More on It's the Old Army Game in Boston in 1926

As noted in the previous post, It’s The Old Army Game (1926), starring W.C. Fields & Louise Brooks, will be shown at the Somerville Theater in Somerville, Massachusetts (northwest of Boston, and north of Cambridge) on Sunday, April 6th at 2:00 pm. This rare 35mm screening will feature live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapis. More information about this event can be found HERE.

I couldn't determine if or when It’s The Old Army Game was first shown in Somerville (the April 6th screening may be its first ever), but I did find that the film debuted in nearby Boston in July, 1926. (Somerville is less then 5 miles from Boston.) In fact, it debuted on Saturday, July 3, 1926 at the Metropolitan theater. And, it was the first film shown under a new exhibition policy of opening films on Saturdays instead of Sundays. (As someone who is interested in tracking the exhibition history of films, this is a fascinating detail.)

Here is a selection of the entertainment listings for July 3, which includes the Metropolitan advertisement for It's the Old Army Game. It's worth noting that the first showing was not in the evening, but rather a 11:15 morning matinee. Also notable is the fact that Blanche Ring -- a one time vaudeville star -- was given third billing with her name as prominent as Brooks. I don't think I have ever noticed that before in an ad for the film. [Not mentioned in this particular ad was that the theater was air conditioned. "IT'S COOL / The Ice Plant Does It" proclaimed subsequent ads at a time when most people did not have air-conditioning.] Also remarkable is the small article noting that Arthur Fiedler would be conducting the Boston Pops. As a kid growing up, I remember him conducting the Pops on PBS!

On the day the film opened, the local Boston Globe ran a pictorial feature titled "Players Who Hold Attention on Stage and Screen." Louise Brooks received top billing, if not the largest image.

  

It's the Old Army Game was written up in the Boston Globe on Tuesday, July 6th. The anonymous article opined that "Fields is very funny in every scene, but he is particularly amusing in his efforts to eliminate the various noises which keep him awake when he tries to snatch a few minutes' sleep on the back porch." The article, which is a typical "review" of the time, went on to describe Louise Brooks as the "perfect flapper" -- which considering societal attitudes towards youth in the Jazz Age, may be an uncertain compliment. The article also stated that "William Gaxton doest excellent work as the young promoter... Blanche Ring wins many laughs. So do Mary Foy as the nagging sister and Mickey Bennett as her horribly spoiled son." For me, what stands out is the unusual usage of the word "doest".

Following its week long run at the Metropolitan, It’s the Old Army Game returned to Boston at the very end of July, where it played another limited run at the Olympia theater on Scollay Square. (The weather must have been warm, as ads for this theater boasted "Our cooling plant is the Talk of New England.") In a short write-up titled "W.C. Fields in Scollay Picture" which accompanied the engagement, the Boston Globe stated, "A compilation in his love affairs, also a case of fraud in which he becomes involved and several other troubles make up a laughable romance in which Louise Brooks as the heroine has a prominent share."

And again, the Boston Globe ran a pictorial feature highlighting some of the many performers appearing locally either on stage or screen. This time, Clara Bow took "center stage".

Back in the 1920s, new releases usually played for a week in larger cities or towns, before closing and moving on. They might return, just a few weeks or a month or two later and play at second run or neighborhood houses. That was the history of It's the Old Army Game in Boston. A week after showing at the Olympia theater on Scollay Square, the film moved over to the Central Square Theater in nearby Cambridge for another limited run beginning August 12. (Coincidentally, when It's the Old Army Game opened at the Central Square Theater, another film featuring Louise Brooks, The Show-Off, opened at the Metropolitan to positive reviews.)

