Two local stage productions

This review of two local stage productions appeared in today's San Francisco Bay Guardian. Check it out at www.sfbayguardian.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=1891

Mother Courage
By Robert Avila

The sideshow denizens who scramble out onstage at the Victoria to mime the evening's prologue constitute an impressive assortment of freaks and wild beasts, stooping giants and bearded ladies strutting and marauding in the nostalgic glow of a flickering projection lamp. But they take second billing to what a supertitle introduces as "the most untamed beast of them all." That would be unbridled sexuality, in the person of our heroine, Lulu.

It's now more than a century since Frank Wedekind, the forefather of German expressionism, gave creative birth to Lulu, a charmingly insatiable and just too desirable young woman and singer from several good homes, thereby throwing sexual hypocrisy back in the faces of his bourgeois audience. Today sexuality is hardly less controversial to the bourgeois even if, say, a film like Shortbus simultaneously suggests we've come a short way. Shortbus gets a happy ending, after all, while the result of pitting anarchic human sexuality against a repressed and repressive patriarchal society in Lulu's day had to spell tragedy. Still, though the results are grim, untamed sex emerges glorious if not victorious in Lulu: A Black and White Silent Play, Chicago-based Silent Theatre Company's lightly and cheerfully lewd and cheekily clever production.

Both form and content marked out Wedekind's two antinaturalistic Lulu plays — Earth Spirit (1895) and Pandora's Box (1902) — as exceedingly modern and risqué for their day. Silent Theatre's silent-movie-style staging builds shrewdly on permutations of form and nostalgia by translating back to the stage G.W. Pabst's famous 1929 silent screen adaptation (which starred Louise Brooks and her distinctive bob) in a single one-hour-and-fifteen-minute act. The results benefit from a game cast (including a pert Kyla Louise Webb as Lulu), as well as shrewd and playful staging, filled with the vivacious gestures and grotesque exaggerations of the silent screen and spiritedly choreographed to the infectious accompaniment of pianist-composer Isaiah Robinson and his spiraling movie-house score.

Although principally an expressionist, Wedekind also pointed in the direction Bertolt Brecht was to take a generation or so later in an already post-expressionist mode. But then, Wedekind and Brecht had much in common, including a penchant for cabaret songs and reimagining the traditions of the carnival and the circus in assailing in boldly experimental form the ferociousness and folly of the social order. That circus-cabaret theme is certainly evident in the Berkeley Rep and La Jolla Playhouse coproduction of Brecht'sMother Courage, not least in the utterly fresh yet evocative new score by composer Gina Leishman (among other things founder of Mr. Wau-Wa, a quintet devoted to Brechtian songs). Director Lisa Peterson's sharp cast and vigorous, inspired staging take full advantage of playwright David Hare's earthy and immediate translation to bring Brecht's antiwar play resonantly alive.

Mother Courage, the wily peddler who with her three children follows the battling armies of 17th-century Europe's Thirty Years War to hock her wares and make her living, remains one of the most famous antiheroes of a decidedly antiheroic, antiromantic playwright. But that doesn't seem to stop audiences from identifying her (unironically) with that intentionally ironic name of hers. Indeed, rendered with a fine Weimar-esque soulfulness and grit by Ivonne Coll, she's a charismatic figure despite her outstanding flaw: her parasitic reliance on war at the inevitable, albeit unintended, expense of her offspring.

Brecht's play, in addressing itself to the class enemy lurking behind the delusional divisions of religion and territory, systematically undercuts any legitimacy claimed by the warmongering values of courage and valor. The Chaplain (a deftly comic turn by Patrick Kerr), for instance, easily exchanges his cassock for some street clothes when the need arises, just as surely as the Catholic flag comes down and the Protestant one goes up when the winds of battle change direction. And by showing how Mother Courage, having tied her cart to the scam of war, must hang on to it at all costs — even that of her children's lives — the play doubly negates her name in the circumstances it exposes. But maybe it’s Brecht’s ambivalence even more than his excoriating attack on the hideous cheat of war that seems utterly contemporary: the strangely productive and seductive balancing act taking place between his dismal view of human nature — alternately vicious and comic in its outline — and his overweening determination to awaken his audience to the truth and thereby to change the world. 

LULU: A BLACK AND WHITE SILENT PLAY
Through Oct. 29
Thurs.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th St., SF
$20
(415) 863-7576
www.victoriatheatre.org

MOTHER COURAGE
Through Oct. 22
Tues. and Fri., 8 p.m.; Wed., 7 p.m.; Thurs. and Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 and 7 p.m.
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
2015 Addison, Roda Theatre, Berk.
$33–$61
(510) 647-2949
www.berkeleyrep.org

Jazz Age Beauties

Today, I got a copy of Jazz Age Beauties: The Lost Collection of Ziegfeld Photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston by Robert Hudovernik. It's a very nifty book - and you'll want to check it out. There are five full page images of Louise Brooks, a few other future silent film stars (nudes of Norma Shearer, portraits of Billie Dove, Mae Murray, etc....), along with a bunch of other lovely portraits of Ziegfeld Follies girls. There is also an image - something I had not ever seen before - of the front of the New Amsterdam Theater (the home of the Follies) in 1925. That's when Brooks was performing there. Wow! That makes me wonder what other sort of unknown images might be out there. There was also a gracious mention of myself and the Louise Brooks Society in the acknowledgements. Thank you Robert, glad to be of help.

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 !