Monday, March 13, 2017

WTF: Margins will be thinner than Louise Brooks' negligee

Naturally, I have a keyword alert for "Louise Brooks" set on google news. And just about every day for the last few months I have received news alerts for financial or economic outlook type stories which use the phrase "Margins will be thinner than Louise Brooks' negligee."

I believe that is a quote from Mr. Burns, the parsimonious cartoon character in The Simpsons television show. The actress was referenced once or perhaps twice on the iconic TV show.

But WTF? Why in h-e-double hockey sticks is it showing up on all of these financial news websites? And, do they even know who Louise Brook is?


Thursday, March 9, 2017

Beggars of Life screens in Chicago on March 11

Beggars of Life (1928) will be shown at the Music Box Theater in Chicago, Illinois on Saturday, March 11. This special screening features a 35mm print courtesy of the George Eastman Museum, with permission of Paramount Pictures. The screen will also feature a live musical score on the famous Music Box organ by Dennis Scott, Music Box House Organist. General Admission Tickets – $11 // Senior Tickets – $9 // Music Box Members – $7. More information about this event may be found HERE.

Beggars of Life

DIRECTED BY: William A. Wellman
WRITTEN BY: Benjamin Glazer and Jim Tully (screenplay), adapted from the book by Jim Tully; titles by Julian Johnson
STARRING: Wallace Beery, Louise Brooks, Richard Arlen, Robert Perry, Roscoe Karns, Edgar "Blue" Washington
 

"After killing her treacherous step-father, a girl (Louise Brooks) tries to escape the country with a young vagabond (Richard Arlen). She dresses as a boy, they hop freight trains, quarrel with a group of hobos, and steal a car in their attempt to escape the police, and reach Canada. Released more than a year before The Great Depression, the film was loosely based on Jim Tully’s novel Beggars of Life: A Hobo Autobiography, published in 1924, which describes his hardscrabble existence on the rails during the recession years of the 1890s and 1900s."

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Beggars of Life and Wild Boys of the Road

If you appreciate the  charm and realism of the 1928 William Wellman film, Beggars of Life, than you simply must see Wellman's 1933 film, Wild Boys of the Road. I just watched the later for the first time, and was WOWED.


From Wikipedia: "Wild Boys of the Road is a 1933 Pre-Code Depression-era American film telling the story of several teens forced into becoming hobos. The film was directed by William Wellman from a screenplay by Earl Baldwin based on the story Desperate Youth by Daniel Ahern. The film stars Frankie Darro. In 2013 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'."



But what's more, like Beggars of Life, this latter film also features a young woman (Dorothy Coonan) who dresses as a boy as she rides the rails. It is a terrific, unapologetic, and at times harrowing film.  And like Beggars of Life, it is also in the words of review for Wellman's earlier film, "pungent, powerful, appealing, masterfully directed and superbly acted."



Dorothy Coonan as Sally is real cute, Sterling Holloway as Ollie, another hobo, is oh so likeable, and Grant Mitchell as Mr. Smith is also pitch perfect. The film also has Claire McDowell as Mrs. Smith. She had a similar, motherly role in The Show-Off (1926), which featured Brooks.

The film is available on DVD as part of the Forbidden Hollywood Collection: Volume Three (which includes Other Men's Women / The Purchase Price / Frisco Jenny / Midnight Mary / Heroes for Sale / Wild Boys of the Road). Each is a Pre-Code film directed by William Wellman, one of my very favorite directors. Copies are available through amazon.com

Monday, March 6, 2017

Guest Post: Philip Vorwald on Louise Brooks' Sordid Affair

Guest blogger Philip Vorwald has authored this interesting look at "Louise Brooks' Sordid Affair," which took place during the filming of Beggars of Life.


Saturday, March 4, 2017

Diary of a Lost Girl shows March 5th in Rosendale, New York

The sensational 1929 Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl, will be shown at 3 pm on March 5th at the Rosendale Theater in Rosendale, New York. This Sunday afternoon screening will feature live piano accompaniment by Marta Waterman. More information about the event can be found HERE.

The historic Rosendale Theatre is a three-story, 260-seat movie theater and performance venue in Rosendale Village, a hamlet and former village in the town of Rosendale in Ulster County, New York. The building was opened as a casino in 1905, and began showing films in the 1920s. By the 1930s, a stage had been installed for live vaudeville and burlesque acts. In 1949, the venue was converted back into a movie theater. Today, the theater is run by the Rosendale Theatre Collective.


If you are wondering about Brooksian triangulation... the closest she came to Rosendale back in the day was Poughkeepsie, when she danced there as a member of the Denishawn Dance Company. Later in life, of course, Brooks lived in Rochester, New York.

