Monday, August 8, 2016

Portrait of Francis Lederer

Here is a fun, early 1930's American magazine portrait of handsome Francis Lederer, who co-starred with Louise Brooks in the German-made Pandora's Box (1929). Curiously, the piece refers to the Czech born actor as "god's gift to women," the title of a 1931 Brooks' film starring Frank Fay in the title role.




Thursday, August 4, 2016

UPDATED: First Louise Brooks television broadcast

Yesterday, I wrote "Certainly, Overland Stage Raiders was the first film featuring Louise Brooks to be shown either on television or at a drive-in. The earliest television listing I came across for the film was from March 8, 1953 in Hazelton, Pennsylvania as part of "John Wayne Theater." The film then showed two days later in Los Angeles. As far as television goes, 1953 is pretty early."

I was wrong.

Yesterday, I couldn't imagine finding an earlier television broadcast of a film in which Louise Brooks appeared. Until today. . . , when I found that Windy Riley Goes Hollywood was broadcast on TV in 1948, five years before Overland Stage Raiders. Wow, as far as television goes, 1948 is very early. The film was shown under the title Windy Riley Goes to Hollywood on November 18, 1948 on WJZ (Channel 7) in Asbury Park, New Jersey.


I found the above listing while I was researching Windy Riley Goes to Hollywood, under which the 1931 Fatty Arbuckle-directed film was listed a few times in the early 1930s. Most times, exhibitors and advertisers got the title, Windy Riley Goes Hollywood, right. But sometimes they didn't. Here is a screen capture of the film's title. Following it is a 1931 advertisement from East Liverpool, Ohio for the Gloria Swanson film Indiscreet, with which the incorrectly named Windy Riley Goes to Hollywood was paired.




This mistake wasn't a one-off. The East Liverpool advertisement named Windy Riley incorrectly three times in three different advertisements over the course of three days. Others made the same mistake.  So did the Hamilton Evening Journal in Hamilton, Ohio in 1931, and the Rhinelander Daily News in Rhinelander, Wisconsin in 1932, and the Medford Mail Tribune in Medford, Oregon also in 1932. As did the Asbury Park Press television listings in Asbury Park, New Jersey in 1948.

Out of curiosity, I searched for television listings for Louise Brooks' other talkies. I found that God's Gift to Women was shown on TV in Cincinnati in September, 1958, and again in 1959 in Bennington, Vermont and Sandusky, Ohio and elsewhere. It was also shown in Tucson, Arizona in 1960. The earliest television listing I could find for Empty Saddles was in March 1957 in Long Beach, California, and then Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in November, 1957 and June, 1958, followed by St. Louis, Missouri in September, 1959. [Oh, King of Gamblers was shown in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in October 1960 and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Christmas Day in 1960.]

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Louise Brooks at a drive-in and other firsts from the 1950s

I come across a lot of unusual material while researching Louise Brooks. Here are the latest, each related to the 1938 film Overland Stage Raiders, a western from Republic Studios which featured  Brooks alongside John Wayne.

Would you believe that in 1954 Overland Stage Raiders was shown at a drive-in in Carbondale, Illinois? The film was part of a Friday-Saturday triple bill, along with another Wayne film, Lady from Louisiana (1941) and a crime drama called Million Dollar Pursuit (1951). Both films were from Republic. The following day, the drive-in was showing the more recent The Wild One (1953), starring Marlon Brando.

Pictured left is an advertisement for the Waring Auto drive-in near Carbondale. This venue opened in July, 1948 as the Waring Auto Theatre, with space for 500 cars. It was later renamed the Campus Drive-In, after its proximity to Southern Illinois University. During the 1970’s, it played mostly horror and adult movies, before closing towards the end of that decade. The drive-in has since been demolished and a hog farm s(h)its on the site today.

And that's not all....

Overland Stage Raiders was reissued in 1953, and that same year it was shown as part of a double bill alongside Zombies of the Stratosphere in Kokomo, Indiana! The film was also screened on various bills in small towns and large cities across the United States, from Paris, Texas to Detroit, Michigan, from Green Bay, Wisconsin to St. Louis, Missouri.

Zombies of the Stratosphere, for those not familiar, was a 1952 black-and-white Republic Studios serial that was the second to feature Commando Cody. Today, it is best remembered as one of the first screen appearances of a young Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), who plays one of the three Martian invaders.

Overland Stage Raiders was also shown on television numerous times between 1953 and 1959. I found listings from across the United States. It was shown in Los Angeles, California and Phoenix, Arizona and Asbury Park, New Jersey and Rochester, New York (just before Brooks moved there) and elsewhere.

Certainly, Overland Stage Raiders was the first film featuring Louise Brooks to be shown either on television or at a drive-in. The earliest television listing I came across for the film was from March 8, 1953 in Hazelton, Pennslyvania as part of "John Wayne Theater." The film then showed two days later in Los Angeles. As far as television goes, 1953 is pretty early. Pictured below is a June, 1953 advertisement for "Sunday Televiewing" in Los Angeles. KTTV is now known as Fox 11 in Southern California.

