Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Robert Bly photoplay edition


I hosted a poetry reading tonight for Robert Bly. Afterwords, I asked him to sign a few books, including my copy of The Saga of Gosta Berling, by Selma Lagerlof. (Though not so much read today, Lagerlof was a popular Swedish writer at the turn of the 20th century and the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. This novel, her most popular, was made into a film in 1924 by director Mauritz Stiller.)
I own this book because Greta Garbo is pictured on the cover. When I presented the book to Bly, he did not recognize it and said it was not his translation. I showed him his name inside the book. He acknowledged it was in fact his translation, but stated that he had never seen this edition before. It turns out this copy is an English language translation published in Sweden in 1982. I can't remember where I obtained this copy. Most likely, it was at a second hand book store in San Francisco or Berkeley.

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Peggy Hopkins Joyce biography

Finished reading Gold Digger, by Constance Rosenblum. This excellent biography, originally published in 2000, tells the story of the "outrageous life and times of Peggy Hopkins Joyce" - a somewhat minor stage and film star of the Twenties and Thirties who led a rather interesting life. She was, certainly, one of the leading personalities of her time. "They don't make courtesans like Peggy Hopkins Joyce anymore - or so worthy of rediscovery - and they don't make biographies any more stylish and definitive than this one." - Barry Paris 

Friday, June 11, 2004

Audience fading for repertory movie theaters

San Francisco Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle has written a really interesting article on the future of repertory movie theaters. Though largely focussed on San Francisco, the article has national implications. This article is about the kind of local movie theaters that show silent films and pre-code films and the films that readers of this blog care about. Check out the article here.

Friday, June 4, 2004

Chicago research


Returned the other day from a work-related trip to Chicago, where I was attending the annual booksellers convention. While in the "Windy City," I spent some time researching Louise Brooks.
I spent a day and a half - about ten hours - at the Chicago Public Library. This is my third trip to the CPL. This time, I managed to more or less complete my survey of Chicago newspapers on microfilm. The papers I've looked at include the Chicago AmericanChicago Daily JournalChicago Daily NewsChicago Evening Post,Chicago Herald-Examiner, and Chicago Tribune. I found additional reviews for Brooks' Chicago-area Denishawn performances, as well as substantial coverage of her nite club appearances in the 1930's. I also dug up a number of film reviews, as well as a handful of other miscellaneous articles, including front page coverage of Brooks marriage to Eddie Sutherland! All together, a good haul. (I also browsed the stacks, where I found a bit of interesting material in a few different books.)
I spent about seven hours at the library at the University of Chicago. There, I was able to look at rare German, Soviet and Japanese film periodicals from the late 1920's and early 1930's. (The Russian and German periodicals were on microfilm. The Japanese film periodical - Movie Times - was a reproduction of the original in bound volumes.) I found a handful of illustrated articles in each periodical! The Russian and Japanese periodicals are especially rare - and it was exciting to actually browse them and find pictures and articles about Brooks and her films.
The University of Chicago library has a lot of microfilm, and I wasn't able to look at everything I wanted. I did spend a little time looking at other publications, including the Daily Worker (this socialist newspaper based in New York City yielded a couple of brief articles), the Charleston News and Courier (found a Denishawn review and a film article in this South Carolina paper), and the Joliet Herald News (found some advertisements for screenings in the 1920's in this Chicago-area paper). Citations for these and all of the above material has been added to the LBS bibliographies.

Friday, May 21, 2004

Brooks event in Los Angeles

For those who live in Los Angeles and are so inclined, a Louise Brooks-inspired event will take place on Friday, May 21, 2004 at 10 pm. The Bricktops are presenting their second annual "Louise Brooks, LuLu in Hollywood Tributata. " 

For more info on the event, see http://www.parlourclub.com/club_page.asp?club_page=Bricktops (Fancy dress highly encouraged. $5.00 cover 21+ 10pm-2am. With resident DJ Bernice Bobs-Her-Hair and Pirate Jenny From Montpellier. ) Information on the Bricktops, and their home, the Parlour Club (7702 Santa Monica Blvd in the Russian Quarter of West Hollywood), can also be found through this page. If anybody goes, please post your observations! 

