Pandora's Box in Pittsburgh, PA with Barry Paris

Just announced: On November 5th the Three Rivers Film Festival in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania will screen Pandora's Box at the Regent Square Theater. Pianist Philip Carli will provide live piano accompaniment, and Louise Brooks biographer Barry Paris will introduce the film. Tickets are $10.00

Pandora's Box on TV

Pandora's Box will be shown on the Independent Film Channel on Tuesday, October 17th. The film starts at 9 pm eastern time. The film will be repeated at Wednesday, October 18th at 2:10 am (EDT) and 11:15 am (EDT). Here is what the IFC webpagehas to say.

1929 | 110 min. | Director: Georg Wilhelm Pabst

German filmmaker G.W . Pabst's late-silent classic Pandora's Box (Die Busch de Pandora) stars the hauntingly beautiful Louise Brooks as libertine dancer Lulu. Ever out for the Main Chance, Lulu tries to persuade her wealthy lover Dr. Schon (Fritz Kortner) to marry her. When he refuses, she shoots him. Escaping to London with the doctor's moonstruck son Alwa (Francis Lederer), Lulu takes up residence with her bisexual "adopted" father (Carl Gotz). Soon Lulu's selfish behavior alienates everyone, and she is reduced to walking the streets, with tragic consequences. Based on two works by the controversial German novelist. Even after seven decades, Pandora's Box exudes smoky sensuality in every frame. Regarded now as a masterpiece, the film received surprisingly scathing reviews, with most of the critical broadsides aimed at Louise Brooks (this was long before Brooks graduated from just another pretty Hollywood starlet to Cult Goddess).

Art House Films

This article appeared in today's Chicago Sun-Times. Louise Brooks has certainly getting her fair share of press coverage lately. I especially appreciate the last line of the article.

Art house films
BY BILL STAMETS

Here's a look at some of the arthouse films opening today:

"Pandora's Box" ("Die Buchse der Pandora") 3 stars

Revived in a new black-and-white print, this classic from the end of cinema's silent era pairs German director G.W. Pabst with American actress Louise Brooks. Ladislaus Vajda's screenplay blended two plays by Frank Wedekind to track the amoral career of dancing gold-digger Lulu (Brooks).

When a newspaper executive (Fritz Kortner) ends his affair with Lulu, he tells his son Alwa (Francis Lederer): "Men don't marry such women. It would be suicide." One gunshot later, a prosecutor likens Lulu to Pandora, "well-versed in the infatuating arts of flattery."

Falling for his late father's mistress, Alwa serves as her character witness. She escapes a manslaughter sentence and hides on a gambling ship. Next she escapes a fate of white slavery in a Cairo brothel and lands in a wintry London garret. Christmas Eve finds her under the mistletoe with Jack the Ripper (Gustav Diessl). Only a psychopath would not succumb to her charms.

The Pabst touch is seen in his kinetic crowd scenes: backstage at Lulu's theater before the curtain rises, and the courtroom she flees after a false fire alarm triggers pandemonium. Pabst also excels at canted expressionist close-ups of faces. Brooks overwhelms the lens with her magnetic eyes. Her signature coiffure looks like a black patent-leather bathing cap.

After shooting a second Pabst film in Berlin, Brooks' star fell. The February and March 1934 headlines that she made in Chicago evoke a Lulu in exile: "Scion of Old Family Makes Debut With Wife at Chez Paree Club."

(No MPAA rating. Running time: 110 minutes. Screens at Music Box tonight with live organ accompaniment by Dennis Scott and Sunday with Jay Warren at the keyboard.)

Movie review: 'Pandora's Box'

Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune gave Pandora's Box four stars in his review of the film in today's paper. Interestingly, the article also noted the film's "implied perversion."

Few movie goddesses can break your heart like saucy, black-banged Louise Brooks, whose centennial comes this year and whose best film and performance, as Lulu in G.W. Pabst's "Pandora's Box," plays this weekend at the Music Box Theatre, in a new print.

If you've never seen Brooks--or "Pandora's Box"--you've missed one of the most extraordinary personalities and films of the silent movie era. Brooks' life story is remarkable in itself. She was an American actress and dancer from Kansas who had starred for directors Howard Hawks and William Wellman by the time she was 22, then became famous and scandalous in Germany for her two films with Pabst ("Pandora's Box" and "Diary of a Lost Girl"), only to see her Hollywood star career collapse at the dawn of the sound era. A few decades later, when her career was over and the films were revived, she achieved and then held her present legendary status. She died in 1985.

How did Brooks survive the buffets of fate and fame? She was no careerist obviously. But she was a stunner--one of those personalities who can explode off the screen, with a piquant energy and dazzling smile that, in the end, broke down all defenses. As Lulu, the girlish, wanton temptress of Pabst's 1929 picture--a playful German seductress who casually enslaves and destroys good men while arousing and provoking bad ones--Brooks radiates a sexuality and flawed humanity so potent that one never questions why the males around her so easily fall apart.

One look at Brooks' curving helmet-like bangs, soft dark eyes and hyperactive dancer's body, and you know why the well-respected editor Peter Schoen (Fritz Kortner) sacrifices himself to pursue her, and why his son, Alwa (Franz Lederer, who became "Francis Lederer" when he emigrated to Hollywood), throws away his life to flee with Lulu when she's convicted of manslaughter in his father's death. You know also why she enslaves women like the chic lesbian Countess Anna Geschwitz (Alice Roberts), and why even London's Jack the Ripper (Gustav Diessl) falls for her.

"Pandora's Box," showing Friday and Sunday, was regarded in its day as shocking and immoral. But it's actually one of the most socially acute, sophisticated films of its era, a prime example of the urbane, knowing German-Austrian film tradition that also produced Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder. With his brilliant staging and visual mastery of the rich, shadowy blacks and whites that would later mark American film noir, Pabst re-creates the rigid, mercenary society around Lulu. Then he shows how her impish beauty throws open its doors.

In life, beauty is ephemeral. But in the movies, it can become seemingly immortal. Brooks lost a career--due, it's said to sound, to American dismissal of her foreign stardom and to her refusal of some key Hollywood mogul advances. But she won a legend afterward comparable to that of '30s superstars Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich (Pabst's second choice for Lulu)--and Henri Langlois, master film collector of the French Cinematheque, ranked her above the latter two, insisting: "There is no Garbo! There is no Dietrich! There is only Louise Brooks!" Watching "Pandora's Box" now, one can see why bad-girl Lulu remains in our eyes and hearts, why Louise Brooks still lives.

Pandora's Box

Directed by G.W. Pabst; written by Ladislaus Vajda, based on Franz Wedekind's plays "Erdgeist" and "Pandora's Box"; photographed by Gunther Krampf; edited by Joseph Fliesler; art direction by Andrei Andreiev; produced by George S. Horsetzky. A Kino International release; opens Friday at the Music Box Theatre. Running time: 1:50. "Pandora's Box" will be accompanied on the theater organ by Dennis Scott at 8:30 p.m. Friday and by Jay Warren at 2 and 5 p.m, Sunday. No MPAA rating (parents cautioned for implied sexuality and perversion, drug use and violence).