And on August 16, the W.C. Fields - Louise Brooks film circled back to Boston where it was shown as one-half of a double bill at two theaters -- the Lancaster (with the Hoot Gibson film, The Man in the Saddle) for one day only, and the Exeter (with Love Mary, starring Bessie Love and William Haines). On August 25-27, the "picture attraction" at the Fenway Theater was It's the Old Army Game and a flicker called The Golden Web, with Lillian Rich and Huntley Gordon. And on August 27 it played at the Codman Square Theater as well as the Fields Corner Theater, with the latter screening being a double bill which included The Frontier Trail.

And that was the end of the trail for It's the Old Army Game in Boston, at least until 1978, when the film was screened at the Museum of Fine Arts as part of a double bill along with It, starring Clara Bow. I haven't found any other indications that the film has been shown in the greater Boston area since 1978, so that makes the Somerville screening something special. 

[The theater hosting It’s The Old Army Game, the Somerville Theater, first opened in 1914 as a vaudeville house and movie theater. Though notable, it is not the only historic venue in the area. In fact, in the course of putting together this blog post, I came across a webpage devoted to the Lost Theaters of Somerville on the Somerville Museum website. It's worth checking out.]

More about It’s the Old Army Game can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on the It’s the Old Army Game (filmography page). 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

W.C. Fields & Louise Brooks in It’s The Old Army Game in 35mm in Somerville, MA

It’s The Old Army Game (1926), starring W.C. Fields & Louise Brooks, will be shown at the Somerville Theater in Somerville, Massachusetts (north of Boston) on Sunday, April 6th at 2:00 pm. And what's more, this rare 35mm screening will feature a live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapis. More information about this event can be found HERE.

It’s the Old Army Game was Brooks’ fourth film; it reunited her with Fields, the film’s star. The two had worked together the prior year in the Ziegfeld Follies. Today, It’s the Old Army Game is largely remembered as a starring vehicle for Fields — a comedic great. It is also recalled for the fact that not long after the film wrapped, Brooks married the film’s director, Eddie Sutherland.

When the film debuted in nearby Boston in July 1926, the  Boston Globe stated "Fields is very funny in every scene," while describing Brooks as the "perfect flapper."

Here's what the Somerville Theater website says about the event: "W. C. Fields plays a misanthropic, small-town pharmacist whose lovely shop assistant (Louise Brooks) gets him involved in a phony real estate scheme. The film is regarded as a high point of Fields’s silent filmography. The story was later revised and revamped in the talkies The Pharmacist (1933) and It’s a Gift (1934).

Supplying music will be silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis, who specializes in creating live scores for silent film screenings at venues around New England and beyond.

In the tradition of theatre organists of the 1920s, Rapsis improvises each film’s score on the spot, making up the music as the movie is screened. Rapsis uses a digital synthesizer to create the texture of a full orchestra. 35mm print courtesy the Library of Congress

Here's a bit of trivia: It’s the Old Army Game marked the first film appearance of Elise Cavanna, who plays the nearsighted woman in search of a stamp. (She is the first character seen in the film.) Cavanna started as a dancer (who reportedly studied under Isadora Duncan) and stage comedian before entering films in 1926. She appeared in another Brooks’ film, Love Em and Leave Em (1926), as well as four other films with Fields, most notably The Dentist (1932), where her scenes as a writhing patient in a dentist chair were deemed so risqué they were edited out of later television broadcasts.

More about It’s the Old Army Game can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on the It’s the Old Army Game (filmography page). 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

A Social Celebrity, featuring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1926

A Social Celebrity, starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1926. The film is a romantic comedy about a small town barber who follows his heart and heads to the big city where he hopes to join high society. Louise Brooks plays the barber’s love interest, a small town manicurist who also heads to the big city to become a dancer. The film is the third in which Brooks appeared, the second for which she received a screen credit, and the first in which she had a starring role. 

More about the film can be found on the newly revised Louise Brooks Society filmography page.

The film was originally set to star Greta Nissen, a Norwegian-born dancer. When she quit the film early in its production, Brooks’ part was rewritten and she took on the role of the female lead. It was a huge break for the 19 year old Brooks and a turning point in her career, as the barber, played by Adolphe Menjou, was one of the biggest stars of the time. In reviewing the film, many critics took special note of Brooks, and thereafter she was regarded as a rising star and someone to watch.

