Love 'Em And Leave 'Em to be shown at the George Eastman Museum on November 15th

The 1926 Louise Brooks film, Love 'Em And Leave 'Em, will be shown at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York on November 15th (the day after LB's birthday). If you haven't scene this film, here is your chance to see it on the big screen in a theater where Louise herself watched films. And what's more, the film will be accompanied by Philip C. Carli, who will provide a live musical accompaniment. More information HERE.

 

(Frank Tuttle, US 1926, 76 min., 16mm)

 

The George Eastman Museum says of this film, "This early comedy features Louise Brooks and Evelyn Brent as the dueling Walsh sisters: Brent’s Mame is bookish and considerate, while Brooks’s Janie is a heartbreaking flapper whose morals extend so low as to snag her sister’s betrothed. Their relationship comes under even further trial as Janie finds herself in a financial hole from which only Mame’s sibling devotion can rescue her. Far ahead of its time in sexual politics, Love ’Em and Leave ’Em also exhibits one of Brooks’ rare onscreen dance routines."

 

Love Em and Leave Em was popular in its day. The Chicago Tribune even named the film one of the six best movies of the month. Its critic, Mae Tinee, proclaimed, “Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em is one of the snappiest little comedy dramas of the season. Full of human interest. Splendidly directed. Acted beautifully.” Dorothy Herzog, film critic for the New York Daily Mirror (and Evelyn Brent’s later romantic partner) penned similarly, “A featherweight comedy drama that should register with the public because of the fine work done by the principals and its amusing gags. . . . Louise Brooks gives the best performance of her flicker career as the selfish, snappily dressed, alive number — Janie. Miss Brooks sizzles through this celluloider, a flapper lurer with a Ziegfeld figure and come-on eyes.”

Critics across the country thought Brooks stole the show. The Los Angeles Record wrote, “Evelyn Brent is nominally starred in Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em, but the work of Louise Brooks, suave enticing newcomer to the Lasky fold, stands out most. The flippant, self-centered little shop girl is given sly and knowing interpretation by Miss Brooks, who is, if memory serves aright, a graduate of that great American institute of learning, the Follies.” The Kansas City Times went further, “Louise Brooks does another of her flapper parts and is a good deal more realistic than the widely heralded Clara Bow. Miss Brooks uses the dumb bell rather than the spit-fire method. But she always gets what she wants.”

And once again, New York critics singled out the actress, lavishing praise on Brooks with the film almost an after-thought. The New York Herald Tribune critic opined, “Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em . . . did manage to accomplish one thing. It has silenced, for the time being at least, the charge that Louise Brooks cannot act. Her portrayal of the predatory shop girl of the Abbott-Weaver tale was one of the bright spots of recent film histrionism.”

John S. Cohen Jr. of the New York Sun added, “The real surprise of the film is Louise Brooks. With practically all connoisseurs of beauty in the throes of adulation over her generally effectiveness, Miss Brooks has not heretofore impressed anyone as a roomful (as Lorelei says) of Duses. But in Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em, unless I too have simply fallen under her spell, she gives an uncannily effective impersonation of a bad little notion counter vampire. Even her excellent acting, however, cannot approach in effectiveness the scenes where, in ‘Scandals’ attire, she does what we may call a mean Charleston.”

More about this entertaining film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society website HERE. The Louise Brooks Society blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society. (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2022. Further unauthorized use prohibited.

 

Dryden Theater in Rochester turns 60

The Dryden Theater, where Louise Brooks spent many an hour watching films, turns 60 years old. The theater is part of the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.

Jack Garner, the noted film critic for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and a friend of the actress, penned an article about the anniversary. Garner wrote:

The Dryden opened in March 1951, thanks to the vision of James Card, the museum's first curator of motion pictures. After Eastman House opened in 1948 as a museum for photography and motion pictures, Card saw the need for an exhibition space to show off the substantial film collection. Card got George Eastman's niece, Ellen, and her husband, George Dryden, behind the project as donors and supporters of a fundraising campaign.

I had a chance to take a peek inside the Dryden Theater when I visited the George Eastman House in 2006 (as pictured right). It was thrilling to think Brooks (and many other early film stars honored at Eastman House) entered the Dryden right where I was standing. More info about the Dryden Theater and the George Eastman House can be found at http://www.eastmanhouse.org/ and on my column at examiner.com.