains a short entry (by yours truely) on Louise Brooks, who was born and raised in Kansas.

I haven't seen a copy, but am curious to hear from anyone who does if the editors chose to include the picture of Louise Brooks I submitted with my entry.

Louise Brooks and Lemony Snicket . . .

Came across these interesting references to Louise Brooks in the works of the popular writer known as "Lemony Snicket." 

In the "A Night at the Theatre" section of Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, the author refers to the "Brooks-Gish Award for Best Actress."

And in The Carnivorous Carnival, which is part of the author's A Series of Unfortunate Events series and which contains other cinematic and literary references, there is a mention of Lulu.

What does it all mean? Is Lemony Snicket a fan of Louise Brooks? Someday I will have to ask Daniel Handler . . . .

Louise Brooks mention on NPR

I was listening to National Public Radio while driving home from a research trip to the University of California, Berkeley. On the radio was a program called "Artists At Work." The artists featured were French song composer Dominique Cravic and artist Robert Crumb, members of the musical group Les Primitifs du Futur. While highlighting the group's music and past cd's, the program host mentioned their song for Louise Brooks, "Chanson pour Louise Brooks," and then played an excerpt.

Silent film analyzes battle of the sexes

A review of Diary of a Lost Girl appeared in yesterday's Grand Rapids Press. The article, by John Douglas, was entitled "Silent film analyzes battle of the sexes." The article concludes " . . . The print of "Diary of a Young Girl" on this DVD has been restored, and much of the footage deleted by the early censors has been restored. So it is a wonderful opportunity to catch up with this film starring a true talent few people remember."

Lulu play

This brief article, by Wally Rubin, appeared in the September 10 issue of Variety.

"Presented by Fearless Productions as part of the New York International Fringe Festival at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher St., NYC, Aug. 24-28.

Lulu is a new musical by two graduates of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, based on two plays by German Expressionist playwright Frank Wedekind. The plays were also the basis for an opera by Alban Berg and a 1929 silent movie starring Louise Brooks, famed for her bobbed hairstyle. It is the story of Lulu, a young, amoral man killer, and of the unbidden effects of love, how passion and lust can overrule rational impulses.

Composer-lyricist Adam Gwon and Courtney Phelps, who wrote the book with Gwon and directed, have set this Lulu against the backdrop of the roiling 1920s, when jazz, booze, and silent movies were all the rage. Think La Ronde meets The Wild Party, which, not so incidentally, are both works that have been musicalized by Michael John LaChiusa, who is clearly on influence on Gwen. The style (if not the effect) of the writing is similar, with the same penchant for a restless sound that distrusts melody, and an arch tone that is equal parts bitter and wistful. Gwon shows potential, but he needs to find his own voice and allow his characters greater specificity, giving us reasons to care more about them. At the moment, they seem like ideas culled from other sources.

Broadway veteran Brooke Sunny Moriber was Lulu. She has the perfect 1920s face, with a small mouth and pale porcelain skin, and is gifted with both a distinctive belt and soprano. Jessica Morris, Selby Brown, Daniel C. Levine, and Maggie Letsche all have strong voices, and it was a treat to hear them unmiked. Kevin Kern as a young screenwriter with sunken cheeks and curly blond hair had a melancholic manner that appropriately set him apart. Trevor McGinness' costumes were impressively all of a piece."

Calgary Herald

Another newspaper achive I've come across is that for the Calgary Herald, which is part of the early Alberta newspaper collection. Unlike other newspaper archives, this collection is not searchable by keyword. Instead, the archive contains rather large images of individual pages from the newspapers in its archives. I went through months and months of the Calgary Herald, and managed to find a bunch of articles, reviews and advertisements from the 1920's. (Citations have been added to the appropriate bibliographies on the LBS website.) Does anyone know of any other Canadian publications with searchable on-line archives?

Harvard Crimson

While crawling around the world wide web, I ran across the website for the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper at Harvard University. That publication has put its archive, dating back to 1873, on the internet. My search under keywords "Louise Brooks" only turned up a few minor mentions, including this brief review of A Girl in Every Port.