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A second big article about Louise Brooks and Pandora's Box appeared in the newpapers today. This one, by Kenneth Turan, ran in the Los Angeles Times.

'Lulu,' eternally bewitching
Louise Brooks' acting career was brief but incandescent.
By Kenneth Turan
Times Staff Writer

LOUISE BROOKS was not just a Jazz Age actress, she was a drug that went right to your head, a performer of phenomenal presence who jumped to icon without a lengthy stay at earthbound stardom. The written word cannot convey her qualities, but to see her is to immediately understand.

Because 2006 is the centenary year of Brooks' birth on Nov. 14 in Cherryvale, Kan., celebrations are in order. A lushly illustrated biography, "Louise Brooks: Lulu Forever" by Peter Cowie, is being published by Rizzoli, and starting tonight the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is offering a rare chance to experience her work on the big screen over the next two weekends.

On view will be the Howard Hawks-directed "A Girl in Every Port," one of Brooks' most highly regarded Hollywood films; G.W. Pabst's "Diary of a Lost Girl"; and the little-seen French-made "Prix de Beauté."

But the highlight of the festival, playing at 7:30 tonight, Friday and Saturday in a new 35-millimeter print, is the film that defined and encapsulated the essence of Brooks' image. That would be G.W. Pabst's 1929 silent "Pandora's Box," a brooding, erotic and claustrophobic work starring Brooks as Lulu. Franz Wedekind, who wrote the play the film was based on, said Lulu was "the personification of primitive sexuality who inspires evil unaware."

Brooks began in entertainment as a dancer, working for both the avant-garde Denishawn company and the Ziegfeld Follies in Manhattan, where she caught the eye of Hollywood and did a series of mostly light comedies with names like "Rolled Stockings." It was the Hawks film, however, that caught the eye of Pabst and led him to bring her to Berlin to star in "Pandora's Box," even though she was all of 21 and spoke not a word of German.

Lulu begins the film as a kept woman in a fancy apartment, the mistress of newspaper tycoon played by Fritz Kortner. He wants to leave her to make a socially advantageous marriage, but she won't hear of it: "You'll have to kill me," she says, "if you want to get away from me."

Not that Lulu herself is the soul of constancy. Far from it. During the course of the film she intoxicates not only the tycoon but also his son, a lesbian countess, a muscular trapeze artist, an ancient roué, a man who wants to sell her into prostitution and, finally, Jack the Ripper.

Yet to relate all this is to risk getting the wrong impression about Lulu. Yes, she bewitches and ruins countless individuals, including herself, but she does it not through calculation or guile but simply by existing, by being who she is.

More to the point, when Lulu says at one juncture, "This is who I am," Brooks manages to simultaneously radiate innocence and experience. In fact, the ability to actually bring innocence to experience might be the heart of the actress' appeal.

For while the other performers in "Pandora's Box," even top people like Kortner, look and act very much of the silent period, Brooks' extremely natural and unaffected work has dated not at all. An actress who defines timeless, she doesn't make you guess how people reacted to her in her prime, she is incandescent enough to allow you to feel it for yourself.

Brooks' gifts start with a matchless vivacity. She makes good use of the dancer's classic freedom of motion, glowing with showgirl enthusiasm during "Pandora's Box's" key backstage scenes. And she joins that to a quite modern freedom of emotion, an alive spirit that no man or woman can resist.

Though Brooks, who died in 1985, was most famous for her helmet-like, jet-black bobbed hair, it's the way quicksilver emotions play across one of the most alive faces in cinema history that makes her memorable.

For hers is a visage bright with promise and never daunted. It's a face that pops off the screen and draws you in, a face that makes you want to meld with the image on the screen. "Everyone wants my blood, my life," she says at one point in "Pandora's Box," and to see this singular screen actress is to inevitably add your name to that list.

`A Centenary Tribute to Louise Brooks'

"Pandora's Box," 7:30 p.m. today through Saturday 

•  "A Girl in Every Port" and "Diary of a Lost Girl," 7:30 p.m. Oct. 20 

•  "Prix de Beauté," 7:30 p.m. Oct. 21 

Where: Bing Theater, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.

Gay LA

Tonight, I  hosted an event with Lillian Faderman. She is the author of numerous books, including most recently Gay L. A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, And Lipstick Lesbians. Its a fascinating history of gay & lesbian life in Los Angeles.

Drawing upon untouched archives of documents and photographs and over 200 new interviews, Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons chart L.A.'s unique gay history, from the first missionary encounters with Native American cross-gendered "two spirits" to cross-dressing frontier women in search of their fortunes; from the bohemian freedom of early Hollywood to the explosion of gay life during World War II to the underground radicalism sparked by the 1950s blacklist; from the 1960s gay liberation movement to the creation of gay marketing in the 1990s. Faderman and Timmons show how geography, economic opportunity, and a constant influx of new people created a city that was more compatible to gay life than any other in America. Combining broad historical scope with deftly wrought stories of real people, from the Hollywood sound stage to the barrio, Gay L.A.is American social history at its best. 

Naturally, the film world and Hollywood figure in this account. (The section called "The Silent Era" contains a chapter titled "Going Hollywood.) During her fascinating talk, Faderman mentioned that she had researched parts of her book at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. She also discussed Marlene Dietrich & Tallulah Bankhead, and mentioned Greta Garbo. All of whom figure in the book. Louise Brooks is referenced in Gay LA, as is Bruz Fletcher, the gay singer whose night club Brooks frequented.

If you are at all interested, check out Gay L. A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, And Lipstick Lesbians. It looks like a great work of social history. (And Dietrich appears on the cover.)

Lulu Forever

Here is a picture of the stunning poster for Louise Brooks: Lulu Forever mounted in the film section at The Booksmith in San Francisco. That store (my place of employ) will be hosting author Peter Cowie at the Balboa Theater on Sunday, November 12th. It will be an event not to be missed!

Anyone who might want to purchase an autographed first edition hardback copy of Cowie's new book should contact the Booksmith to place an order.

Pordenone

There was an error in yesterday's "News of Lulu" - the email newsletter of the Louise Brooks Society. I had stated that Pandora's Box was to be shown at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (aka Pordenone) in Italy. I was mistaken. The world famous silent film festival was to have shown that film, but seemingly changed their minds. Instead, the silent version of Prix de Beaute will be shown instead (along with the documentary Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu) as part of a special "Louise Brooks 100" celebration. Happily, you an read or download the extensive festival catalog - including introductory remarks on Louise Brooks by Kevin Brownlow - by visiting www.cinetecadelfriuli.org/gcm/edizione2006/edizione2006_frameset.html

Once there, click on the link on the right that opens or downloads the pdf file of the festival's program. Then, go to pages 33-36 to see the introduction by Kevin Brownlow and a full description (all listings first in Italian, followed by English translation) of Prix de Beaute and Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu. Thanx Lee!