The critic for Exhibitor’s Herald noticed the actress. “Louise Brooks is the third person in the cast. This odd young person who worked with Ford Sterling in that screaming interlude of The American Venus is a positive quantity. She may become a sensational success or a sensational flop, but she is not the kind of player who simply goes along. She’s a manicure girl in this one, later a night club dancer, and she’s unfailingly colorful. I have a personal wager with another member of the staff that she goes up instead of down, both of us agreeing that she’s a moving personality but differing as to direction.” Mae Tinee of the Chicago Tribune also noticed the actress, “Louise Brooks, who plays the small town sweetheart who want to make a peacock out of her razor-bill, is a delightful young person with a lovely, direct gaze, an engaging seriousness, and a sudden, flashing smile that is disarming and winsome. A slim and lissome child, with personality and talent.”

The critic for the Boston Evening Transcript echoed those comments. “In this instance the manicure is no less provocative a morsel than Miss Louise Brooks, remembered for her bit in that specious puff-pastry, The American Venus. Miss Brooks has anything but a rewarding task in A Social Celebrity. Yet it would be ungracious not to comment on the fetching qualities of her screen presence. She affects a straight-line bang across the forehead with distressingly piquant cow-licks over either ear. Her eyes are quick, dark, lustrous. Her nose and mouth share a suspicion of gaminerie. Her gestures are deft and alert — perhaps still a shade self-conscious. In body she is more supple than facial play and her genuflectory exertions in the Charleston might well repay the careful study of amateurs in that delicate exercise.”

A Social Celebrity received many positive reviews, though a few critics thought it too similar to Menjou’s earlier efforts. At it’s New York City premiere, the film proved popular at the 2000 seat Rivoli theater, where it brought it nearly $30,000 during its one week run. (This was at a time when most tickets would have been priced at less than a dollar.) The film critic for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported the line for tickets “began at the ticket office and extended to a spot somewhere in the middle of 7th Ave. and 49th St.”

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, China, Hong Kong, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, Panama, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Trinidad, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland,  Scotland, and Wales). The film was also promoted under the title The Social Celebrity (China & India), and A Sociál Celebrity (Czechoslovakia). In the United States, the film was reviewed as Una Celebridad Social (Spanish-language press).

Elsewhere, A Social Celebrity was shown under the title Au suivant de ces messieurs (Algeria); Figaro en sociedad (Argentina); Der Bubikopfkünstler (Austria); Au suivant de ces Messieurs (Belgium, French) and Aan de Volgende Dezer Heeren (Belgium, Dutch); Desfrutando a alta sociedade (Brazil); Figaro en sociedad (Chile); Un Figaro de Sociedad (Cuba); Sociální osobnost (Czechoslovakia); I laante fjer and Storfyrstinden og hendes kammertjener (Denmark); Au suivant de ces messieurs (Egypt); Parturi frakissa and Frakkipukuinen parturi and Barberaren i frack  (Finland); Au suivant de ces messieurs (France); A Szalon Figáró (Hungary); Un barbiere di qualità (Italy); 三日伯爵 (Japan); Der Liebling der Gesellschaft (Latvia); Der Schaum-Cavalier (Luxembourg); Figaro en sociedad (Mexico); De Dameskapper (Netherlands); Shingle-eksperten (Norway); Disfrutando a Alta Societade (Portugal); Figaro en sociedad (Spain); En Sparv i tranedans (Sweden); Au suivant de ces messieurs (Switzerland); and Au suivant de ces messieurs (French Indochina / present day Vietnam).

  SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— Early on, Paramount promised the up-and-coming Nissen equal billing with Menjou in A Social Celebrity. However, “The temperamental Greta insisted on arriving at the studio one hour late every day,” according to the Brooklyn Norgesposten. Menjou, a major star, was forced to wait for the young actress and complained to director St. Clair. Soon enough, Nissen quit and returned to Broadway to resume her career as a dancer. (The friction caused by Nissen’s departure didn’t seem to spoil a budding romance between the dancer and director — at least not in the short-term. The Brooklyn Norgesposten reported that the couple were frequenting New York’s artists’ clubs. And in early May a Broadway gossip columnist hinted that Nissen might wed the Paramount director.)

— Early scenes set in were actually shot on Long Island in the village of Huntington. The exterior of Spontowiz’s Barber Shop on Main Street, the local trolley line — the Delphi, Indiana, and other aspects of the historic Long Island community were featured in the film. (According to press reports from the time, the film’s director and star spent the better part of two weeks touring Long Island looking for a stand-in for Delphi.)

— To lend verisimilitude, Fred Graff, hairdresser and barber-in-chief at the Paramount Long Island studios, was cast in the film. He can be seen “manipulating the sheers” in scenes shot at the Terminal Barber Shop (located at Broadway and Forty-second Street) in Manhattan.

— Also appearing in a bit part was Agnes Griffith, who won a contest sponsored by Famous Players Lasky and the New York Daily News. This was the first film role for Griffith, a diminutive brunette with a short bob. She later appeared in New York (1927).

— While A Social Celebrity was playing at the Rivoli, Menjou appeared on WGBS, the Gimbel Brothers radio station in NYC. According to newspaper reports, Menjou spoke about the film and the scenes shot locally on Long Island. (If he were to have mentioned his co-star, this broadcast would likely mark the first time Brooks name was mentioned on the radio.)

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 THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

Evening Clothes, with Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1927

Evening Clothes, featuring a different looking Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1927. The film is a romantic comedy about a gentleman farmer who — spurned by his bride, goes to the big city to loose his rustic ways and win back his new wife. A stanza printed in advertisements for the film put it this way, “He was a French hick / Who didn’t please her / So he went to Paris and / Became a Boulevardier.” Louise Brooks plays a character called Fox Trot, a hot-to-trot Parisian who some described as a lady of the evening. 

More about the film can be found on the newly revised Louise Brooks Society filmography page.

The making of the film coincided with Paramount’s transition from its East Coast facilities to the West Coast. Evening Clothes was the first film Brooks made in Hollywood (see this earlier LBS post), and at Paramount’s suggestion, the first in which she did not wear her signature bob hairstyle.

Evening Clothes was made to order for its star, Adolphe Menjou. And as with his similarly-themed prior films A Social Celebrity, Ace of Cads, The Sorrows of Satan, and Blonde or Brunette — Evening Clothes proved popular with moviegoers, though less so with critics. The New York Daily News stated “There are a couple of really subtle spots, however, which brighten up the film tremendously, raising it right out of the mediocre class,” while adding “Louise Brooks is a perfect knockout as a good-natured lady of the evening.” The New York Morning Telegraph quipped, ” . . . as it stands, this latest Menjou vehicle offers entertainment value equivalent to the Paramount admission charge.” Other New York papers were more positive. The New York Telegram called the film “a delightful little comedy,” while the New York Journal described it as “an entertaining comedy, with some good situations.” All-in-all, the film received a cool critical response, though it performed very well at the box office.

Thin story-line aside, many reviewers focused on the actors as well as Brooks’ new hairstyle. Among them was Regina Cannon of the New York American, “Louise Brooks is again cast as a ‘lady of the evening’ and makes her role pert and amusing. You won’t recognize Miss Brooks at first, for she is wearing her hair curled over her head. This is too bad, for it makes her look just like a thousand other attractive girls. Louise achieved distinction with her straight-banged bob.”