Does anyone know of any other student publications with searchable on-line archives?

Rare Louise Brooks soundtrack

Yesterday, I won an eBay auction for a contemporary soundtrack recording for Le Journal dUne Fille Perdue, or The Diary of a Lost Girl. Brooks is pictured on the front and back of the record sleeve. This rare French LP (PSI / Musimage 20716) was released in 1981, and contains original music for String Quartet by Robert Viger and Solo Piano by Alain Bernaud. I assume this soundtrack recording accompanied the film at some time during its then recent rerelease by Connaissance du Cinema.

Los Angeles trip

Besides the USC and UCLA libraries, my wife and I visited some film-related sites during our recent trip to Los Angeles.

We took the Sony Pictures studio tour, which led us around the old MGM lot in Culver City. There were a number of historic buildings still standing on the lot, and the tour guide knowledgeably filled us in on what building related to Irving Thalberg, Buster Keaton, etc.... The tour was worthwhile, and comparable to the Paramount Studio tour - which we had taken a few years earlier. We also visited the site of the old Hal Roach studio (now a movie production facility), where my wife's sister was working on Team America, a forthcoming film. We got to see the film's sets, as well as a scene being shot. Nifty. Later, we stopped in front of the old Chaplin Studios - now home to Jim Henson Productions.

We spent a few hours walking around downtown Hollywood, where we once again visited the Roosevelt Hotel (home to the first ever Academy Awards), Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the Kodak Theater (new home to the Academy Awards), and some of the memorabilia shops and bookstores which line Hollywood boulevard. Unfortunately, Larry Edmunds bookshop was closed.

A highlight of our time spent in Hollywood was our first ever trip to the Hollywood Heritage Museum (located across the road from the Hollywood Bowl). Over the years, we have tried to visit this little museum on at least three occassions, but could never make it when the building was open. (The building is currently open on weekends from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.)                                                                                                                                   

"The Hollywood Heritage Museum is housed in the beautifully restored Lasky-DeMille Barn (c. 1895). The Museum features archival photographs from the silent movie days of motion picture production, movie props, historic documents and other movie related memorabilia. Also featured are historic photos and postcards of the streets, buildings and residences of Hollywood during its heyday." Louise Brooks' name and image can be found on at least four or five pieces of memorabilia inside the museum, including a rare image of Brooks and Adolph Menjou standing outside of the building, circa January, 1927. In this photo, a bearded Menjou is seen observing Brooks, who has climbed up a ladder leaning against the "old barn". Supposedly, these two Paramount stars are helping paint the building. If you are a silent film buff, the Hollywood Heritage Museum is well worth a visit. There is a lot of really cool stuff inside - as well as a gift shop!

Another memorable visit was to the Hollywood Forever cemetery. We have been there a few times, but this visit coincided with the annual Rudolph Valentino memorial service - which is held every year on August 23. About a hundred people gathered for the service this year, which was set up inside the mausoleum where the Valentino is laid to rest. The speakers included the "lady in black," musician Ian Whitcomb - who performed a couple of vintage songs about Valentino, film historian Annette D'Agostino Lloyd (author of the just published Harold Lloyd Encyclopedia), and Tracy Ryan Terhune - author of a new book called Valentino Forever - The History of the Valentino Memorial Service. This was the first time we have attended the memorial service. Perhaps we shall go again some year.

USC and UCLA

Short vacation to Los Angeles. Spent one day each in the special collections departments of the libraries at USC and UCLA, where I uncovered a bunch of new material - including previously undocumented articles and reviews from a smattering of American, British, German, French, and Spanish publications.

I was able to look through about four years worth of bound volumes of Picturegoer, the British fan magazine. Also examined vintage copies of two very rare trade journals, The Film Mercury and Hollywood Filmograph. Each was based in Los Angeles, and each offered a somewhat different perspective on the film world than East Coast trade journals like Variety and Film Daily. Also looked at individual issues of other American fan publications, such as Movie Monthly. One very cool find was an illustrated fictionalization (in short story form) of The American Venus.