Fascinatin' Rhythm

If you like music of the twenties, thirties and forties - you'll want to check out a weekly one hour radio show called "Fascinatin' Rhythm," which airs on National Public Radio. (The show can also be heard on NPR stations over the internet.)  I have been a fan of this program for some time. And everytime I hear it I learn to love some new music or singer. The last program I heard, for example, reminded me how much I like Annette Hanshaw - a wonderful singer from the 1930's.

More about "Fascinatin' Rhythm" can be found on this webpage. The upcoming October 26th episode - featuring "songs about underwear, pajamas, and the onset of nudity.  An hour of precaution and of throwing caution to the wind" sounds like its gonna be fun. Check your local NPR listings to see if "Fascinatin' Rhythm" is broadcast in your area.

Fascinatin' Rhythm explores the history and themes of American popular music from Stephen Foster to Stephen Sondheim. These weekly "radio essays," illustrated by recordings, won the 1994 George Foster Peabody Award for letting "our treasury of popular tunes speak (and sing) for itself with sparkling commentary tracing the contributions of the composers and performers to American society." The Peabody citation called Fascinatin' Rhythm "a celebration of American culture." The program originates from WXXI-Classical 91.5. and is nationally syndicated.

Each program features a theme - a particular kind of stage or movie musical, a single composer or lyricist, a distinctive performer, or defining image or idea. Fascinatin' Rhythm blends education and entertainment, as it also shows how songs from the Golden Age of American popular music (1920-1960) anticipate today's popular music. Heard nationally from Orlando to San Francisco and Honolulu, Fascinatin' Rhythm reveals America to America through popular songs.

A neat pic

This uncommon production still from Just Another Blonde (1926) is for sale on eBay. The film was shown as The Girl from Coney Islandaround New York City (to exploit local interest), and as The Charleston Kid in Cuba.

Thelma Barlow

Thelma Barlow, a popular British actress who played the older Louise Brooks in the stage play Smoking with Lulu, has been cast in an upcoming episode of Dr. Who - the popular British sci-fi series. I, for one, am a fan of the latest incarnation of the series - though we shall see how things play out in this third season. A rose is a rose is a rose no longer.

Lulu benefit

The cast of Lulu is having a benefit party on October 16th at the Balazo 18 Gallery, located at 2863 Mission Street in San Francisco. (That's near the Victoria Theater - where Lulu is showing through the end of the month.)  Here's your chance to meet the cast of  Lulu, have a drink, and hear some good music by the likes of The Vaticans and The Crazy B's. Photographs of the cast and production will also be on display. The benefit kicks off around 7 pm - and finishes around 11 pm. Additional details to come.

I met Lulu

Today, quite by chance, I met some of the cast members of Lulu, which is currently being staged here in San Francisco. I was at work at the Booksmith on Haight Street when I noticed a nice looking young women with a sporty black bob browsing the magazine section. I thought, "she looks familiar." Could it be Lulu? And so, I did what I rarely do, I approached someone I did not know and asked, "Aren't you . . . .?"

"Yes," was her answer. Lulu was in fact Kyla (her real name), and she and a few other members of the cast were out shopping. (Kyla had just found a second-hand, hardback copy of the Barry Paris biography of Louise Brooks - which she showed me.) We chatted about the play, their recent reviews, my plans to see it again, etc.... They were cool people. I enjoyed meeting them and look forward to see them again when my wife and I return to see the play, perhaps at the end of the month. If you live in the Bay Area and haven't seen this superb production, please go see it !

London After Midnight

Watched the still restoration of London After Midnight on TCM. It was ok. I liked Lon Chaney's vampire make-up, and the bat-girl was interesting. I wish my old friend Emil Petaja had still been alive to see this. He would have enjoyed it. London After Midnight was one of his favorite films.

Library sale

Did anyone go to the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library annual book sale? I went today, when everything was a dollar of less. My wife and I and our friend Allan Milkerit, an esteemed San Francisco book dealer, were about the tenth people in line.

Things seemed to have been picked over pretty well, though there were a few worthwile books still to be found. I headed directly to the film section. My best find was a hardback, first edtion copy of David Yallop's 1976 book on the "Fatty" Arbuckle scandal,The Day the Laughter Stopped. I also found a hardback copy of Robert Henderson's 1972 book, D.W. Griffith: His Life and Work, and an Australian book on the history of early Australian film. (And yes, it does picture and discuss The Sentimental Bloke - see earlier LJ entry). Other books I found include older hardback biographies of William Randolf Hearst, William Wyler, Mary Pickford, Gary Cooper, and Groucho Marx. As well as a few general works on film history. It wasn't the fabulous haul I had last year. Nor did I find any swell books on the 1920's - as I usually do.

One film reference book I purchased was Who's Who in Hollywood 1900 - 1976, by David Ragan. It's a bulky 860 page encyclopedia style work with zillions of entries on just about everyone. As a reference work, its nice to have around - though it has probably been superceded by the interenet and other contemporary reference works. The entry on Louise Brooks (written while she was still alive) is especially curious - it is respectful, but riddled with errors.

October events

Thru October 29, 2006: The Silent Theater company has extended their San Francisco stage production of Lulu at the Victoria Theater.  (more info)

October 3 - 8, 2006: The SEDICICORTO International Film Festival Forlì in Forlì, Italy takes place. A special category in this year festival includes films relating to Louise Brooks.  (more info)

October 7 - 14, 2006: The Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Italy will show G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box, with a newly commissioned orchestral score.  (more info)

October 12-13-14, 2006: As part of its Centenary Tribute to Louise Brooks, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents Pandora's Box.  (more info)

October 13, 2006: The Music Box Theatre in Chicago will screen Pandora's Box as part of the Roger Ebert "Great Movies" series.  (more info)

October 15, 2006: The Music Box Theatre in Chicago will screen Pandora's Box as part of the Roger Ebert "Great Movies" series.  (more info)

October 15, 2006: The Valley of the Sun Chapter of the American Theater Organ Society presents Beggars of Life as part of its "Silent Sunday" series at the Orpheum Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona.  (more info)

October 20, 2006: As part of its Centenary Tribute to Louise Brooks, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents A Girl in Every Port andDiary of a Lost Girl. Claudine Kaufmann, former Director of Collections, Cinémathèque Française, will be in attendance.  (more info)

October 21, 2006: As part of its Centenary Tribute to Louise Brooks, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents the silent version of Prix de Beauté. This new print, restored by the Cineteca di Bologna and running 109 minutes, features French intertitles and a spoken translation. Claudine Kaufmann, former Director of Collections, Cinémathèque Française, will be in attendance.  (more info)

October 23, 2006: The Florida Theatre in Jacksonville, Floria will screen Pandora's Box.  A specially commissioned poster has been created for the event.

San Francisco Public Library annual book sale

The Friends of the San Francisco Public Library 42nd annual book sale takes place this weekend. For more info click here. I will be there Sunday morning. Can't wait to find a few treasures - books on film, biographies, dance, music, 20th century American history,  etc....

Alma Rubens, Silent Snowbird

Lately, I've been reading Alma Rubens, Silent Snowbird, a new book edited by Gary Rhodes and Alexander Webb. The book contains a short biography of the early silent film star, as well as Rubens' sensational 1931 memoir.