Louella Parsons of the Los Angeles Examiner added, “When you see the show girl, Louise Brooks, cavorting about with a frizzled top you will see why Famous Players Lasky is grooming her for bigger and better things. She fares much better than either Miss Tashman or Mr. Beery, who only appear at long intervals.” Welford Beaton of Film Spectator echoed Parson’s remarks, “There are three girls who do very well in Evening Clothes — Virginia Valli, Louise Brooks and Lilyan Tashman. . . . I was glad to see further evidence of Paramount’s dawning consciousness that Louise Brooks is not composed solely of legs. They work her from the knees up in this picture and it begins to look as if she were headed for a high place.”

Herbert Cruikshank, who wasn’t enthused about the film, nevertheless liked Brooks. He wrote in the New York Morning Telegraph, “It seems to me that Louise Brooks deserves first place. She is charmingly piquant as a chic little gold-digger who turns out to be a pretty good fellow after all — as many of the maligned sisterhood do. While her part is merely a filler, she seems to have built it up materially, and holds center stage in whatever scenes she has.”

And front-and-center is where Brooks’ next film placed her. Rolled Stockings — which featured Brooks in the lead — went into production just as Evening Clothes was opening around the United States.

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada*, China, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, Panama, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). In the United States, the film was also presented under the title El Traje de Etiqueta (Spanish-language press) and Roupas Noturnas (Portuguese-language press).

Elsewhere, Evening Clothes was shown under the title Un Homme en Habit (Algeria); El hombre del frac (Argentina); Eine Pariser ehe (Austria); Un homme en habit (Belgium, French) and Een Man in Habijt and Een Man in een Habijt (Belgium, Dutch); De Casaca e Luva Branca (Brazil); Las que no aman (Chile); El traje de etiqueta (Costa Rica); El Traje de Etiqueta (Cuba); Vecerní odev and Muž ve Fraku (Czechoslovakia); Ein Frack Ein Claque Ein Madel (Danzig); I kjole og hvidt (Denmark); In Rok (Dutch East Indies); El Marques de la Moda (Dominican Republic); Un Homme en Habit (Egypt); Mõistueaubielu and Mõistueaubielu abielu and Vernunftehe (Estonia); Frakkipukuinen herra and Parisin yökahviloissa (Finland); Un Homme en Habit (France); Ein Frack ein Claque ein Mädel (Germany); Estélyruha and Frakk És Klakk (Hungary); Il signore della notte and Signore della notte (Italy); 夜会服 or Yakai-fuku (Japan); Aprehķina laulības and Der Liebling der Gesellschaft (Latvia); Un Homme en Habit – Ein Frack, Ein Claque, Ein Madel! (Luxembourg); El traje de etiqueta (Mexico); In Rok (The Netherlands**); I Kjole og Hvitt (Norway); Szkoła Paryska (Poland); De Casaca e Luva Branca (Portugal); El Traje de etiqueta and El vestido de etiqueta and Vestido de etiqueta (Spain); En herre i frack (Sweden); L’homme en habit and Un homme en habit (Switzerland); and Un Homme en Habit (Vietnam).

* The film was banned in Quebec, Canada because of “concubinage” – the suggestion of interpersonal or sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple are not or cannot be married.

** When the film was shown in The Netherlands in 1929, a cut was made to the film and screenings were restricted to those 18 and over.

 SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

—  Evening Clothes is based on a French play L’homme en habit by Andre Picard and Yves Mirande which debuted in Paris on March 25, 1920. The Man in Evening Clothes, an English-language version of the play translated by the noted actress Ruth Chatterton, had a brief Broadway run at the Henry Miller Theatre beginning on December 5, 1924.

—  Evening Clothes had its world premiere at the Metropolitan theater in Los Angeles, California on March 4, 1927. Adolphe Menjou was in attendance at the special event, as was the noted poet and then current French ambassador to the United States, . Each were introduced from the stage. It’s now known if Brooks was in attendance at the premiere.