The most significant item I looked at was a book about the films of G.W. Pabst published in Moscow in 1933. (That's just four years after Pabst made his two films with Louise Brooks!) I have known of the existence of this book for some time - but have been unable to examine it. USC is, seemingly, the only library in the United States which owns a copy of this very rare item - and its rarity and fragility prevents them from loaning it.

And so, as I sat in "the cage" - the special collections viewing room - I was nearly trembling with excitement. Finally, resting on the desk before me was a copy of this elusive book. I paged through it ever so slowly, and though I don't read Russian, I found an entire chapter devoted to the two Brooks films. (There was also an image of the actress.) Certainly, this is the earliest chapter in any book ever devoted to Louise Brooks.

My thanks to the special collections staff at UCLA and USC for their help. I especially want to thank Ned Comstock of USC, who more than went out of his way to help me with my research. Thank you Ned!

K'Scope

A recent eBay purchase: a copy of K'Scope (also called Kaleidoscope), a film magazine from 1967 featuring an overview of the movies made from the S.S. van Dine murder mysteries, including The Canary Murder Case.

Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits

There is a new anthology of mostly contemporary crime fiction called The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits. The book is edited by Mike Ashley and features a cover image obviously based on Louise Brooks.

                        

Book description: "In Chicago and New York, in sleazy speakeasies and on Easy Street, to the strains of jazz and the beat of the Charleston, the twenties roared. The horrors of the Great War behind it, the decade went mad with abandon-and mad over the movies, radio, telephones, and the motorcar. But beneath the froth and the folly, the razzle and dazzle, lay a darker world, a hard and often violent world, for the twenties belonged as much to the gangster as they did to the flapper. The stories in this vastly entertaining collection of whodunnits crafted by talents like Amy Myers, Robert Randisi, Jon L. Breen, Edward D. Hoch, Marilyn Todd, and Mike Stotter reflect the allures - and the deadly dangers - of both those worlds."

Charlie Chaplin biography

Finally finished reading Chaplin, the 1985 biography by the British film historian David Robinson. (This book served as the basis for the biopic of Charlie Chaplin.) What a large life! The author - who I had the pleasure to meet and chat with a number of years ago - did a tremendous job. There is a ton of information here, with emphasis given to the films rather than the personal life of the "little tramp." Nevertheless, its a good read.

Anniversary

Louise Brooks died on August 8th, 1985 in Rochester, New York. Her death was reported in newspapers around the world.

The Find-a-Grave website contains images of her grave, as well as messages from her many fans.

LBS anniversary

This month, the Louise Brooks Society celebrates its 9th year on the internet. Since its humble beginings as a "fan page," the LBS has received approximately 1,000,000 hits. Not bad for a website about a silent film star.

The Louise Brooks Society is a "virtual fan club" in cyberspace. At last count, its 1000 members hail from 46 countries on six continents! From Canada to Argentina, from the Canary Islands to Hungary, from Australia to Zimbabwe, LBS members comprise a truly world wide web of Louise Brooks fans and silent film enthusiasts.

Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin

Earlier this year, I had read and enjoyed Marion Meade's biography of Buster Keaton. And so, I figured I would give her new book a try. I just finished reading Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin: Writers Running Wild in the Twenties, Meade's group portrait of four Jazz Age writers - Dorothy Parker, Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Edna Ferber. I liked this book a good deal, though at times, I found the interwoven stories of the four writer's loves, lives, and literary endeavors a little jumbled.

Robert Bly photoplay edition

I hosted a poetry reading tonight for Robert Bly. Afterwords, I asked him to sign a few books, including my copy of The Saga of Gosta Berling, by Selma Lagerlof. (Though not so much read today, Lagerlof was a popular Swedish writer at the turn of the 20th century and the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. This novel, her most popular, was made into a film in 1924 by director Mauritz Stiller.)