Dark-eyed and distant Alma Rubens was one of the first female stars of the early feature film industry in the 1910s. She was a major star by 1920, but before the decade was over her screen career was marked and marred by cocaine abuse. She died in 1931 at age 33 - a Hollywood beauty, a casualty of Hollywood "snow," yet much more. As an actress she was versatile, demonstrating a talent that was ahead of its time with her gentle and subtle expressions.

This book contains Rubens’s autobiography, a text titled This Bright World Again that was serialized in newspapers in 1931. Ghost-written or not or somewhere in between, this long forgotten document deals with Rubens’s addiction and despair. In addition, a new biography of Rubens takes the reader from her birth in San Francisco through an impoverished upbringing, three short-lived marriages, and her career in pictures for Triangle Film, Cosmopolitan, Fox and other production companies. The story of her film career mingles with a tale of desperate drug addiction that led to hospital stays, violence and deception.

Alma Rubens, Silent Snowbird is interesting, and well worth checking out. The book contains some illustrations, and a filmography.

SFBG reviews Lulu

From the San Francisco Bay Guardian (the alternative weekly here)

Lulu Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St; 863-7576, www.victoriatheatre.org. $20. Extended run: Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Oct 29.

Oh, to have the perfect Louise Brooks bob and the desire of all who lay eyes on you. Being irresistibly sexy is not all it’s cracked up to be, as demonstrated in the Chicago-based Silent Theatre’s adaptation of German playwright Frank Wedekind’s story cycle revolving around the self-serving femme fatale Lulu (Kyla Louise Webb). Everyone wants the vixenly cabaret performer, from her sugar daddy agent (Alzan Pelesic) to her legal guardian, the supposedly upstanding Dr. Sch�n (Nicholas DuFloth), to the doctor’s feckless son (Matthew Massaro) and the Egon Schiele-esque countess and costume designer (Lauren Ashley Fisher) for the upcoming big show. And though Lulu seems adept at handling her cadre of suitors, the stage can get pretty crowded, with one lover coming in the door, another sneaking around the sofa, and yet another pretending to be a statue in the corner. The story is told without dialogue, save for the projected intertitles, and the players move in black and white makeup and costumes like actors in the sped-up, jerky films of the 1920s to the dazzling and manic piano accompaniment of Isaiah Robinson. Director Tonika Todorova’s translation of the silent film to the stage can be elegantly seductive, as when Lulu tangos with her new dance partner, the volatile Rodrigo (Curtis M. Jackson), but also a bit messy, as when a particularly juicy make-out session between Lulu and the countess leaves their black lipstick smeared for the rest of the scene. Ah, but nothing in life is ever too tidy — especially in Lulu’s. (Giattina)

http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=1743&l=1

Lulu in Cyberspace

Just posted a links page = "Lulu in Cyberspace" at silentfilmbuff.googlepages.com/

Buck's column - Cherryvale's movie star

The Coffeyville Journal ran an article about Louise Brooks in today's paper. "Buck's column - Cherryvale's movie star" discusses the actress from the next town over. Buck Walton's piece starts:

It must be admitted that I’ve only seen one film of Cherryvale’s Louise Brooks, and it was “Overland Stage Raiders” (1938, John Wayne), which was her last. Judging from this B-western, you’d never guess that she had been a sensation in the 1920s and has a cult following.

The article can be found in its entirety at www.cjournal.com/columns/local_story_267010823.html/

Continueing . . .

I have continued placing inter-library loan requests and have continued visiting the library. . . . Over the last few weeks I have gathered Denishawn material from the Wasau Daily Record-Herald (from Wasau, Wisconsin) and most interestingly, the Yale Daily News (from Yale University). The students at Yale gave Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, Louise Brooks and the other members of the Denishawn Dance Company considerable coverage, including a front page article and front page review. Just a few days later, Rudolph Valentino, who was also on a dance tour of his own, visited New Haven. (Valentino was on strike against Paramount, and was touring the country with his wife, Natasha Rambova.) This would not be the first time Brooks and the Denishawn Dance Company would nearly cross paths with the silent film star.

I also gathered film material from a handful of newspapers including the Poughkeepsie Eagle-News (from Poughkeepsie, New York), Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, (from Lancaster, Pa.), Knoxville Journal (from Knoxville, Tennessee), Indianapolis Times , San Antonio Express, and Denver Post. I found some nice advertisements, and a few original reviews.

Also, of late, I have also been borrowing books. I managed to get ahold of a few vintage editions of Margarete Bohme's Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, the 1907 novel which was the basis for the 1929 film Diary of a Lost Girl. It was interesting to examine different editions. I also got ahold of Un homme en habit, the 1922 French play which was the basis of the 1927 film, Evening Clothes.

Here is a scan of the remarkable cover of the first edition of Bohme's book.

Rolled Stockings, a rolled stock

A Rolled Stockings (1927) lobby card is for sale on eBay. The card depicts Louise Brooks in a scene with James Hall and Richard Arlen (his pant leg pulled up, and his sock rolled down). Little known is the fact that a good deal of the film was shot around the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.  Anybody got an extra $1,125 ! 

Pola Negri

There is a Pola Negri retrospective taking place in New York City, and a Polish radio station did a story on the Polish-born actress. Follow this link to read the article or to listen to the even longer (approximately 5 minute) program.    http://www.polskieradio.pl/polonia/article.asp?tId=42221&j=2

A Centenary Tribute to Louise Brooks

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents A Centenary Tribute to Louise Brooks, October 12 - 21. Click here for more info.

October 12 - October 21 
A Centenary Tribute to Louise Brooks Louise Brooks was born one-hundred years ago this November 14 in Cherryvale, Kansas. Though she lived a mere six of her seventy-nine years in the glare of celebrity, she has become a cinematic icon without equal. A trained dancer who toured with Martha Graham, Brooks happily ascended to showgirl heaven in the Ziegfeld Follies, where she honed her real talents: attending parties and dazzling men. Brooks started a fashion craze with her geometric black haircut and soon appeared in magazines as an emblem of the Roaring Twenties. When the movies came knocking, she started packing, and after a brief affair with Charlie Chaplin in the summer of 1925, Brooks surfaced in Hollywood with a Paramount Pictures contract. She later married director Edward Sutherland, blazed a trail through the celebrity colony, and attracted plenty of photographers along the way. Unfortunately, her career was going nowhere until a third-act role as a gold-digging circus performer in Howard Hawks’s A Girl in Every Port caught the eye of the renowned German director Georg Wilhelm Pabst. Under pressure to cast the part of Lulu, the amoral temptress at the heart of Pandora’s Box, Pabst miraculously saw in Brooks an actress who, in the poetic words of critic Lotte Eisner, “Needed no directing, but could move across the screen causing the work of art to be born by her mere presence.” Brooks flew immediately to Berlin and embarked on a creative collaboration that produced three major films (of which one is considered a masterpiece) and ensured her fame for generations to come.