Friday, July 22, 2016

NEW BOOK: The Promise of Cinema: German Film Theory, 1907-1933

Here's a new book I've just become aware of.... and it looks good! No, it looks great! The book is The Promise of Cinema: German Film Theory, 1907-1933 by Anton Kaes (Editor), Nicholas Baer (Editor), and Michael Cowan (Editor). It is published by the University of California Press.

I was turned on to the book by

Notably, the book includes pieces by G.W. Pabst, including his 1929 essay "Reality of Sound Film." That was the year he made both Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl with Louise Brooks. There are also pieces by Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, Emil Jannings, Lotte Eisner, Bertolt Brecht, and Kurt Weill. Siegfried Kracauer contributes pieces on Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin.

From the publisher: "Rich in implications for our present era of media change, The Promise of Cinema offers a compelling new vision of film theory. The volume conceives of “theory” not as a fixed body of canonical texts, but as a dynamic set of reflections on the very idea of cinema and the possibilities once associated with it. Unearthing more than 275 early-twentieth-century German texts, this ground-breaking documentation leads readers into a world that was striving to assimilate modernity’s most powerful new medium. We encounter lesser-known essays by Béla Balázs, Walter Benjamin, and Siegfried Kracauer alongside interventions from the realms of aesthetics, education, industry, politics, science, and technology. The book also features programmatic writings from the Weimar avant-garde and from directors such as Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau. Nearly all documents appear in English for the first time; each is meticulously introduced and annotated. The most comprehensive collection of German writings on film published to date, The Promise of Cinema is an essential resource for students and scholars of film and media, critical theory, and European culture and history."

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!! The editors have also set up an extensive website related to the book which is a must visit. Check it out at http://www.thepromiseofcinema.com/

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REVIEWS:

“This extraordinary book expands all horizons of cinema. Its utopian vision inspires us to imagine a film art for the twenty-first century.”—Alexander Kluge, filmmaker and author of Cinema Stories

“A treasure trove of insights and ideas, this book uncovers the excitement cinema generated as the art form of modernity. Film studies may take years to digest the richness this volume contains—and I believe it will never be quite the same afterward.” —Tom Gunning, author of The Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity

“Opening entirely new pathways to the research and teaching of German film culture, this carefully edited sourcebook reveals the fantastic wealth of early ideas and thoughts on cinema.”—Gertrud Koch, author of Siegfried Kracauer: An Introduction

“On page after page, a vibrant debate, previously lost in archives, comes to life again. This book changes our idea of what cinema was and is.”—Francesco Casetti, author of Eye of the Century: Film, Experience, Modernity

“An indispensable and revelatory resource for all who are exploring the political and aesthetic genealogy of the media culture we inhabit today.”—Jonathan Crary, author of Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture

"This remarkable collection appearing at this historical moment invites us to think about cinema before its first German theorists knew what it might become, just as we wonder what the cinema will become today as it transforms itself all over again." —Jane M. Gaines, author of Contested Culture: The Image, the Voice, and the Law

"Any form of memory worthy of the term ought to address the future even more than the past. The great strength of this collection lies in its ability to make one century speak to another, thereby evoking the future of film today."— Raymond Bellour, author of Between-the-Images


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ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Anton Kaes is Professor of German and Film & Media at the University of California, Berkeley. He has written and edited numerous books, including Shell Shock Cinema and The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, and is coeditor of the Weimar and Now series.

Nicholas Baer is Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Philosophy at Purchase College, State University of New York. He has published many essays on German cinema, film theory, and the philosophy of history.

Michael Cowan is Reader in Film Studies at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of numerous books and collections including, most recently, Walter Ruttmann and the Cinema of Multiplicity: Avant-garde - Advertising - Modernity

Friday, July 15, 2016

Stacks of Brooks

I was tidying up my bookshelves the other day when I decided to snap a few picture of my many Louise Brooks and Louise Brooks-related book. Here are a few of those snapshots.

The core collection, the books at the heart of the matter.

Editions of Lulu in Hollywood from around the world.
Not pictured is the rare Russian edition which credits the Louise Brooks Society!

Photoplay editions and novelizations, including a rare Empty Saddles.

The copy of Beggars of Life on the far left once belonged to Colleen Moore.

A few more oversized books, including City Girls, with Brooks on the cover.

Most of my Denishawn related books, including copies signed by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn.

If I need to take my books somewhere, I cane use this nifty Lulu tote bag, featuring art
by William Kentridge.

My tote bag is a limited edition from last year, when William Kentridge staged Lulu at the Met.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

The Long and Short of It: Another Vintage article on Bobbed Hair Styles of Silent Film Stars

And another vintage article on bobbed hair which mentions Louise Brooks (see yesterday's post as well). This one is "The Long and Short of It" by Eileen Bourne. . . . The piece begins, "The young girl of today may look to a Garbo, a Gaynor, a Louise Brooks for coiffure guidance. . . ."

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

To Bob or Not to Bob: Perhaps the Definitive Article on Silent Film Star Hair Styles

Ok, here it is, perhaps the definitive article on silent film star hair styles, "To Bob or Not to Bob," by  Rosalin Haffer. Who bobbed first? Who bobbed last? Who bobbed best? Includes eternal combatants Colleen Moore and Louise Brooks.

Tune in tomorrow for another vintage expose on this still raging controversy.



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