LOUISE BROOKS SOCIETY

After more than 6 years and some 1,327 entries, I've decided to move the Louise Brooks Society blog from LiveJournal to Blogger. The new LBS blog is located at http://louisebrookssociety.blogspot.com/

There is still a lot of work to be done in preparation of the move. I am still messing around with Blogger settings. And, I still need to redirect numerous links to the new blog as well as post notices of the change. Hopefully, the handful of readers the old LJ blog attracted won't mind the change to much

This is not a decision I came to quickly. I have been thinking about it a lot. I love LiveJournal and its community. And, it has been the home to the LBS blog for a long time since I started blogging in 2003. However, Blogger's many, many features make it hard to resist.

Please visit the new blog at http://louisebrookssociety.blogspot.com/

Cliff Aliperti, who writes about classic film for examiner.com, just published a long piece on Beggars of Life (1928). Check it out at http://www.examiner.com/x-8826-NY-Classic-Movies-Examiner~y2009m6d22-Louise-Brooks-stars-in-William-Wellmans-Beggars-of-Life-1928

A recent article for examiner.com briefly discusses Louise Brooks and some of the actors and actresses who worked both in silent and sound films. The article, a review of Roy Liebman's From Silents to Sound: A Biographical Encyclopedia of Performers Who Made the Transition to Talking Pictures (McFarland), can be found at www.examiner.com/x-7605-SF-Silent-Film-Examiner~y2009m6d16-From-silents-to-sound--book-details-tipping-point-in-Hollywood-history  Check it out!

Love Em and Leave Em, the delightful Louise Brooks film from 1926, will be shown on Sunday June 21at the Australian Cinémathèque, which is part of the Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, one of the largest public art museums in Australia. For more information on the 11:00 am screening, visit http://qag.qld.gov.au/?a=71135

According to the email I received from Australian Cinémathèque, "The Cinémathèque is currently screening a film program titled ‘Hollywood on the Hudson’ accompanying the ‘American Impressionism and Realism, A Landmark Exhibition from The Met’, The Metropolitan Museum of the Arts, New York at the Queensland Art Gallery.

‘Hollywood on the Hudson’ film program features classic films from the 1920s and 1930s which encapsulate a rich, vibrant and culturally aware New York City at a time of great economic and social change. As part of this program we will be screening Love 'em and Leave 'em 1926 / Dir: Frank Tuttle starring Louise Brooks on 21 June. All films in the ‘Hollywood on the Hudson’ program are screened with free admission and no bookings are required. Silent films in the program, including Love 'em and Leave 'em 1926 are accompanied live by the Wurlitzer Organ."

The Philippine Daily Inquirer, from Manila, recently ran a story titled "In search of the perfect bob." In it, the reporter discusses her own quest for the haircut, as well as a bit of it's history.

It has been a long debate on who actually started the classic bob. But American Hairdresser magazine, in an article on March 1, 2007, “The Way We Were,” credited dancer Irene Castle for the bob, which used to be called “Castle Bob” in 1915.

There was also the tale of an unpopular girl whose life changed after she got her new bob, as told in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” published in the Saturday Evening Post in May 1920.

Others credit the bob to Coco Chanel or the American dancer and actress Louise Brooks, with her ebony black, blunt bob with bangs.

Anna Wintour has been sporting the page-boy bob since she was 14.

Why is the ’do still popping up to this day?

The popularity of the bob knows no bounds. Neither does its identification with Louise Brooks. Both are worldwide phenomena!

No need to visit the Louise Brooks beauty shop - she's even cute as a boy.

While scrolling through microfilm, I came across these old advertisements. One is for the Louise Beauty Shop in New York City. I wonder if Louise Brooks knew of it?

The other advertisement is is for a novel called Kinks, a "sensational novel about show business." I found a few copies available online for as little as $10.00. The one seller of a copy available in dustjacket reports that it featured ilustrations by Vargas.

The line-up for the 14th annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival has been announced. The schedule of films, educational programs, special guests, and author signings make me feel this will be the best Festival yet. And that's the opinion of someone who has been to all fourteen festivals.

I wrote up a preview piece on the Festival for examiner.com. My write-up can be found at http://www.examiner.com/x-7605-SF-Silent-Film-Examiner~y2009m6d2-San-Francisco-Silent-Film-Festival-lineup-announced.  Check it out. I need the pennies.

The Festival won't be showing any Louise Brooks films this year, but fans of the 1926 Louise Brooks - W.C. Fields comedy It's the Old Army Game (1926) will have a chance to see another Fields' comedy from 1926, the rarely screened So's Your Old Man. Terry Zwigoff - who directed quirky cult flick Ghost World - will introduce the film. I am also looking forward to seeing Underworld, with Evelyn Brent (Brooks co-star in Love Em and Leave Em). The Joseph von Sternberg directed Underworld was one of a handful of similarly themed gangster films released in 1927. Another was the The City Gone Wild, which featured Brooks.

The Festival will premiere the newly restored Screen Snapshots - 7th Series (1924), which features rare footage of Brooks's idol and main flapper rival, Clara Bow.

And as well, the Festival is going to show a couple of European movies of related interest. They include the once controversial Erotikon (1929) - think of it as a kind of Czechoslovakian Pandora's Box - as well as Aelita, Queen of Mars, the Russian sci-fi spectacle which replaced Pandora's Box at the Hermitage Garden Movie Theatre in Moscow in 1932. (See my May 29th blog entry.)