The story of Louise Brooks’s disappearance, rediscovery, and rehabilitation is a fascinating biography. By 1930, the icon had been etched on celluloid and the legend seeded. One of the curious aspects of Louise Brooks is how her admirers have tried to express her mysterious effects on the viewer. In 1955 Henri Langlois, director of the Cinematheque française, proclaimed to the audience, “There is no Garbo! There is no Dietrich! There is only Louise Brooks!” Anita Loos, the author of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, is the most succinct in her reference to Brooks as the most beautiful of all “black-haired blondes.” However, nothing equals theater critic Kenneth Tynan’s verbal paroxysm, with phrases like “shameless urchin tomboy” and “prairie princess,” before he retreats to the relatively sage “a creature of impulse, a creator of impulses, a temptress with no pretensions.” Perhaps Brooks put it best herself when she dryly wrote, “I guess Lulu’s life is about as close to my own as anyone’s can be.”

The films in this tribute are silent with live musical accompaniment.

Thursday, October 12, 7:30 PM
Pandora's Box
Friday, October 13, 7:30 PM
Pandora's Box
Saturday, October 14, 7:30 PM
Pandora's Box
Friday, October 20, 7:30 PM
A Girl in Every Port
andDiary of a Lost Girl
Saturday, October 21, 7:30 PM
Prix de Beauté (the restored silent version, with spoken translation of the French intertitles)

Along with the four film series being presented by the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York this looks like the most ambitious series of screening happening in the United States.

Louise Brooks exhibit

Hollywood Lost: The Power of Louise Brooks
from www.eastmanhouse.org/exhibits/container_56/index.php

George Eastman House is celebrating the centennial of famed silent-film star Louise Brooks (1906-1985) - the magnetic and mysterious performer who lived out the last act of her life in Rochester. The anniversary is being highlighted with a film series as well as a photography exhibition, Hollywood Lost: The Power of Louise Brooks, on view Nov. 11, 2006 through Feb. 18, 2007.

The exhibition of more than 40 vintage images will span Brooks'  childhood to the end of her life, featuring personal portraits, publicity stills, photographs from the star's private collection, and personal momentos. The exhibition also will feature a media presentation and audio installation featuring Rochester native Donald McNamara's 1979 interview with Brooks.

Brooks had a close relationship with George Eastman House, coming to Rochester in the 1950s to be near the museum and its collections, spending her final days as a painter and author. At Eastman House she spent many hours conducting research for her own articles on cinema and her biography. In 1982, she was granted the prestigious George Eastman Award for her work in motion pictures.

Brooks, who was born and raised in Kansas, started her career as a dancer with the Denishawn Dance Company in 1922, performed with theZiegfeld Follies on Broadway in 1925 and went on to act in 24 films in Hollywood and Europe. She signed with Paramount Pictures in 1925, appearing at first in bit parts and eventually moving up to supporting roles in box-office hits. Due to her distaste for Hollywood filmmaking, she terminated her contract with Paramount and accepted an offer from legendary German director G. W. Pabst to make films in Germany. There Brooks emerged as a screen icon who outraged censors with her frank behavior.

Her rediscovery and reevaluation began in 1955 with the Cinémathèque Francaise’s retrospective film series covering 60 years of cinema. The Cinémathèque’s founding director Henri Langois vaulted Brooks into the realm of the iconic with the declaration: “There is no Garbo! There is no Dietrich! There is only Louise Brooks!”

"Brooks' films were a revelation to many - ritics were unanimous in their praise for her no-holds-barred performances, and audiences were enraptured with her talent, style, and beauty,  said Caroline Yeager, co-curator of the Eastman House exhibition and the Museum’s assistant curator of motion pictures. “Sporting her signature straight-cut bangs and bobbed hair, Brooks hardly seems to be acting; her performances are more about ‘being’ than anything else, as if she were effortlessly living the parts she played. Her work combines a natural ease before the camera with a raw, exuberant energy that is both startling and exhilarating.”

Louise Brooks Film Series: The Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House will screen Louise Brooks films every Tuesday in November, marking the day of her 100th birthday with a lecture, booksigning, and screening of her most famous film on Tuesday, Nov. 14.

Tuesday, Nov. 14th event at 6:30 pm
Peter Cowie and Jack Garner present “The Art of Louise Brooks”. On the occasion of her 100th birthday, George Eastman House will pay special tribute to the legendary Louise Brooks. Noted author and film critic Peter Cowie will discuss the alluring mystery and fascinating career of the great movie star who spent the last third of her life here in Rochester. The presentation will conclude with a question-and-answer session with Cowie and Gannett Syndicated Film Critic Jack Garner. After the event, Cowie will sign copies of his new book, Louise Brooks: Lulu Forever, which features a foreword by Garner. Tickets are $10 general admission and $8 members and students. Advance tickets are available starting October 14, 2006, at the Dryden Box Office, the Museum’s admissions desk or by credit card online at www.eastmanhouse.org or by calling (585) 271-3361 ext. 218. (Ticket includes admission to screening of Pandora’s Box.)

Lulu extended

Lulu - the Silent Theatre production currently at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco - has been extended through October 29th. The production is now showing Thursdays through Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 7pm. There will be no performances on September 23, 29, 30 and October 5, 2006. I plan to see it at least once more, and also plan to take in the company's "Vaudeville" - which is being performed on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Jen Anderson

Tonight, I had the pleasure of meeting Jen Anderson, the gifted Australian composer and musician. Jen is on tour with the Larrikans - a musical group - accompanying screenings of The Sentimental Bloke (1919), an Australian film being shown around the United States. It is a charming film. And I liked Anderson's original score a good deal. It is certainly the first Australian silent film I have ever seen.

It was a pleasure to meet Anderson because she is also the composer of an original score for Pandora's Box, which accompanied the Louise Brooks film when it was screened "down under" around 1993. And one of her songs from that soundtrack - "Lulu: The Song" - is featured onRadioLulu. (It's one of my favorite contemporary Louise Brooks-themed songs.) It was nice to at last meet, as we had exchanged emails a long, long time ago. Perhaps ten years ago! Tonight, I asked Jen about the availability of copies of the Pandora's Box soundtrack. She said that she thought it was out of print, though there may be a very few left. If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy, email me and I will let you know what I find out when I find out more. Jen said she would let me know.

Jen Anderson also told me that she had just been to Rochester, New York - where she performed at a screening of The Sentinmental Bloke at the George Eastman House. (It's that institution that owns the 35mm print which was screened this evening.) While there, the musician said, she was shown some of Brooks' possessions. No doubt, they were preparing for the upcoming exhibit devoted to the actress.

Lulu review - SF Chronicle

Lulu - the Silent Theatre production currently at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco - just got a terrific review in the San Francisco Chronicle. If you live in the Bay Area and haven't already seen this enjoyable production, do check it out. It's really good - and Kyla Webb as Lulu is terrific! From today's review:

It's not just the title character, though Kyla Louise Webb's Lulu is almost as irresistible an embodiment of female sexuality as Louise Brooks was in G.W. Pabst's 1928 film, "Pandora's Box." As conceived and directed by Tonika Todorova, Silent's "Lulu" is a feast of exaggerated silent movie-style comic and melodramatic acting -- in living black and white, with blown-up supertitles and composer Isaiah Robinson's period-perfect piano accompaniment -- with a surprisingly flavorful tragic aftertaste. . . . 

