Louise Brooks Oddities #1

Louise Bridges -
"By diligence she wins her way"

In my ongoing research, I come across all sorts of material which is a little odd or unusual, and sometimes entertaining. Here is something I found yesterday. It is a page from The Oak Leaf, a 1929 high school year book from the Hugh Morson High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. I flipped through its pages, and I found it to be a typical high school year book, filled with portraits, a class poem, school history, bits of humor and the like.

What caught my eye was a reference to the silent film star Louise Brooks by Hazel McDonald, the "class prophet." In a two page spread, McDonald predicted the future's of various students, not doubt based on some characteristic of the student. One, she predicted, would become an opera singer, one a pianist, one a veterinarian, one the heavy weight boxing champion, one a race car driver, etc.... It is the sort of thing one might find in other yearbooks, and perhaps even your own.

McDonald predicted another classmate, named Louise Bridges, would find film stardom, writing "Last of all I saw Louise Bridges, who had taken Louise Brooks' place on the screen." (See the second from last line on page two of the "Class Prophecy" shown below.) This shout-out shows Brooks had a certain currency among high school students of the time.

That currency got me wondering. Why would McDonald had made such a particular prediction for this particular student. They were friends, apparently, and both were members of the Morson Literary Society as well as the school's Dramatic Club. But, did Louise Bridges share some trait with Louise Brooks, besides the same first name? Did Bridges and Brooks look-alike? Flipping through the yearbook, I found that a number of the girls wore bobbed hair, though Bridges' bob was closest to the style worn by Brooks, or Colleen Moore, another popular screen star. Bridges was pretty, like Brooks, and somewhat resembles the actress, in my opinion.

I also found the class prophet, Hazel McDonald, to have a rather interesting look, sporting a fashionable Eton Crop--unusual perhaps for a high school student for the time from the American south. I don't know what happened to either of these students, whether Louise became an actress, or whether Hazel became a writer, but each seemed to be pretty cool kids.

Hazel McDonald -
"I grow in with and worth and sense"

LOST CREATURES - New play about Louise Brooks opens in Denver, CO on November 3

Lost Creatures, a new play about Louise Brooks by Melissa McCarl, will be staged for the first time in Denver, Colorado on November 3, 2016. (A public reading of the play was given last year.) Here are the details about this exciting new project.

WORLD PREMIERE -- Thursday, November 3 at 7:30 PM MDT The play runs November 3rd through the 19th, 2016

Directed by Patrick Elkins-Zeglarski
Starring Billie McBride, Mark Collins and Annabel Reader

About the play: Lost Creatures follows the evening in May of 1978 when British theatre critic Kenneth Tynan met his long time cinematic idol Louise Brooks. He travels to her dingy little apartment in Rochester, NY where she has sequestered herself for many years. He is there ostensibly to write a profile on Brooks for the New Yorker, but he discovers that they are kindred spirits, and in spite of an age gap of twenty years, theirs becomes an unlikely love story discovered through a marathon dialogue about sex, philosophy, art, and criticism. There is also a silent third character, Lulu, (based on Louise’s role in her most famous silent film Pandora’s Box) who drives the action of the play.


Set/Sound Design-Darren Smith
Light Design-Emily Maddox
Costume Design-Susan Lyles
Stage Manager-Lauren Meyer

Venue: The Commons on Champa, 3rd Floor Studio, 1245 Champa Street
Support provided by The Next Stage NOW

About Melissa McCarl: Author of Painted Bread, a full-length play named Best New Work by the Denver Post, about the tumultuous life of Frida Kahlo (recently produced by the Aurora Fox.) Commissioned by the Mizel Arts Center to write Poignant Irritations, celebrating the unorthodox life and love of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Commissioned by the Curious Theatre Company to write for the War Anthology directed by Bonnie Metzgar of the Public Theatre. Winner of the Steven Dietz award for the one act Carlene Yakkin’. Melissa has been named best local playwright by Westword newspaper and the Denver Post.