Hey, who said the festival wouldn't be showing any Louise Brooks films this year ?

The 14th annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival will take place July 10-12th at the historic Castro Theater in San Francisco. For more on the Festival, see www.silentfilm.org/

A portrait of silent film actress Louise Brooks, taken in 1927 around the time she played in Evening Clothes (1927) with Adolphe Menjou and Noah Berry. Brooks sports curls, not her usual shingled bob and bangs. It's for sale on eBay.

Following up on my May 9th posting, I put in a request for microfilm issues of the Moscow Daily News from 1932. My interlibrary loan request arrived, and today I spent the afternoon scrolling through three months of that English-language paper published in the fledgling Soviet Union.

Fortunately, I found a number of advertisement for the showing of Lulu (aka Pandora's Box) at the Hermitage Garden Movie Theatre in June of 1932. Here is the sort of thing I uncovered.




Unfortunately, I didn't find much else. The film ran for two weeks. I wasn't able to find any editorial comments about Lulu - beyond a listing under "Cinema Program." After it closed, Lulu was replaced by Aelita: Queen of Mars. A quick Google search of the venue - the Hermitage Garden Movie Theatre (at Karetni Ryad 3) - reveals that Anton Chekov mentioned a similarly named place in one of his earlier stories. As did the 20th century Russian writer Konstantin Paustovsky. (The venue may still be in use today, as an opera house?)

Interestingly, the advertisements - which ran every day during the film's two week run - mention neither Pandora's Box nor G.W. Pabst - only that it was a "German Art Film" "Featuring Louise Brooks." Each ad featured the same drawing of the actress, along with the notice that there was a "Continual showing from 12 noon. Last performance at 11:45. All tickets for last show at 1 ruble."

Can anyone tell me anything more about this showing of Lulu ? Or the venue? Do any Russians read this blog?

Next, now that I have a date, I plan to put in some requests for Russian language newspapers from Moscow from the time. (This 1932 screening of Pandora's Box was not the first Louise Brooks film to be shown in the Soviet Union. The writer Ayn Rand reported having seen the 1926 film American Venus in the Soviet capital before she left the country.)

[Other intersting tidbits I came across in by scroll through the Moscow Daily News included an article on Richard Bathelmess, advertisements for a couple of Harold Lloyd films, one for Buster Keaton's The General, lots for various Soviet films unknown to me, and a report on a visit to Moscow by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who criticiized a German film then playing in the Soviet city, Kuhle Vampe.)

The April 3rd, 1929 issue of Mundo Grafico, from Spain.

Of related interest to my previous post is this article about silent film accompanist Dennis James at http://www.examiner.com/x-7605-SF-Silent-Film-Examiner~y2009m5d25-Reviving-the-art-of-silent-film-one-note-at-a-time

There is a new book out on the many songs of the silent film era which were inspired by, or are about, either movies or movie stars.

As it turns out, there are so many that author Ken Wlaschin has easily filled a 388 page book documenting the sheet music, films and recordings through which these songs found their way into the world. The book is The Silent Cinema in Song, 1896 - 1929. It was recently released by McFarland.



And of course, the one and only Louise Brooks is including in this recommended new book. To find out more, check out my own just published article on The Silent Cinema in Song, 1896 - 1929 at examiner.com. I write on silent film topics for the website. The book itself is available on-line and at better bookstores.

Having trouble waking-up? What you need is a double general alarm - in the form of Louise Brooks!

Yesterday, a blogger and Second Life participant named taryngartner411 spotted a reference to Louise Brooks and her famous hairstyle in the Second Life game-world. I am a little uncertain how to write about this, as to who gets credit for what, but the blogger's entry and an image of the Brooks-Lulu-Lola reference can be found here.

On this day in 1931: Pandora's Box (with a synchronized soundtrack) opens a short run at the Little theater in Newark, New Jersey.

Not with this soundtrack, of course.

I just posted an article on Wings (1927), which will be shown Saturday May 16th at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, California. The film was directed by William Wellman, and so of course, I worked in a mention of Beggars of Life (1928), the Louise Brooks film Wellman made shortly after the WWI epic, which starred Clara Bow.

My article can be found at http://www.examiner.com/x-7605-SF-Silent-Film-Examiner~y2009m5d13-Wings-takes-flight-in-Fremont--dont-miss-it

Tonight, I heading over to Books Inc in San Francisco's Civic Center to see and hear Glen David Gold read from his new novel, Sunnyside. In it, the bestselling author of Carter Beat the Devil turns his literary attention to a brief period in the life of silent film star Charlie Chaplin. No mention of Louise Brooks, unfortunately, as the author focuses on the mid to late teens.



Gold’s connection to Chaplin is personal. According to the author, Gold’s great aunt - a journalist, was Chaplin’s neighbor in Switzerland. And family legend has it that the silent film star dictated parts of his 1964 autobiography to the author's relation.

Booklovers will have the chance to hear Gold read from Sunnyside at one of a number of upcoming events around the Bay Area. The author will be at Books Inc in San Francisco on May 12th at 7 pm, Rakestraw Books in Danville on May 21st at 7 pm, Keplers in Menlo Park on June 3rd at 7:30 pm, M is for Mystery in San Mateo on June 4th at 7 pm, and Book Passage in Corte Madera on June 9th at 7 pm. Each of the links embedded here contains further details on each event.