Diary of a Lost Girl may well be making its debut in Rosendale. The 1929 film, directed by Georg W. Pabst (not Joseph Pabst), was the second Brooks made in Germany, following Pandora's Box. Controversial in its day, and poorly regarded, the film was not shown in the United States until the 1950s. Those screenings took place in Rochester, at the George Eastman House, under the eye of James Card, the museum's film curator. Diary of a Lost Girl made its theatrical debut in the early 1980s. More about the film and its eventful history can be found HERE.

A bit of trivia: In 1961, acclaimed director John Huston was beginning work on a biopic about Sigmund Freud. In an archive of correspondence about the film, Huston’s longtime assistant Ernie Anderson wrote to the director that Freud had no direct involvement with the making of Diary of a Lost Girl.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Announcing Early Women Filmmakers Set on Blu-ray/DVD

Flicker Alley, LLC


FLICKER ALLEY & BLACKHAWK FILMS® PRESENT 
EARLY WOMEN FILMMAKERS:

AN INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY

Flicker Alley and Blackhawk Films® proudly present 25 newly restored films by early cinema's groundbreaking women filmmakers in a definitive

Blu-ray/DVD dual-format collection.

Release Date: May 9, 2017
Flicker Alley and Blackhawk Films® are proud to present Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology, a landmark Blu-ray/DVD collection of newly restored films by early cinema's groundbreaking women directors. This extensive set of 25 films from 14 international directors showcases the innovative technical and stylistic contributions of women, a vital missing piece in the canon of cinematic history.




Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology

Deluxe Blu-ray/DVD Dual-Format Edition

M.S.R.P. $69.95
SPECIAL PRE-ORDER SALE PRICE: $49.95


Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology / 1902-1943 / 652 minutes
More women worked in film during its first two decades than at any time since. Unfortunately, many early women filmmakers have been largely written out of film history, their contributions undervalued. This necessary and timely collection highlights the work of 14 of early cinema's most innovative and influential women directors, re-writing and celebrating their rightful place in film history.

International in scope, this groundbreaking collection features over 10 hours of material, comprised of 25 films spanning 1902-1943, including many rare titles not widely available until now, from shorts to feature films, live-action to animation, commercial narratives to experimental works. Directors include Alice Guy Blaché, Lois Weber, Mabel Normand, Madeline Brandeis, Germaine Dulac, Olga Preobrazhenskaia, Marie-Louise Iribe, Lotte Reiniger, Claire Parker, Mrs. Wallace Reid (Dorothy Davenport), Leni Riefenstahl, Mary Ellen Bute, Dorothy Arzner, and Maya Deren.

These women were technically and stylistically innovative, pushing the boundaries of narrative, aesthetics, and genre. Going back to the beginning of cinema, this collection makes visible the tremendous directorial contributions women made all around the world. Beautifully restored in high definition, Early Women Filmmakers features new scores by Sergei Dreznin, Frederick Hodges, Tamar Muskal, Judith Rosenberg, and Rodney Sauer and the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

This anthology is dedicated to the memory of David Shepard (1940-2017), without whom these films - along with countless others - would simply not have been made available in such beautifully-restored editions. The collection represents one of David's final produced works, completed in collaboration with several film archives, including the French National Center for Cinematography and the Moving Image (CNC), the Film Studies Center at the University of Chicago, and the Library of Congress.
Bonus Materials Include:
  • Booklet Essay: By film historian and Women Film Pioneers Project Manager Kate Saccone.
  • Audio Commentary: For Lois Weber's The Blot by author, professor, and expert on women and early film culture Shelley Stamp, courtesy of Milestone Film and Video.
 

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Louise Brooks on the cover of Amateur Photographer magazine

A Louise Brooks look-alike adorns the current issue of Amateur Photographer, a UK magazine.

The cover story focuses on recreating the iconic black-and-white Eugene Richee photograph of Brooks holding a long, single strand of pearls.

This single image is, without doubt, the best known image of the actress and in its own right, one of the most famous images of a silent film star.

Which ever amateur photographer took this picture, it looks like they did a pretty good job. More information at www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/

Amateur Photographer magazine is the world's best-selling, longest-running consumer weekly photographic magazine, first published in October 1884. Since then, AP (as it is affectionately known to its readers) has been the bible for both amateur and professional photo-enthusiasts around the world. It has helped generations of photographers to improve their skills. It's packed with News, Reviews, Techniques, Stunning Reader and Professional images, together with camera collector features and comments. Secondhand equipment is promoted in every issue - it's a photography magazine not to be missed! 
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