TONIGHT Louise Brooks film screens in Chicago

The 1929 Louise Brooks' film, Diary of a Lost Girl, will be shown tonight in Chicago. The film will be shown at the Music Box Theater (3733 N Southport Ave, Chicago, IL 60613) and will feature  a live musical score on the Music Box organ by Dennis Scott, Music Box House Organist. More information can be found HERE.

Parking near the Music Box is limited. Parking availability may be scarce on days when the Chicago Cubs play home games. Public transportation or taxis are recommended on these dates. Please check the Chicago Cubs schedule for home game dates.

Diary of a Lost Girl

A FILM BY: Georg Wilhelm Pabst
STARRING: Louise Brooks, Josef Rovenský, Fritz Rasp

Thymiane is a beautiful young girl who is not having a storybook life. Her governess, Elizabeth, is thrown out of her home when she is pregnant, only to be later found drown.

That same day, her father already has a new governess named Meta. Meinert, downstairs druggist, takes advance of her and gets Thymiane pregnant. When she refuses to marry, her baby is taken from her and she is put into a strict girls reform school. When Count Osdorff is unable to get the family to take her back, he waits for her to escape. She escapes with a friend and the friend goes with the Count while she goes to see her baby. Thymiane finds that her baby is dead, and the Count has put both girls up at a brothel. When her father dies, Thymiane marries the Count and becomes a Countess, but her past and her hatred of Meta will come back to her.

See the film, then why not read the infamous book it was based on? And better yet, why not pick up the recently released DVD or Blu-ray from KINO?

Nonesuch to Release Metropolitan Opera's 2015 Staging of Alban Berg's "Lulu" on Blu-ray/DVD

For those who might have missed the live broadcast comes this welcome news....

From the Nonesuch website: "Nonesuch Records releases the Metropolitan Opera's performance of Alban Berg's Lulu on Blu-ray and DVD together in one package on October 28, 2016. The Met's new production, directed by acclaimed South African visual artist William Kentridge, premiered in 2015 and starred Marlis Petersen in her final performances as Lulu, a role she has made "hers and almost hers alone" (Opera News) in ten different productions over eighteen years. The New York Times called it "a stunning and searing production." Lulu was recorded and broadcast live in movie theaters around the world as part of The Met: Live in HD on November 21, 2015. The Lulu Blu-ray/DVD may be pre-ordered now from the Nonesuch Store. You can watch the Met's trailer for the production below.

Kentridge received acclaim for his previous work at the Met directing the company premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich's The Nose in 2010. This new Lulu, conducted by Lothar Koenigs, featured Susan Graham as the Countess Geschwitz, Daniel Brenna as Alwa, Paul Groves as The Painter/African Prince, Johan Reuter as Dr. Schön/Jack the Ripper, and Franz Grundheber as Schigolch. Lulu's production team included co-director Luc De Wit, set designer Sabine Theunissen, costume designer Greta Goiris, lighting designer Urs Schönebaum, and projection designer Catherine Meyburgh, all of whom also worked on The Nose.

Berg's monumental opera, which he left unfinished when he died in 1935, had its posthumous premiere in its incomplete version in 1937, with the three-act version that has become standard premiering in 1979. The opera tells the tragic story of a young woman who, as a victim of a harsh society, torments a series of men by whom she is objectified, desired, abused, and eventually killed. "She's ungraspable, and a fantastic white canvas for the men to put their ideas on," says Petersen about her character, in an interview with Graham.

Berg adapted the libretto from Frank Wedekind's two Lulu plays, Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box, 1904). He wrote the music using the 12-tone style conceived of his teacher, Arnold Schönberg, but with a nod to Romanticism that makes it unusually accessible for something written by a Schönberg disciple. "Berg made it very tonal, actually, for us and also for the ears of the audience," says Petersen. "You don't hear the 12-tone music."