I own this book because Greta Garbo is pictured on the cover. When I presented the book to Bly, he did not recognize it and said it was not his translation. I showed him his name inside the book. He acknowledged it was in fact his translation, but stated that he had never seen this edition before. It turns out this copy is an English language translation published in Sweden in 1982. I can't remember where I obtained this copy. Most likely, it was at a second hand book store in San Francisco or Berkeley.

Peggy Hopkins Joyce biography

Finished reading Gold Digger, by Constance Rosenblum. This excellent biography, originally published in 2000, tells the story of the "outrageous life and times of Peggy Hopkins Joyce" - a somewhat minor stage and film star of the Twenties and Thirties who led a rather interesting life. She was, certainly, one of the leading personalities of her time. "They don't make courtesans like Peggy Hopkins Joyce anymore - or so worthy of rediscovery - and they don't make biographies any more stylish and definitive than this one." - Barry Paris 

Audience fading for repertory movie theaters

San Francisco Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle has written a really interesting article on the future of repertory movie theaters. Though largely focussed on San Francisco, the article has national implications. This article is about the kind of local movie theaters that show silent films and pre-code films and the films that readers of this blog care about. Check out the article here.

Chicago research

Returned the other day from a work-related trip to Chicago, where I was attending the annual booksellers convention. While in the "Windy City," I spent some time researching Louise Brooks.

I spent a day and a half - about ten hours - at the Chicago Public Library. This is my third trip to the CPL. This time, I managed to more or less complete my survey of Chicago newspapers on microfilm. The papers I've looked at include the Chicago American, Chicago Daily Journal, Chicago Daily News, Chicago Evening Post,Chicago Herald-Examiner, and Chicago Tribune. I found additional reviews for Brooks' Chicago-area Denishawn performances, as well as substantial coverage of her nite club appearances in the 1930's. I also dug up a number of film reviews, as well as a handful of other miscellaneous articles, including front page coverage of Brooks marriage to Eddie Sutherland! All together, a good haul. (I also browsed the stacks, where I found a bit of interesting material in a few different books.)

I spent about seven hours at the library at the University of Chicago. There, I was able to look at rare German, Soviet and Japanese film periodicals from the late 1920's and early 1930's. (The Russian and German periodicals were on microfilm. The Japanese film periodical - Movie Times - was a reproduction of the original in bound volumes.) I found a handful of illustrated articles in each periodical! The Russian and Japanese periodicals are especially rare - and it was exciting to actually browse them and find pictures and articles about Brooks and her films.

The University of Chicago library has a lot of microfilm, and I wasn't able to look at everything I wanted. I did spend a little time looking at other publications, including the Daily Worker (this socialist newspaper based in New York City yielded a couple of brief articles), the Charleston News and Courier (found a Denishawn review and a film article in this South Carolina paper), and the Joliet Herald News (found some advertisements for screenings in the 1920's in this Chicago-area paper). Citations for these and all of the above material has been added to the LBS bibliographies.

Brooks event in Los Angeles

For those who live in Los Angeles and are so inclined, a Louise Brooks-inspired event will take place on Friday, May 21, 2004 at 10 pm. The Bricktops are presenting their second annual "Louise Brooks, LuLu in Hollywood Tributata. " 

For more info on the event, see http://www.parlourclub.com/club_page.asp?club_page=Bricktops (Fancy dress highly encouraged. $5.00 cover 21+ 10pm-2am. With resident DJ Bernice Bobs-Her-Hair and Pirate Jenny From Montpellier. ) Information on the Bricktops, and their home, the Parlour Club (7702 Santa Monica Blvd in the Russian Quarter of West Hollywood), can also be found through this page. If anybody goes, please post your observations! 

Redwood City

Ventured to the Redwood City Public Library, about a 40 minute drive south from my apartment in San Francisco. I searched through microfilm of the Redwood City Tribune, where I found a few advertisements and brief articles related to local screenings of films featuring Louise Brooks. Local patrons, as it turns out, largely went to nearby Palo Alto or San Mateo to take in the latest offerings from Paramount, MGM, etc....