— Arnold Kent (billed as Lido Manetti) had a small role in the film. He began his film career in Italy after having started as a stage actor. (Among his Italian credits were Quo Vadis and a few diva films directed by Augusto Genini.) In the mid-1920s, he moved to Hollywood and worked as a contract player at Universal and later at Paramount. He died in Hollywood in 1928 from injuries sustained in an automobile accident.

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THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Louise Brooks in Ireland, happy St. Patrick's day

Happy St. Patrick's day from the Louise Brooks Society.... Just recently, a handful of Irish newspaper archives came online. I did a search and thought to share some of what I found to celebrate this most Irish of holidays. Shown below are a few representative vintage clippings and a couple of contemporary pieces.

From 1928: a typical newspaper ad, this one for Rolled Stockings.
Curiously, star Richard Arlen is not mentioned

From 1929: a studio publicity photo for Beggars of Life

From 1929: shown as part of a double bill, along with
the Capitol Tiller Girls on stage

From 1929: a little seen publicity photo

From 1929: "See and Hear" The Canary Murder Case

TV listing from 1995: use of the word "gloomy" is unusual though accurate

From 1983: One of the most unfortunate headlines I've ever come across

 
THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Original drawing of Louise Brooks by Willy Pogány for sale

An original drawing of Louise Brooks by famed artist / illustrator Willy Pogány is currently for sale through Royal Books. This vintage caricature, measuring approximately 14 x 19 inches, was executed in graphite, charcoal, and pastel sometime in the early 1930s (that my best guess, as the work is undated). More information HERE.

Best known and much beloved for his illustrations for children's books, Willy Pogány is one of the great illustrators of the 20th century. Born in Hungary, his work sits besides that of Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham, N.C. Wyeth and others. Check out his Wikipedia page HERE.

As the sales pages notes, Pogány "worked prolifically as a sculptor, painter, portraitist, and muralist, and even briefly as a designer of stage sets and costumes. During the 1930s Pogány moved to Los Angeles, where he found employment as an art director in Hollywood—likely the time period in which this drawing was created." 

This caricature was in the possession of  Louise Brooks until the time of her death in 1985, when it was willed to her heirs. The Estate of Louise Brooks has had the painting in their possession for 40 years, but recently sold it to a dealer, who in turn has offered it for sale. It is a real treasure. Pictured below is a photo of Louise Brooks with the drawing which was taken by actor Roddy McDowell in 1965.

If anyone wanted to purchase it and gift it to the Louise Brooks Society, I would be ever so grateful.....

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.   

Louise Brooks Auction

Sixteen photos which once belonged to Louise Brooks are currently being auctioned online through the  liveauctioneers.com website. The seller of these images purchased them at auction, when the Estate of Bill Klein was being sold off  between 2004 and 2006. For those who may not know, "Bill Klein was a friend of Louise Brooks in the 1970s and 1980s, and acquired these photos from her, which were part of her own personal collection." 

Several of these photos are the same ones used by Louise Brooks in her book, Lulu in Hollywood (1982). And, as a matter of fact, a number of them contain handwritten notations by Brooks on the reverse. Images and additional information on the photos can be found at GoPopCulture.com: THE LOUISE BROOKS COLLECTION.

 

The images of Louise Brooks include both portraits and film stills, including stills from The American Venus (1926), A Social Celebrity (1926),  It's the Old Army Game (1926), Love Em and Leave Em (1926), and Rolled Stockings (1927). There are two publicity portraits of Brooks tied to God's Gift to Women (1931), an image of Louise Brooks and Ted Shawn -- taken during Brooks' tenure with Denishawn, as well as images of Marion Davies, Greta Garbo, and Norma Shearer which Brooks' used to illustrate her film magazine articles. All together, it is an interesting selection.