"Lulu is one of the great operas of the 20th century," says Kentridge, speaking on video about the production. "It's an opera that's about the fragility or the possibility or the fragmentation of desire…Ink is the primary medium of the production. Essentially [it's] the vehemence of a black brushstroke… trying to find some equivalent, visually, to the violence of the opera."

Kentridge's production will be presented at English National Opera in November 2016; for tickets, visit eno.org.

The Kentridge staging of Berg's Lulu was a big deal last year in New York City. Check out this Huffington Post piece, "Lulu-mania Sweeps New York City."

New historical crime thriller BABYLON BERLIN has Louise Brooks on the cover

A recently published historical crime thriller has come to my attention. It is titled Babylon Berlin, and its by Volker Kutscher. (The book was published in May by Sandstone Press.) And, it features Louise Brooks on the cover. I haven't had a chance to get a hold of a copy, and don't know if Brooks figures in the story, but here's a little about the book. From what I gather, the series is to be filmed for  television in England, Germany and possibly elsewhere.

From the publisher: "Berlin, 1929. Detective Inspector Rath, was a successful career officer in the Cologne Homicide Division before a shooting incident in which he inadvertently killed a man. He has been transferred to the Vice Squad in Berlin, a job he detests, even though he finds a new friend in his boss, Chief Inspector Wolter. There is seething unrest in the city and the Commissioner of Police has ordered the Vice Squad to ruthlessly enforce the ban on May Day demonstrations. The result is catastrophic with many dead and injured, and a state of emergency is declared in the Communist strongholds of the city. When a car is hauled out of Berlin's Landwehr Canal with a mutilated corpse inside the Commissioner decides to use this mystery to divert the attention of press and public from the casualties of the demonstrations. The biggest problem is that the corpse cannot be identified."

About the author: "Volker Kutscher was born in 1962. He studied German, Philosophy and History, and worked as a newspaper editor prior to writing his first detective novel. Babylon Berlin, the start of an award-winning series of novels to feature Gereon Rath and his exploits in late Weimar Republic Berlin, was an instant hit in Germany. Since then, a further four titles have appeared, most recently Märzgefallene in 2014. The series was awarded the Berlin Krimi-Fuchs Crime Writers Prize in 2011 and has sold over one million copies worldwide. Volker Kutscher works as a full-time author and lives in Cologne. " Read an interview with the author HERE.

And some reviews of Babylon Berlin:

"Babylon Berlin is a stunning novel that superbly evokes Twenties Germany in its seedy splendor. An impressive new crime series." - Sarah Ward, author of In Bitter Chill


"Kutscher successfully conjures up the dangerous decadence of the Weimar years, with blood on the Berlin streets and the Nazis lurking menacingly in the wings." - Sunday Times

"Gripping evocative thriller set in Berlin's seedy underworld during the roaring Twenties. A massive hit in its native Germany, Volker Kutscher's series, centered on Detective Inspector Gereon Rath, is currently being filmed for television." - Mail on Sunday

"The best German crime novel of the year!' - Bucher

"Kutscher's undertaking to portray the downfall of the Weimar Republic through the medium of detective fiction is both ambitious and utterly convincing. Let's hope it receives the attention it deserves." - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"With his detective novel Babylon Berlin, Volker Kutscher has succeeded in creating an opulent portrait of manners." - Der Spiegel

"Has all the allure of an addictive drug: you won't be able to put it down until you've read to the end." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"A highly readable piece of crime fiction set against a politico-historical background." -  Osterreichischer Rundfunk

Attention silent film fans: "Little Mickey Grogan" Restoration

Here is a GoFundMe campaign that should appeal to every silent film fan. I made a contribution. How about you? Find out more by visiting HERE.

