Showing posts with label Poland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poland. Show all posts

Saturday, February 5, 2022

The Glories of Poland's KINO Magazine, part three

If you are anything like me (and I realize most people aren't), then you may enjoy surfing the internet and browsing old newspapers and magazines, especially international publications. I like doing so on occasion. In particular, I enjoy looking at old film magazines. They depict a world gone by. A time and place no longer. But what's more, you never know what you will find - rare and unusual images, little known interviews with favorite stars, and more. 

I am drawn to publications from Eastern Europe, especially publications from Poland. (I am of Polish heritage.) One of my favorite magazines to look through is KINO, a Polish film magazines. A small archive of the magazine, dating from the 1930s, can be found online HERE. (Warning, this archive can be problematic to navigate.)

What is especially notable about this magazine (especially in the early 1930s) is its striking, sometimes avante-garde cover art, which utilizes a muted palette and employs portrait photography and illustration, as well as moderne and art deco designs, collage, coloring, patterns, layers, geometric forms, abstraction, "exoticism" and a varied layout (i.e. title placement). It is also worth noticing the predominance of angles over curves. (As the decade progressed, KINO covers were less bold, and began to resemble the covers found on other magazines of the time.)

I found a bit of material about Louise Brooks, of course, as well as many attractive magazine covers which I wanted to share - both because they depict favorite movie stars, but also for their swell graphic design. There are so many interesting images that I need divide this post into a few parts. 

This is part three. (See the previous blog post for part two.) I will start with a couple of Louise Brooks related covers and go from there. This first cover depicts William Powell from around the time he starred in The Canary Murder Case, which in Poland was titled Kryyk z za Swlatow. (See the end of the previous post for stunning image of Brooks as the Canary, which was published in KINO.) The second cover depicts Louise Brooks two-time co-star, Adolphe Menjou.

William Powell 1930

Adolphe Menjou 1930

Anna May Wong 1930

Nina Mae McKinney 1935

Lya di Putti 1931

Gloria Stuart 1937

Mae West 1935

Myrna Loy 1936

Thursday, February 3, 2022

The Glories of Poland's KINO Magazine, part two

If you are anything like me (and I realize most people aren't), then you may enjoy surfing the internet and browsing old newspapers and magazines, especially international publications. I like doing so on occasion. In particular, I enjoy looking at old film magazines. They depict a world gone by. A time and place no longer. But what's more, you never know what you will find - rare and unusual images, little known interviews with favorite stars, and more. 

I am drawn to publications from Eastern Europe, especially publications from Poland. (I am of Polish heritage.) One of my favorite magazines to look through is KINO, a Polish film magazines. A small archive of the magazine, dating from the 1930s, can be found online HERE. (Warning, this archive can be problematic to navigate.)

What is especially notable about this magazine (especially in the early 1930s) is its striking, sometimes avante-garde cover art, which utilizes a muted palette and employs portrait photography and illustration, as well as moderne and art deco designs, collage, coloring, patterns, layers, geometric forms, abstraction, "exoticism" and a varied layout (i.e. title placement). It is also worth noticing the predominance of angles over curves. (As the decade progressed, KINO covers were less bold, and began to resemble the covers found on other magazines of the time.)

I found a bit of material about Louise Brooks, of course, as well as many attractive magazine covers which I wanted to share - both because they depict favorite movie stars, but also for their swell graphic design. There are so many interesting images that I need divide this post into a few parts. 

This is part two. (See the previous blog post for part one.) I will start with a Louise Brooks related cover and go from there. This first cover depicts Wallace Beery in an image taken from the 1927 film, Now We're in the Air.

Wallace Beery 1930

Colleen Moore 1930

Brigitte Helm 1932

Gary Cooper 1930

Buster Keaton 1931


Pola Negri 1935

Pola Negri 1933

Krystyna Ankwicz 1932

Krystyna Ankwicz 1936

a Polish actress 1933

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

The Glories of Poland's KINO Magazine, part one

If you are anything like me (and I realize most people aren't), then you may enjoy surfing the internet and browsing old newspapers and magazines, especially international publications. I like doing so on occasion. In particular, I enjoy looking at old film magazines. They depict a world gone by. A time and place no longer. But what's more, you never know what you will find - rare and unusual images, little known interviews with favorite stars, and more. 