 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

Lulu in Motown, Louise Brooks in Detroit

Back on December 8, 2006, I had the honor of introducing Pandora's Box before a screening of the film at the Detroit Film Theatre in Detroit, Michigan. Located within the Detroit Institute of Arts,
this historic venue was the first museum theater in the United States to screen film as art, prior
to similar screenings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It was an honor as well as a pleasure to introduce the film, as I had grown up in metro Detroit and to this day, the D.I.A. remains one of my very favorite art museums. 

The following piece is adapted from my 2006 introductory remarks. They are, if I may suggest, remarks to keep in mind when Pandora's Box is shown at the historic Senate Theater (6424 Michigan Avenue in Detroit) on March 22. (See the prior LBS blog post for further details.)

Before I say something about Pandora’s Box, I thought I might speak a little bit about Louise Brooks and her relationship with the Motor City. Yes, the gods do sometimes walk among us.  

Before she became an actress, Louise Brooks was a dancer. For more than two years, Brooks was a member of—and toured with—Denishawn, the leading modern American dance company of the teens and twenties. Led by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, the company included a who’s who of those who would shape modern dance in America. During the 1922-23 and 1923-24 seasons, the future actress—then still a teenager—danced alongside such legendary figures as Martha Graham, Charles Weideman, and Doris Humphrey. 

The company came to Detroit twice—first in March of 1923, and then again in March of 1924. As a member of Denishawn, Louise Brooks performed at Orchestra Hall, the current home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. According to contemporary accounts, the company enjoyed large crowds and received favorable reviews. 

Dance would play an important part in Brooks’ life. In the opening scene in Pandora’s Box, the actress performs a short dance—something Brooks had recalled from an earlier Denishawn routine. Later in life she would remark, “I learned to act by watching Martha Graham dance, and I learned to dance by watching Charlie Chaplin act.” 

It was an actress, however, that Louise Brooks made her greatest impression on the Motor City—especially its film critics. In the 1920’s, Detroit was a three paper town. There was the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, as well as the now defunct Detroit Times. Also covering the local arts and entertainment scene—including motion pictures—was a weekly called Detroit Saturday Night. Each of these publications reviewed new films, and each usually went out of its way to say something good or interesting about Louise Brooks. 

For example, Charles J. Richardson of the Detroit Times, in reviewing The American Venus—a somewhat risqué 1926 comedy which first brought Louise Brooks to public notice—stated “Louise Brooks, the former Follies chorine, makes her film debut in the production and does well in a small role. This Miss Brooks just now is the patron saint of all chorus girls seeking admittance into the sacred ranks of screen players.” That’s not a bad write-up for a first screen credit. 

Harold Hefferman, writing in the Detroit News, had also noticed the young actress in her first big role. He wrote “Louise Brooks, a black-haired boyish-bobbed entry . . . cuts quite a figure.” Indeed, throughout the 1920’s, Harold Hefferman would lavish praise on the actress time and again. The Detroit News critic nearly gushed while reviewing her next film, A Social Celebrity. “Louise Brooks, possessing one of the most striking and expressive faces ever to come to the screen, plays the heroine in a saucily successful manner.” 

Meanwhile, Hefferman’s journalistic rival, Charles J. Richardson, continued to express similar sentiments in his reviews for the Detroit Times. In writing about the 1927 comedy, Rolled Stockings, Richardson stated bluntly “Louise Brooks, as usual, is delightful to gaze upon.” Back then, critics sometimes wore their hearts on their sleeves. 

Admiration for the actress was not limited to the city’s male critics. During the 1920’s, Ella H. McCormick of the Detroit Free Press repeatedly singled out the actress. “Louise Brooks is the nifty stepper” she would write in May, 1926. A month later, reviewing It’s the Old Army Game, McCormick observed “W. C. Fields scored a splendid triumph in this picture. A great part of the success of the offering, however, is due to Louise Brooks, who takes the lead feminine part.” At year’s end, in her review of the December 1926 release, Just Another Blonde, McCormick would state “Miss Brooks is one of the best brunette contradictions to the lighter hypothesis that can be found on the silver screen.” 