From the GoFundMe page: "According to a report by the Library of Congress, 70% of all Hollywood silent film features made between 1912-1929 no longer exist, and today, in 2016, we find that all but two performers from that era are gone. In addition to actress-turned-film history Diana Serra Cary, whose “Baby Peggy” was one of the top box office draws in the 1920s, there is also the equally remarkable, though lesser known actress, Lassie Lou Ahern. Having just turned 96-years young, she was a versatile child star who was discovered at the age of 18 months by Will Rogers. Almost immediately, she worked with some of the biggest names in the movie world -- "Our Gang", Charley Chase, Ronald Colman, Helen Holmes, Virginia Davis, and Mary Philbin -- as well as appeared in some of the leading productions of the 1920s (above all, the $2 million epic "Uncle Tom’s Cabin").  A print of her last silent film, "Little Mickey Grogan" (1927), survives in the Lobster Films archive in Paris. Lobster Films founder and CEO, Serge Bromberg, has recently consented that a full restoration of the film be done; upon completion, moreover, "Little Mickey Grogan" will be added as a title for purchase within the celebrated Lobster catalog.

Made by FBO before financier Joseph Kennedy sold the studio to RKO in 1928/1929, "Little Mickey Grogan" is a 60-minute feature centered on a pair of street children (Frankie Darro and Ahern) who are taken in by a generous woman (Jobyna Ralston), as they, in turn, try to help a penniless blind architect (Carroll Nye) recover his sight. Meanwhile, when not dodging the police, they put on lively street shows with "Our Gang" regular Ernest “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison, allowing the young stars to showcase their accomplished dance and acrobatic skills with infectious dynamism and zest.

A number of important aspects related to the film make it worth saving. Besides the idea of rescuing a silent film that would otherwise not be restored, they include the fact that it comes from a minor studio (FBO) from which few movies survive today. In addition, it marked the first time in which Frankie Darro, an actor whose career would continue to the 1970s, was given the opportunity to star in a picture where he quickly emerged as one of the studio’s top draws.

In addition, the work of co-writer Dorothy Yost, one of many female scriptwriters of the silent era, has been the object of feminist analysis, as evidenced by her inclusion in the valuable Women Film Pioneers Project. Historically and culturally, too, the appearance of Ernest Morrison, the first African-American performer ever to land a contract in Hollywood, adds further value, especially because it was one of the rare occasions during the silent era in which he acted in a role that was not part of the Our Gang franchise. Finally, there’s the unique situation in which the film’s lead female performer, Lassie Lou Ahern, is still with us, and would dearly love to see "Little Mickey Grogan" restored before she passes.

In March, 2015, there was a successful GoFundMe campaign to raise money to obtain a digital copy of the print from Paris, as well as to pay an entertainment lawyer to do due diligence in determining the holder of the film’s copyright. Forty-nine individuals contributed $1,610 toward these ends. In this second, and final, crowdsourcing campaign, monies will be raised to complete the restoration in every aspect, including a planned screening of the film at Pordenone in Fall, 2017."


Find out more about the film and the campaign to restore it AND make a donation at this web page: https://www.gofundme.com/2fpwc9w

Louise Brooks Prix de beauté screens in London, England Nov 1

The UK premiere of the restored silent version of the 1930 Louise Brooks film, Prix de beauté, will be shown (in 35 mm) at the Kennington Biograph / Cinema Museum in London on November 1st. This special screening, part of "Silent to Sound in Europe," is an event not to be missed! More information may be found HERE.

According to the Kennington Biograph webpage, "This event is presented in conjunction with the AHRC-funded project ‘British Silent Cinema and the Transition to Sound’. Using clips from British, French and German films, historian Geoff Brown investigates the turbulent European scene in the period of transition, 1929/1930. Studios struggled to shift from silent feature production to films that talked, sang, and made noises. Britain briefly won the technological advantage, but which country used the technology most imaginatively? The feature in the second half will be the UK premier of the original restored silent version of Prix de Beauté (1930), featuring Louise Brooks, courtesy of Cineteca Bologna. Doors open at 18.30, for a 19.30 start. Refreshments will be available in our licensed cafe/bar."

Prix de beauté was, in fact, one of the very first French sound films, and not without reason, music and sound are recurring thematic, visual and auditory motifs in the film.