"Lulu" also has something of a local connection. Though he was born in Germany, mostly raised in Switzerland and never visited America, Benjamin Franklin Wedekind's parents met in San Francisco and he was conceived in Oakland. Perhaps in keeping with his founding father namesake, Wedekind set out to revolutionize German theater, becoming a prime mover in the creation of expressionism and a major influence on Brecht, among many others. . . . 

Brooks, whose centennial is being celebrated this year, memorably captured that quality on film. Webb, in classic Brooks black bob, re-creates it onstage in a combination of expressionist stylization, Jazz Age jitterbugging verve and a more contemporary sexual assertiveness. But she doesn't do it alone. The entire company brings her fatal attraction to life, from her succession of doomed husbands and other lovers to the observers of her rise and tawdry fall. . . .

Adolphe Menjou book

I just received this book in the mail, which I had ordered from a book dealer in France. Its a short, 64 page, softcover book about Adolphe Menjou - his beginings, his films, and his adventures. It was published in June, 1927. As one would expect, it contains a number of portraits and stills from Menjou's films up to that time. Among the stills are a few from A Social Celebrity (1926), which featured Louise Brooks. And among them is one which depicts Louise Brooks - which makes this book the earliest I know of to include an image of Louise Brooks. I was secretly hoping that might be the case when I ordered it - and it turned out to be so. There is also a bit of text - a paragraph - about the film and Menjou's role in it. Notably, the book is co-authored by Robert Florey, who ten years later would direct Louise Brooks in King of Gamblers.

Legendary Sin Cities

I recently rented a DVD documentary, Legendary Sin Cities, which I want to recommend.  This three-part Canadian CBC documentary focuses on the most notoriously decadent cities in modern history: Berlin, Paris and Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s. I was especially impressed with the uncommon film clips, intelligent commentary, and interesting line-up of experts offering perspective and opinion.

Plot Synopsis: Of all the remarkable events of this century perhaps the most fascinating has been the spontaneous growth, flowering and then decay of a handful of great cities. These cities were places where art, culture and political liberties co-mingled with corruption, brutality and decadence. Everything and just about anyone could be bought and sold. The immigrant would struggle beside the artist. Gamblers, thieves and prostitutes co-habited with soul-savers, the rich and the powerful. The exhilarating combination of the seamy with the sublime made these places a magnet for all the lost souls and refugees of the world. Pushing the limits of tolerance and freedom, they defined the social, political and sexual culture of the 20th century.

Contemporary footage mixed with rare and richly evocative archival films, stock shots and stills give resonance to the stories of an extraordinary cast of characters: novelists and artists, musicians and journalists, rogues and sinners. Added to the mix are excerpts from feature films, married with the music of those remarkable times. What results is a richly drawn portrait of a time and place that helped define our century. Contains nudity :) but no mention of Louise Brooks, who briefly inhabited both Berlin and Paris in their decadent heyday.

Pandora's Box to screen in Jacksonville, Florida

Just received word from Mike about a screening of Pandora's Box in Jacksonville, Florida.  Mike writes "The Florida Theatre in Jacksonville, Florida presents the restored version of Pandora's Box as part of the "Reel People" film series. This one-time only screening will take place at 7 pm.  For more information, go to www.jacksonvillefilmfestival.com/reel_index.htm."  The film will be accompanied by live music.

The First Lulu

Speaking of rare book acquisitions, and speaking of Wedekind's play (the subjects of my last two entries) - I recently acquired a copy of the first American publication of Pandora's Box. It's pictured below. This softcover book dates from 1914. The translation is by Samuel A. Eliot. Four years later, the play would be published in hardback. And five years after that, it was published in a collection of Wedekind's plays titled Tragedies of Sex. I have copies of each.

I guess you could say I am a completeist. Or a detailist . . . . Interestingly, its a little known fact that Pandora's Box was staged in New York City in 1925 while Louise Brooks was living there. That production had only a short run, and there is no indication that Brooks saw it or was aware of it. (The play was considered both somewhat "modern" and somewhat "artsy.")

Review of Pandora's Box DVD

A review of the new Pandora's Box DVD appears in Sunday's New York Times. The article notes that the DVD will be released on November 10th.

G. W. PABST’S tragic fable, from two plays by Frank Wedekind about a prostitute whose love for — and conquest of — a married man begins her spiral of decline, is one of the most beautifully filmed of all silent movies. Pabst’s unobtrusive but masterly compositions and disarmingly delicate lighting effects are the stuff of rapture. Then again, when Louise Brooks is your star, it’s your duty to place her in a context of perfection. Brooks plays the doomed, exquisite Lulu, who, with her sable bob and mischievous, calculating smile, became an enduring symbol of jazz-age freedom and joyousness. If beauty and saucy charm were all Brooks had to offer, she would have ended up a caricature. But this performance is so vital and so infinitely shaded that it inspires wonder each time you see it.

Brooks’s Lulu is an image of relaxed modernity: she may be willful, petulant and manipulative, but she is also a woman striding toward an uncertain future in a world that doesn’t provide easy comforts.

On the night of her disastrous wedding to the rich Dr. Schön (Fritz Kortner), who believes he adores her but really wants to possess her, she stands in front of the mirror, preparing to remove her wedding finery. The first thing to come off is a new strand of pearls, which represent the safe, pampered life she has been striving for. She lets the glowing beads pool in the palm of her hand, and we see her face in the mirror, an ivory moon framed by darkness. The faint smile that crosses her lips is not one of greed or catlike satisfaction but of quiet relief: she has set herself up for a life without worry and strife, not yet knowing that such a life is impossible. We have seen how frivolous and thoughtless she can be, and we have witnessed her gentle treachery, but judging her is unthinkable. We can’t trust Lulu; we can only believe her.

In addition to a new, restored transfer of the film, this two-disc set has four different musical scores (two of which were commissioned for this release) and a booklet that includes an essay by J. Hoberman, the Village Voice film critic, and Kenneth Tynan’s essential Brooks profile, “The Girl in the Black Helmet.” (Criterion Collection, Nov. 10, $39.95.)     STEPHANIE ZACHAREK

I just saw Lulu

I've just returned from the Victoria Theatre, where I had the great pleasure of seeing the Silent Theatre production of Lulu. (Tonight was it's San Francisco debut.) I liked it very much. The acting was terrific, the music superb. And the approach - of staging a play as a silent film, was engaging and clever and well done. Kyla Louise Webb, the young actress who played Lulu, was especially good. I plan to see this production at least once more while it is here in San Francisco.

Before things started, I took a few snapshots outside the theater. There were Lulu posters in the display cases, etc.... Also, parked out front was the theater company tour bus, which they named "Pandora's Bus." According to the play's director, who I had the pleasure of meeting before the play started, the company were touring around San Francisco earlier in the day attracting attention to their production.



I recommend that everyone who has a chance to see this production do so. You will like it. For more info on the company, also check out their MySpace account at www.myspace.com/silenttheatre It has additional pictures, music from the play, and more.