This last newspaper survey largely completes my three year survey of Bay Area publications. In summation, here is what I looked at and where I found it: 

-- San Francisco Public Library (The Argonaut, Richmond Banner, San Francisco Bulletin, San Francisco Call and Post, San Francisco Call-Bulletin, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Daily News, The Marin and San Anselmo Herald)

-- Oakland Public Library (Oakland Tribune, Oakland Post-Enquirer)

-- University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley Daily Gazette, Contra Costa Gazette, Daily Californian, Oakland Morning Record, San Rafael Independent)

-- California State University, Hayward (Hayward Review, Hayward Daily Review, Oakland Free Press, San Leandro Reporter, Township Register)

-- San Mateo Public Library (San Mateo Times)

-- Stanford University (Daily Palo Alto, Palo Alto Times, Stanford Daily)

-- San Jose State University (Los Gatos Mail News, San Jose Evening News, San Jose Mercury Herald, San Jose Mercury News)

-- California State Library (Alameda Times-Star, Illustrated Daily Herald, Livermore Herald, Marin Journal, Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

Erich von Stroheim biography

Finished reading Stroheim, by the film historian and biographer Arthur Lennig. This is an impressive biography, one which I read with great interest. (It was fascinating, for example, to find out that Erich von Stroheim lived for a short time here in the San Francisco Bay Area.) My introduction to Stroheim came through my wife, who has long been interested in this individual and his films. One of our first dates was spent watching a video of The Wedding March. Now, we have many of Stroheim's silent films on DVD.

I have been meaning to read this book since I first met Lennig back in 1999. I had hosted him for an author event and booksigning around the time that Stroheim was first published in hardback. Then, my wife and I were able to spend a little time with this noted film historian. We went to party with Lennig (where we met Fay Wray - the star The Wedding March), and later went to dinner. Lennig is quite the raconteur. Over dinner, he spoke of researching and writing about this troubled actor / director - as well as Bela Lugosi, another fascinating figure whom Lennig both knew and has written about.

For those not familiar with Stroheim and his films (you should be!), here is a description of the book from the publisher. "Erich von Stroheim (1885-1957) was one of the true giants in American film history. Stubborn, arrogant, and colorful, he saw himself as a cinema artist, which led to numerous conflicts with producers and studio executives who complained about the inflated budgets and extraordinary length of his films. Stroheim achieved great notoriety and success, but he was so uncompromising that he turned his triumph into failure. He was banned from ever directing again and spent the remainder of his life as an actor.

For years Stroheim’s life has been wreathed in myths, many of his own devising. Arthur Lennig scoured European and American archives for details concerning the life of the actor and director, and he counters several long-accepted and oft-repeated claims. Stroheim’s tales of military experience are almost completely fictitious; the “von” in his name was an affectation adopted at Ellis Island in 1909; and, counter to his own claim, he did not participate in the production of [The] Birth of a Nation in 1914.

Wherever Stroheim lived, he was an outsider: a Jew in Vienna, an Austrian in southern California, an American in France. This contributed to an almost pathological need to embellish and obscure his past; yet, it also may have been the key to his genius both behind and in front of the camera. He had a fantastic dedication to absolute cinematic truth and believed that his vision and genius would triumph over the Hollywood system.

As an actor, Stroheim threw himself into his portrayals of evil men, relishing his epithet “The Man You Love to Hate.” As a director, he immersed himself in every facet of production, including script writing and costume design. In 1923 he created his masterpiece Greed, infamous for its eight-hour running time. The studio cut the film to two hours and burned the extra footage. Stroheim returned to acting, saving some of his finest performances for La Grande Illusion (1937) and Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), a role he hated, probably because it was too similar to the story of his own life."

Roxie Theater

There is an article in today's San Francisco Chronicle about the Roxie, a local movie theater. It is the oldest operating movie theater in San Francisco. I have seen a number of films there over the years, including most memorably Dangerous Female (1931), the first film version of The Maltese Falcon (in which Louise Brooks is pictured as Sam Spade's girlfriend!), and a Norma Shearer film (introduced by Shearer's daughter.) My friend Lara works there as a projectionist.