I am drawn to publications from Eastern Europe, especially publications from Poland. (I am of Polish heritage.) One of my favorite magazines to look through is KINO, a Polish film magazines. A small archive of the magazine, dating from the 1930s, can be found online HERE. (Warning, this archive can be problematic to navigate.)

What is especially notable about this magazine (especially in the early 1930s) is its striking, sometimes avante-garde cover art, which utilizes a muted palette and employs portrait photography and illustration, as well as moderne and art deco designs, collage, coloring, patterns, layers, geometric forms, abstraction, "exoticism" and a varied layout (i.e. title placement). It is also worth noticing the predominance of angles over curves. (As the decade progressed, KINO covers were less bold, and began to resemble the covers found on other magazines of the time.)

I found a bit of material about Louise Brooks, of course, as well as many attractive magazine covers which I wanted to share - both because they depict favorite movie stars, but also for their swell graphic design. There are so many interesting images that I need divide this post into a few parts.  

This is part one. I will start with a Louise Brooks cover and go from there.

Louise Brooks 1932

John Gilbert 1930

Ramon Novarro 1930


Charlie Chaplin 1931

Buster Keaton 1932

Pola Negri 1931

Colleen Moore 1930

Clara Bow 1930

Greta Garbo 1934

The next post will feature even more covers. Of course, there are many other interesting / appealing / unusual interior illustrations. Here is one that I came across that intrigues me to no end - a caricature and poem related to Garbo. Can anyone transcribe and translate the verse?

Monday, January 3, 2022

Happy Birthday Pola Negri

Happy Birthday Pola Negri, the Polish-born actress who achieved worldwide fame during the silent and early sound eras. By most accounts, Pola (born Apolonia Chalupec) came into the world on this day in 1897. She began her career in Europe, making early films in Germany before moving to the United States and signing with Paramount. She was a near contemporary of Louise Brooks, and worked with some of the same actors and directors. Pola was also considered a great beauty, and reportedly had affairs with both Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino. Her last screen credit was in Walt Disney's The Moon-Spinners (1964). Read her Wikipedia page HERE.





At times, Pola Negri resembled Louise Brooks just a bit. At other times, she look like a dark haired Garbo. Most of the time, however, she looked like Pola!

Want to learn more? Here are some worthwhile books. I recommend each.

 





Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Louise Brooks, and the avant-garde design of Polish magazines

Louise Brooks was a truly an international star. And she still is. My forthcoming two volume work, Around the World with Louise Brooks, makes that very point by including more than 75 vintage non-American magazine covers which feature the actress - including these four from Poland. I think they look rather fabulous.


Polish graphic design has long been held in high regard, especially the avant-garde efforts coming out of inter-war Poland. In ways, Polish design rivaled the avant-garde, post-revolutionary efforts from the Soviet Union, which are better known and better documented (and were later squashed by the likes of dull socialist realism). If you want to learn more about Polish cinema, Polish design, and/or interwar Polish culture, be sure and check out culture.pl, a website chock-full of articles on those very topics. 

[Two pieces to start with are "Polish Cinema's Golden Age: The Glamour & Progress of Poland's Interwar Films" by Juliette Bretan, and "The Vintage Charm & Chic of 1920s Poland" by Anna Legierska. I would also recommend exploring Juliette Bretan's contributor page, which links to some of the other interesting articles she has penned on interwar culture in Poland.] On with the show....

While researching Polish film magazines, I came across a handful of examples of issues which also display a striking cover design. I wish to share them here, just because they are rather cool looking. 

The first shown likely comes from Pandora's Box, as it depicts Carl Goetz (as Schigolch?), dates from 1929, and bears a photo credit from the Polish distributor of the celebrated 1929 German film. As there is no specific reference to the film (which in Poland went under the titles Lulu and Puszka Pandory) in the magazine, and as I am not all that familiar with Goetz's career, I won't say for sure. He was in two other German film which were released just before this magazine was published. And too, I have not compared the still on the cover with the film itself, though it looks like it could be a still from the scene when Goetz is discovered on the balcony by Dr. Ludwig Schön. If anyone knows for sure, please send me a message. Now, on with the show....


The remaining covers I am showing because they are, simply put, eye catching, and also reflect the modernist design tendencies mentioned above. Or, because they stylishly feature American movie stars like Buster Keaton, Clara Bow, W.C. Fields, Laurel & Hardy, Anna May Wong, and others. Or, because they are just too darn cute. Each of the magazines pictured here date from 1929, 1930, or 1931.













Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks screens in Warsaw on April 21

The 1929 Louise Brooks film Pandora's Box (in Polish Puszka Pandory) will screen in Warsaw, Poland on Saturday, April 21 at the Kino Iluzjon. More information on this event, with live musical accompaniment, can be found HERE. (This page link includes notes in Polish on the film by the 8th Doctor Who, actor Paul McGann, the star of Withnail & I and other films.)

What follows are notes in Polish from the Polish venue.

W sobotę 21 kwietnia w ramach 15. Święto Niemego Kina zapraszamy na pokaz filmu „Puszka Pandory” z muzyką na żywo w wykonaniu Resiny & Mirona Grzegorkiewicza.

W programie:
„Puszka Pandory” / „Pandora’s Box”, reż. Georg W. Pabst, Niemcy 1929 r., 133’
Muzyka: Resina & Miron Grzegorkiewicz

FILM:
W 1926 roku w Berlinie reżyser Georg Wilhelm Pabst rozpoczął obsesyjne poszukiwania aktorki, która zagra główną rolę w „Puszce Pandory”, historii uwodzicielskiej Lulu, której niemoralne zachowanie doprowadza do upadku kilku zakochanych w niej mężczyzn. Trwały one dwa lata. Przesłuchano dwa tysiące kandydatek, kilkaset poddano próbom przed kamerą. Wszystkie zostały jednak odrzucone – jedne nie miały odpowiednich warunków fizycznych, inne – talentu. Historię śledziły gazety i czasopisma. Wybór aktorki stał się wkrótce sprawą narodową.
We wrześniu 1928 roku 21-letnia Louise Brooks, niezwykle piękna i wyzywająco seksualna, opuściła Hollywood, by stać się nieśmiertelną. Pierwszy raz zwróciła na siebie uwagę Pabsta występem w „A kochanek miał sto” („A Girl in Every Port”) Howarda Hawksa, gdzie grała wyrachowanego drapieżnika. Reżyser poprosił o możliwość współpracy z aktorką, ale studio Paramount, z którym była związana kontraktem odmówiło. Legenda głosi, że w momencie, gdy Brooks odmawiała podpisania nowego kontraktu z Paramountem, młoda Marlena Dietrich stała właśnie pod drzwiami Pabsta w Berlinie, umówiona na spotkanie w sprawie głównej roli w „Puszce Pandory”. Reżyser dowiedział jednak się, że Brooks jest wolna i z miejsca ofiarował jej rolę w swoim nowym filmie. W czasach, gdy Ameryka kusiła wiele talentów z Niemiec, Brooks postanowiła wyjechać w przeciwnym kierunku i w ciągu zaledwie dziesięciu miesięcy, pod kierunkiem Pabsta na nowo zdefiniowała sztukę gry aktorskiej i zajęła ważne miejsce w historii kina.
Więcej o filmie: bit.ly/2q4gqKX


MUZYKA:
Wyjątkowe spotkanie muzyczne, którego rezultatów nie sposób przewidzieć. W duecie wystąpią wiolonczelistka i kompozytorka Karolina Rec oraz gitarzysta, twórca muzyki elektronicznej Miron Grzegorkiewicz. Artystka znana szerzej pod pseudonimem Resina ma duże doświadczenie w graniu do filmu, które zdobywała między innymi na kilku poprzednich edycjach Święta Niemego Kina. Przeważnie wykonuje jednak materiał autorski łączący brzmienie wiolonczeli z prostymi narzędziami elektronicznymi. Wśród nich centralną rolę odgrywa looper, który sprawia, że budowane z kolejnych pętli utwory Resiny gęstnieją i rozbudowują się w czasie. Poszukiwania artystki czasem prowadzą w stronę zaskakująco piosenkowych kompozycji, innym razem przybierają formę bardziej abstrakcyjnych impresji. Można je usłyszeć na albumie „Resina”, który ukazał się w 2016 roku nakładem 130701 – neoklasycznego oddziału popularnej brytyjskiej wytwórni FatCat.
Więcej o muzykach: bit.ly/2GBpnXa

Bilety do nabycia on-line i w kasie kina Iluzjon.
Kasa kina: (22) 848 33 33; iluzjon.rezerwacje@fn.org.pl.
http://www.iluzjon.fn.org.pl/cykle/info/852/15-swieto-niemego-kina.html

Pełen program wydarzenia: www.swietoniemegokina.pl



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