[ A footnote: this production marks a kind of homecoming for Lulu. The German author Frank Wedekind (1864 - 1918) - author of the plays which serve as the basis for this prodction as well as the G. W. Pabst film and Alban Berg opera - was actually conceived in San Francisco. For a time, Wedekind's parents lived in gold rush San Francisco. His mother was a saloon entertainer. And, while she was pregnant with the future writer, Wedekind's parents decided to make a visit to Germany. Benjamin Franklin Wedekind was born there, and the parents stayed put. ]

Lulu in alt weeklies

Lulu, which opens tomorrow in San Francisco, got short write-ups in the two local weeklies. The SF Weekly carried a short article and pic, as did the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Here is what the SFBG had to say.

LuLu
Based on Pandora’s Box, an 1890s German play and later a 1928 film that featured early silver screen starlet Louise Brooks, the new play Lulu follows a sexy female character who drives both men and women mad with the passion she inspires. Presented by the Silent Theatre Company, the production endeavors to re-create the early style of cinema, with no spoken dialogue and costuming and sets colored only in black and white, which are heavily inspired by the German expressionist style that was prevalent at the time. (Sean McCourt)

Through Sept. 17    Tues-Sat, 8 p.m.; Sun, 7p.m.         Victoria Theater  2961 16th St., SF    $20

(415) 863-7576    www.victoriatheatre.org    www.silenttheatre.com

I plan to be there opening night !

On this day in 1926

On this day in 1926, Louise Brooks looms large on movie screens in the San Francisco Bay Area. The recently released comedy, The Show-Off, is being shown in San Jose and Oakland, while The American Venus (released some seven months earlier) plays in revival in nearby Berkeley. We've always liked her here!

Diary of a Lost Girl

I am currently reading Margarete Bohme's 1905 novel, The Diary of a Lost Girl (in English translation). I am enjoying it. It is very different from the film, but also interesting as a period piece.

Speaking of which, I just came across a related video clip on YouTube. It features the clips from the 1929 Louise Brooks film, The Diary of a Lost Girl, set to music by the Dresden Dolls. (The song is "Neccessary Evil.")

Just added Louise Brooks events

Just added - more Louise Brooks events in 2006:

October 13 and 15, 2006: The Music Box Theatre in Chicago will screen Pandora's Box, with live musical accompaniment, as part of Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" series.  (more info)

November 6, 2006: The seldom shown 1926 comedy, Love 'em and Leave 'em, will be screened at Museum of the City of New York. This special event is sponsored by the Silent Clowns Film Series. The film will be preceded by the 1926 Hal Roach comedy short Love 'em and Weep starring Stan Laurel and Tyler Brooke.  Live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  ( more info )

November 8, 9, 10, 2006: The Slovenska kinoteka - the film archive located in Ljubljana, Slovenia - celebrates the centenary of Louise Brooks with a series of screenings.   ( details to come )

November 20, 2006: A new 35mm print of Pandora's Box will be shown in the student union at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. The film starts at 7 pm.   ( more info )

December 8 - 10, 2006: The Detroit Institute of the Arts will screen Pandora's Box in the Detroit Film Theater. ( more info )

These and many other Louise Brooks Centenary events can be found at www.pandorasbox.com/features/centenary.html

Diary of a Lost Girl ?

Did anyone attend the screening of Diary of a Lost Girl at the Colorado Chautauqua Association in Boulder, Colorado last night? If so, how was it?

Satellite sites

A few satellite sites have been set up for the LBS. The one at MySpace can be found at www.myspace.com/louisebrookssociety   and the one at Vox can be found at louisebrookssociety.vox.com/   And there's one at www.xanga.com/Louise_Brooks_Society  

Sacramento trip

Returned from Sacramento, where I spent most of yesterday at the California State Library. (This may well be one of my last trips to this library, as I think I have pretty much looked through everything I need to at that institution.) I went through microfilm of Los Angeles phone books dating from the late 1920's and 1930's. I wasn't able to find any white pages listing for Louise Brooks from the 1930's. . . . I also looked at microfilm of various California newspapers - including the Santa Rosa Press Democrat,Venice Beach Vanguard, Pasadena Post, Riverside Daily News, Glendale Press, and Daily News Tribune (from Fullerton) - and found a smattering of film reviews, film related articles, and advertisements for local screenings of Brooks' films. An ok haul of material - I spent about $14.00 for photocopies.

John Canemaker

It was a real treat to see Winsor McCay on the big screen last night. The PFA exhibited 35 mm prints of four of his films, and John Canemaker - who was very  informative - gave a running commentary. There was also live piano accompaniment. And at long last, I got Canemeker (who won an Academy Award for one of his own recent animated films) to sign my copy of his book on Winsor McCay. I then proceeded to spend even mor emoney by purchasing a DVD of McCay films which was put together by Canemaker. A splendid time was had in Berkeley.

Jen Anderson

I am excitied to find out that Jen Anderson, the gifted Australian composer and performer of the lovely "Lulu - The Song" (as heard on RadioLulu and elsewhere), as well as the composer of a soundtrack to Pandora's Box (which was released in Australia on CD with Louise Brooks on the cover in 1993), will be coming to the San Francisco Bay Aea. Anderson will be performing her score to The Sentimental Bloke on Sunday, September 17 at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California. Apparently, Anderson will be touring the country with this film. Here is the descriptive text from the PFA website.

The Sentimental Bloke Raymond Longford (Australia, 1919) 
Musical Accompaniment by Jen Anderson and the Larrikins 

The Sentimental Bloke is considered the jewel of Australia's surviving silent cinema. Of the thirty films directed by Raymond Longford, this delightful work, based on a popular book of verse entitled The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, is the only one that now exists intact. Its charming depiction of a romance between commoners Bill (Arthur Tauchert) and Doreen (Lottie Lyell) and its colorful use of colloquial language appealed to audiences of its day; the film achieved record box-office returns and screened widely in Australia, New Zealand, and Britain. Plans for a theatrical release in the States, in a shortened, re-edited version, never panned out; however, the original 35mm camera negative ended up at George Eastman House and was used in this recent restoration. We are pleased to present this classic with a score composed and performed by Jen Anderson and the Larrikins (Dave Evans and Dan Warner), written for instruments that would have been available to working-class Australians in 1919: piano, accordion, guitar, mandolin, violin, tin whistle, and vocals. — Susan Oxtoby 

• Written by Raymond Longford, Lottie Lyell, from The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke by C. J. Dennis. Photographed by Arthur Higgins. With Arthur Tauchert, Lottie Lyell, Gilbert Emery, Stanley Robinson. (109 mins, Silent, B&W, tinted and toned, 35mm, From George Eastman House, permission National Film and Sound Archive, Australia). PFA acknowledges the Australian Film Commission for sponsoring the North American tour of this restored film with trio accompaniment.

Tonight, at the PFA, I am going to see John Canemaker, author of a book about the comic strip artist Winsor McCay. Canemaker will be speaking prior to a screening of animated short silent films by McCay.