Austrian newspapers

Came across a website which had historic runs of Austrian newspapers, including three papers from Vienna from the period of the 1920's. The papers are not searchable by keyword, so I had to scroll through them page by page looking for interesting material. I had hoped to find something about Pandora's Box, which, I believe, showed in Vienna the first week of March, 1929. Nothing turned up. The three papers I scanned didn't seem to report on or review the cinema. Found no articles or advertisements.

Does anyone know of any similar on-line access to European newspapers of the 1920's or 1930's?

Webpage updates

New songs have been added to RadioLulu. If you haven't already heard this internet radio station, please give a listen. The station can be found at http://www.live365.com/stations/298896RadioLulu features "all things Lulu" - the music of the Twenties through today. Included are theme songs from the films of Louise Brooks, songs by the actress' contemporaries, friends and co-stars, show-tunes and standards, vintage jazz, as well as contemporary pop songs about the silent film star. Everyone from George Gershwin, Josephine Baker and Marlene Dietrich to Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark and Soul Coughing are highlighted on this unique station.

The LBS Gift Shop pages have also been updated. Highlighted on these pages is information and links to Louise Brooks books, DVD's and videos, posters, prints, postcards and other products available for purchase over the internet and elsewhere.

The LBS home page has been refined. And many new citations have also been added to the various Louise Brooks bibliographies.

Beggars of Life

Having finished the Dietrich biography, I decided to next read Beggars of Life, by Jim Tully. I haven't read it before. And am intent on eventually reading all of the books which served as the basis for a Louise Brooks' film. So far, I am about 85 pages into the book. It's ok, so far - somewhat dated, but also somewhat engaging. Kinda rough-hewn, and written in thickly-dabbed, colorful, impressionistic prose.

I own two copies of Beggars of Life. One is a 1928 photoplay edition, with a dustjacket depicting Brooks, Richard Arlen and Wallace Beery. The other is a first edition from 1924. This copy was once owned by actress Colleen Moore, and has her bookplate on the endpaper. It is also inscribed by Tully to Moore. The inscription reads, "To Colleen Moore with the admiration of an Irish rover to a whimsical girl who knew him when. Jim Tully Hollywood, Calif 1926."



After a long period of being out-of-print, Beggar's of Life is available once again in a new edition from AK Press. I would be interested to know if anyone else has read this book.

Louise Brooks screenings in Washington D.C.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. is presenting "Film Series: Restoration Spotlight Louise Brooks in Europe" featuring 

Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora / Lulu)
May 16 at 4:30 p.m.
New materials from the original version were discovered at the Gosfilmofond archive in Moscow and were combined with an earlier German restoration for the most complete print to date. The new musical score for two pianos is performed live under Gillian Anderson's direction (G. W. Pabst, 1928, 120 minutes).

Diary of a Lost Girl (Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen)
May 22 at 4:00 p.m.
This latest restoration, the most accurate reflection to date of the director's intentions, was compiled from source materials in Belgium, France, Germany, and Uruguay (G. W. Pabst, 1929, silent with piano accompaniment by Ray Brubacher, 98 minutes).

Miss Europe (Prix de beauté)
May 23 at 4:30 p.m.
in the transitional period between silents and talkies, Prix de beauté was conceived as a silent film. Until now, however, it has been viewable only with postsynchronized music, effects, and dialogue. Materials recently discovered in Milan have made possible the reconstruction of the original silent print, thus restoring the composition of the frames before a soundtrack was added (Augusto Genina, 1930, silent with piano accompaniment by Ray Brubacher, 108 minutes). 

For more info see http://www.nga.gov/programs/flmbrooks.htm

Marlene Dietrich and Louise Brooks

Some time ago, I came across an obscure drawing by the Polish writer Bruno Schulz (1892 - 1942) which I believe depicts Louise Brooks and Marlene Dietrich. If it is not them, then it bears a striking resemblance to the two cinematic femme fatales, Lulu and Lola.