In the mid-1930’s, as her film career began fade, Louise Brooks returned to dance— and once again returned to Detroit. With a partner, Brooks performed as a ballroom dancer in night clubs, theaters, and other Midwest and East Coast hotspots. In August of 1934, Louise Brooks danced at the Blossom Heath Inn on Jefferson Avenue. Today, that venue—which is located between 9 and 10 mile road—hosts weddings and bridal fairs, but back then the Blossom Heath Inn was a well known road-house which hosted prominent touring acts. 

At the time of her month-long engagement in what would become St. Clair Shores, both the Free Press and News ran the following notice in the night-club column of their respective papers. “Edward Fritz, proprietor of the Blossom Heath Inn, announces the engagement of the season’s greatest floor show, headed by Louise Brooks, motion picture star, and Dario, creator of the Bolero from the motion picture Bolero. Several other new acts are included.” It was an unimpressive dénouement to a remarkable career. Within a few years, Louise Brooks would appear in her last film, leave Hollywood, and sink into decades of obscurity. 

But things changed. Louise Brooks and her great European films—Pandora’s Box, Diary of a Lost Girl, and Prix de beauté—were rediscovered. Today, the actress is best known for the role as Lulu in G.W. Pabst’s 1929 masterpiece. In his rather thoughtful article in this week’s Metro Times, Michael Hastings noted: “Has there ever been a more perfect, more tragic, more mythic fusion of actor and character than Louise Brooks’ Lulu in Pandora’s Box? The girl with the “black helmet” hairdo may not have been German, and she certainly didn’t go on a date with Jack the Ripper, but just about everything else in Brooks’ life leading up to and following her signature 1929 role became, in some weird, extrasensory way, the blueprint for director G.W. Pabst’s masterpiece of sexual suggestion.” 

Despite Louise Brooks’ now legendary status, there are those who have questioned her art. In her classic book about German expressionist film entitled, The Haunted Screen, historian Lottie Eisner asked, “Was Louise Brooks a great artist—or only a dazzling creature whose beauty leads the spectator to endow her with complexities of which she herself was unaware?” That’s a good, even provocative question—as it lies at the heart of the debate still surrounding the actress. 

When a heavily censored Pandora’s Box made its American debut in December of 1929, the critic for the New York Times wrote “Miss Brooks is attractive—and she moves her head and eyes at the proper moment, but whether she is endeavoring to express joy, woe, anger or satisfaction—it is often difficult to decide.” The N.Y. Herald Tribune added, “Louise Brooks acts vivaciously but with a seeming blindness as to what it is all about.” Other reviews were just as damning. 

Critics then—and critics today—call her talent into question. Is Louise Brooks a great actress?—or only someone who fools the audience and gets by on her looks? 

Admittedly, Louise Brooks is something of a problem in film history. She is unique among movie icons in that no other actress has made such an impact with so few films. Part of the problem is that a quarter of her films are lost. And today, Brooks’ reputation rests almost unfairly on one role—that of Lulu, a prototypical femme fatale in this 77-year-old film by G.W. Pabst.  

When a revised edition of The Haunted Screen was published in 1957, Lottie Eisner answered the question she had posed just a few years before. Then, in writing about the two films Brooks made with Pabst, Eisner asked if Brooks was a great artist. Now, revising her text, Eisner wrote something just as provocative: “Her gifts of profound intuition may seem purely passive to an inexperienced audience, yet she succeeded in stimulating an otherwise unequal director’s talent to the extreme. Pabst’s remarkable evolution must thus be seen as an encounter with an actress who needed no directing, but could move across the screen causing the work of art to be born by her mere presence. Louise Brooks, always enigmatically impassive, overwhelmingly exists throughout these two films. We know now that Louise Brooks is a remarkable actress endowed with uncommon intelligence, and not merely a dazzlingly beautiful woman.”

More about Pandora's Box can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its Pandora's Box (filmography page).

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2025. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.