Lulu in Japan

Louise Brooks adorns the cover of a 1929 Japanese magazine, which is for sale on eBay.

Lulu in NY Fringe Fest

Wow, did anyone see the absolutely fabulous review by Jason Zinoman which Lulu recieved in this past Saturday's New York Times ? I am so excitied about seeing this production when it comes to the Victoria Theater in San Francisco in a few weeks. Here is an excerpt from the article.

The Silent Theater Company of Chicago is dedicated to the idea that the theater doesn't need the spoken word, which it proves with panache in its first production, Lulu, an ingeniously staged version of the Louise Brooks 1929 silent film Pandora's Box.

Stylishly directed by Tonika Todorova, this dreamlike play without words is about an insatiable hedonist who leaves death in her tracks. It opens with a wild freak show - peopled by a bearded lady, a dwarf and a man on stilts - dressed and lighted in a noirishly severe black and white, like the cover of a 1920's scandal sheet burst to life. Last to enter is the knockout showgirl Lulu (Kyla Louise Webb), a good-time girl who is clearly bad news.

In the seasoned hands of Ms. Brooks - whose black bob, imitated here, may be the most famous haircut in film history - the role inspired oceans of critical drooling. Kenneth Tynan once wrote that she was "the only star actress I can imagine either being enslaved by or wanting to enslave."

The charismatic Ms. Webb, who wears a blankly innocent expression, letting her jitterbugging body do the seducing, may not bring on such dark thoughts, but her pursuit of unbridled pleasure is so persuasive that you are sure that after the show she will seduce the rest of the cast members and then break all their hearts.

Backed by the moody piano of Isaiah Robinson, this coolly stylized presentation, which could benefit from a few more tech rehearsals, communicates a remarkable amount of plot - in a few crisply designed scenes that slip back and forth between erotic and macabre.

The glamorous Lulu is a reminder of how effective the great silent performers were in their ability to cut directly to the heart of a scene, something Billy the Mime also accomplishes superbly. If you don't have the crutch of language, you need to be able to tell a story with discipline and clarity, and these wordless artists developed a vocabulary every bit as articulate as that of any playwright in the Fringe. They are particularly eloquent with comedy and horror, two areas in which the theater often lags behind film. When was the last play you saw that was really scary or made you explode in belly laughs?

Unlike talking actors, who generally shun the grand gesture as hammy, these silent performers are willing to go for the jugular. They treat their limitation in speech as an opportunity to exploit the rest of their repertory, which may be the reason that their shows seem bolder, faster and meaner than any others I saw this week. Silence, in an odd way, has liberated them.

Acorn Books

Acorn Books: I have written about this San Francisco store in the past . . . . They are going out of business and everything is now 70% off. I was there yesterday, and there are still a fair number of good books to be found - especially film books, and older film magazines including periodicals from the 1920's. What did I buy? I found a scarce copy of Screwball: The Life of Carole Lombard from 1975, the Intimate Journals of Rudolph Valentino from 1931; a nice hardback copy of Hot Toddy, a book on the murder of Thelma Todd; some vintage photoplay editions (I collect them); an autographed William K. Everson hardback book; a couple of other hardback Everson titles; a book on gangster movies, etc.... and all for cheap!

Nittany Lion perspective

Perspective on the times from the Nittany Lions.

My weekly research trips

My weekly research trips to the library continue. . . .  I uncovered Denishawn articles, ads and reviews from the Daily British Whig, the local newspaper from Kingston, Ontario. This material, dating from April 1924, included a review which mentioned Louise Brooks.  With just four  more inter-library  loan requests from Canada, I will have completed my Candadian-Denishawn research. By then, I will have obtained articles, advertisements and reviews from each of Louise Brooks' Canadian Denishawn performances. This week, I will also be looking for Denishawn material from the St. Paul Dispatch (from St. Paul, Minnesota.)

And lately, I have also been requesting and looking through other papers in search of yet more film reviews. These papers include the Hartford Courant, (from Connecticut), Queens County Evening News (from New York), Salem World (from Oregon), and the San Bernardino Evening Telegram & Evening Index (from California). I found a bit of material.

And the other night, I found online access to historic issues of the Penn State Collegian (the student newspaper at Penn State University). There, I found a few advertisements for Louise Brooks films. Here is one of them.



I would like to find more material from college newspapers. So far, as opportunity has arisen, I have scoured the papers at the University of Michigan, as well as Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. And in each, I found advertisements and some articles and even reviews. Imagine, college students writing about Brooks' films back in the 1920's! (In the past, I have also looked through the student newspapers from what are now Michigan State University and San Jose State University, but found nothing.) If anyone lives in a college town - the bigger the school the better - and would want to scroll through microfilm looking for Brooks material . . . . your help would be appreciated.

And for those keeping track, two of my ILL requests were rejected. Hoping to get small town reviews of Denishawn performances, I had requested the M'Alester News-Capital (from Mcalister, Oklahoma) and the Evening Chronicle (from Pottsville, Pennslyvannia). As it turns out, no state library seems to have these papers for the period requested.

Criterion DVD of Pandora's Box

The Criterion Collection website has announced the following information regarding their forthcoming release of Pandora's Box. This version - the first ever on DVD in the United States - will run 133 minutes. Expectations are high. And I think this forthcoming release should satisfy. We shall see. Among the bonus material is the first ever DVD release of now hard-to-find documentary, Lulu in Berlin. (No release date is given. The suggested retail price is $39.95)



SPECIAL FEATURES

-- New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the definitive Munich Film Museum restoration
-- Four different musical scores, each with its own unique stylistic interpretation of the film
-- Audio commentary by film scholars Thomas Elsaesser and Mary Ann Doane
-- Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu, a 1998 documentary
-- Lulu in Berlin (48 minutes), a rare 1971 interview with Brooks by verite documentarian Richard Leacock
-- A new video interview with Leacock
-- A new interview with G. W. Pabst's son, Michael
-- New and improved English subtitle translation
-- PLUS: A book including Kenneth Tynan's famous essay "The Girl in the Black Helmet," a chapter from Louise Brooks's evocative memoir discussing her relationship with Pabst, and a new essay by film critic J. Hoberman

ABOUT THIS TRANSFER
-- Pandora's Box is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right of the image to maintain the proper screen format. This new high-definition digital transfer was created from a 35mm composite print provided by the Munich Film Museum. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, and scratches were removed using the MTI Digital Restoration System. To maintain optimal image quality through the compression process, the picture on this dual-layer DVD-9 was encoded at the highest-possible bit rate for the quantity of material included. The Gillian Anderson score is presented in both Dolby 5.1 surround and stereo mixes. The three other scores are presented in Dolby 2.0 stereo.

Alfred Cheney Johnston

An interesting website to check out is Alfred Cheney Johnston: Ziegfeld Follies Lost Photographer. This site is dedicated to the life & times of renown Jazz Age photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston (1884 - 1971). Besides taking scores of lovely photographs of showgirls, actors and other stage personalities, Johnston also photographed Louise Brooks. This website is put together by Robert Hudovernik, author of the forthcoming book Jazz Age Beauties.