Bruno Schulz is known for his short stories, and he is considered one of the great Polish writers of the 20th century. His brief literary career ended during World War II when he was gunned down by a German officer. John Updike, an admirer, has described the author as "one of the great transmogrifiers of the world into words." [Schulz's most famous work, The Street of Crocodiles (1934), was itself transmogrified into a 1986 film by the Brother's Quay. It is extraordinary - one of the most memorable and poetic films I have ever seen!] 

Schulz was also gifted artist. The drawing that I came across, which dates from 1930 but is now lost and only exists in reproduction, does seem to depict Brooks and Dietrich. In the title of the drawing, the two women are termed "temptresses." The standing Brooks figure is garbed in showgirl attire, a la Pandora's Box, while the Dietrich figure is seated with legs crossed, a la The Blue Angel. Perhaps I am wrong, but this image seems another link between the mythic characters of Lulu and Lola. 

Marlene Dietrich

Yesterday, I finished reading Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend by Steven Bach. Wow! What an amazing life and what a remarkable biography. I was especially impressed with the scholarship (both quantity and quality) that went into writing this book. This engrossing biography is especially good on Dietrich's early life and career - and the background on German life and culture in the first decades of the 20th century is excellent. Highly recommended.



I think - in down-deep, subtle ways, Marlene Dietrich and Louise Brooks were similar sorts of people. Or at least similarly motivated. Both were very beautiful, sexually driven, and drawn to powerful men. (And both men and women were drawn to them.) Both projected their selves into their characters and onto the screen. Both sought to shape their legacies. Both scrubbed floors in atonement. (Their is also a subtle link between their two most famous roles as well:  Lulu = Lola. Dietrich, as everyone knows, was offered the role that Brooks would play - the role of Lulu - in Pandora's Box. A year later, Dietrich would go on to play Lola in the similarly themed film, The Blue Angel. G.W. Pabst directed Brooks, and Josef von Sternberg directed Dietrich: each director was a kind of Svengali to the actress.)

Has anyone else read this biography of Dietrich (or other books on the actress)? Any comments on the similarities between Lulu and Lola, the Blue Angel? 

"Neve Campbell to play 1920s star Louise Brooks"

Neve Campbell to play 1920s star Louise Brooks

Canadian Press
April 27, 2004 8:33 PM ET

VANCOUVER — Canadian actress Neve Campbell, who recently finished three days of work on Reefer Madness, the musical version of the 1936 cult pot howler being shot here for Showtime, says she's not sure what's next.

"I don't really like anything I'm reading," says Campbell, whose younger brother Christian is in the Reefer cast along with Tony winner Alan Cumming and TV's Steven Weber (Wings, The D.A.). "I've optioned a script about Louise Brooks, a silent film actress in the '20s. I'm working on producing that."

Brooks, who like Campbell was a dancer and actress, made two dozen movies between 1924 and 1938. She was best known for her trademark Dutch bob hairstyle and as Lulu, the heroine in the erotically charged 1929 film Pandora's Box by German director G. W. Pabst.

After sinking into obscurity for decades, Brooks re-emerged as a respected writer in the 1950s.

Campbell says she's also producing A Private War, about Tourette Syndrome, an inherited neurological disorder that causes involuntary movements and verbal outbursts, which afflicts her brother Damien.

Campbell's When Will I Be Loved, done with writer-director James Toback, is due out in September.

Campbell is also awaiting the release of Churchill: The Hollywood Years, where she plays a young Princess Elizabeth in this broad satire starring Christian Slater as a Churchill substitute hired because Hollywood decides the original isn't photogenic enough to win the Second World War.

"It's absolutely silly English humour." says Campbell.

Reefer Madness, which wraps shooting in June, will air on Showtime next year.

Another UC Berkeley research trip

Another trip to the periodicals room at the library of the University of California, Berkeley. Scrolled through microfilm of various newspapers, mostly from Mexico and Poland. Found a few advertisements. Also looked through a newspaper from Jerusalem dating from the 1920's. Found advertisements for films playing there, but none were Louise Brooks' films. Seemingly, Jerusalem had only a very few movie theaters, and the films shown were usualy the blockbusters from the United States or Europe.

Last trip to San Jose

Last trip (for the time being) to the combined libraries of the city of San Jose and San Jose State University, where I went through some more microfilm and even some bound periodicals. Found a few miscellaneous items. Also looked through the Los Gatos Mail News.

Bibliography updates

Recent additions to the various LBS bibliographies include citations from a bunch of American newspapers. I found Denishawn articles, reviews and advertisements in the Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph, Baltimore News, Peoria Journal, Savannah Morning Press and Lexington Leader.  I also dug up some films reviews in the Buffalo Courier Express, Minneapolis Tribune, Hartford Courant, and San Antonio Express. The search goes on!

New LBS / Cafepress stuff

There are new LBS products available at Cafepress, which can be found at www.cafeshops.com/louisebrooks  Check it out.

Buster Keaton

How I love Buster Keaton! I love his films. I love his never smiling face. I love his inventive brilliance. My wife and I own the recently released eleven disc boxed set of DVD's featuring many of Keaton's silent films. We have watched them all.

Two excellent books on the actor which I read in rapid succession are Keaton: The Man Who Wouldn't Lie Down, by Tom Dardis, and Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase, by Marion Meade. I liked each of them a great deal.

I read Dardis' book first. It is one of the earliest books on Keaton, and contains a number of quotations by Louise Brooks regarding the "great stone face." (Dardis had interviewed Brooks, and had also corresponded with the actress.) Dardis' book is anecdotal and sympathetic in its telling of Keaton's rise and fall and rediscovery as an actor and film genius. When I was done, I wanted more. That's when I turned to Meade's detailed and thoroughly researched biography. The two books compliment each other.

More citations in Bibliography

The search goes on for more articles about Louise Brooks. Among the publications I've recently been looking at are the Lexington Herald, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Wheeling Intelligencer, and Selma Times-Journal. I found vintage reviews and articles in each. I also dug up some rare material in the Palm Beach Daily Post on Brooks' appearance as a ballroom dancer in Florida in 1935. Perhaps the most remarkable item I found was a short review of Pandora's Box published in 1929 in Kurjer Polski, a Warsaw newspaper. I would love to find reviews of Pandora's Box from each of the major Eastern European capitals.

Cape Town in San Jose

Another trip to the combined libraries of the city of San Jose and San Jose State University, where I have been going through microfilm the Cape Times, a newspaper from Cape Town, South Africa.  I have largely completed my survey of this very British paper. I was hoping to find something about Pandora's Box, as other German productions were shown in Cape Town. But alas, no luck. Though I found some worthwhile material, I am glad to be done with this particular search. The Cape Times was pretty boring, all-in-all. Citations for the reviews and articles I did come across have been added to the LBS bibliographies.

Site updates

The portrait galleries are off-line for the time being. The Merchandise and Recommended Books page have been updated.

I know the way to San Jose

Lately, I have been visiting the combined libraries of the city of San Jose and San Jose State University, where I have been going through microfilm of various regional and international newspapers. For some strange reason, this library has a run of the Cape Times, a newspaper from Cape Town, South Africa. I have been slowly working my way through the mid to late 1920's, where so far I have found a few short reviews of films featuring Louise Brooks. I have also found some simple advertisements promoting screenings of various Brooks films in theaters around Cape Town. (Some films were shown two or three times months apart in the course of a year.) Nifty to think that Brooks' films were shown 'round the world way back in the 1920's.

Lya de Putti

Finished reading Lya de Putti: Loving life and not fearing death, by Romano Tozzi and Peter Herzog. This is a 1993 biography of the lovely Hungarian-born silent film star (who died young) and who is probably best known today for her role in the 1925 German production Variety, which starred Emil Jannings as her jealous lover. I saw that film a while back. But before then, I was smitten by so many postcard images of de Putti which I had collected or seen for sale over the years. A number of these postcards adorn the endpapers of this hard-to-find biography.