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Redwood City

Ventured to the Redwood City Public Library, about a 40 minute drive south from my apartment in San Francisco. I searched through microfilm of the Redwood City Tribune, where I found a few advertisements and brief articles related to local screenings of films featuring Louise Brooks. Local patrons, as it turns out, largely went to nearby Palo Alto or San Mateo to take in the latest offerings from Paramount, MGM, etc....
This last newspaper survey largely completes my three year survey of Bay Area publications. In summation, here is what I looked at and where I found it: 
-- San Francisco Public Library (The Argonaut, Richmond Banner, San Francisco Bulletin, San Francisco Call and Post, San Francisco Call-BulletinSan Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Daily News, The Marin and San Anselmo Herald)
-- Oakland Public Library (Oakland TribuneOakland Post-Enquirer)
-- University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley Daily Gazette, Contra Costa GazetteDaily Californian, Oakland Morning Record, San Rafael Independent)
-- California State University, Hayward (Hayward ReviewHayward Daily Review, Oakland Free Press, San Leandro Reporter, Township Register)
-- San Mateo Public Library (San Mateo Times)
-- Stanford University (Daily Palo AltoPalo Alto Times, Stanford Daily)
-- San Jose State University (Los Gatos Mail NewsSan Jose Evening News, San Jose Mercury HeraldSan Jose Mercury News)
-- California State Library (Alameda Times-StarIllustrated Daily Herald, Livermore HeraldMarin JournalSanta Rosa Press Democrat)

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Erich von Stroheim biography

Finished reading Stroheim, by the film historian and biographer Arthur Lennig. This is an impressive biography, one which I read with great interest. (It was fascinating, for example, to find out that Erich von Stroheim lived for a short time here in the San Francisco Bay Area.) My introduction to Stroheim came through my wife, who has long been interested in this individual and his films. One of our first dates was spent watching a video of The Wedding March. Now, we have many of Stroheim's silent films on DVD.
I have been meaning to read this book since I first met Lennig back in 1999. I had hosted him for an author event and booksigning around the time that Stroheim was first published in hardback. Then, my wife and I were able to spend a little time with this noted film historian. We went to party with Lennig (where we met Fay Wray - the star The Wedding March), and later went to dinner. Lennig is quite the raconteur. Over dinner, he spoke of researching and writing about this troubled actor / director - as well as Bela Lugosi, another fascinating figure whom Lennig both knew and has written about.
For those not familiar with Stroheim and his films (you should be!), here is a description of the book from the publisher. "Erich von Stroheim (1885-1957) was one of the true giants in American film history. Stubborn, arrogant, and colorful, he saw himself as a cinema artist, which led to numerous conflicts with producers and studio executives who complained about the inflated budgets and extraordinary length of his films. Stroheim achieved great notoriety and success, but he was so uncompromising that he turned his triumph into failure. He was banned from ever directing again and spent the remainder of his life as an actor.
For years Stroheim’s life has been wreathed in myths, many of his own devising. Arthur Lennig scoured European and American archives for details concerning the life of the actor and director, and he counters several long-accepted and oft-repeated claims. Stroheim’s tales of military experience are almost completely fictitious; the “von” in his name was an affectation adopted at Ellis Island in 1909; and, counter to his own claim, he did not participate in the production of [The] Birth of a Nation in 1914.
Wherever Stroheim lived, he was an outsider: a Jew in Vienna, an Austrian in southern California, an American in France. This contributed to an almost pathological need to embellish and obscure his past; yet, it also may have been the key to his genius both behind and in front of the camera. He had a fantastic dedication to absolute cinematic truth and believed that his vision and genius would triumph over the Hollywood system.
As an actor, Stroheim threw himself into his portrayals of evil men, relishing his epithet “The Man You Love to Hate.” As a director, he immersed himself in every facet of production, including script writing and costume design. In 1923 he created his masterpiece Greed, infamous for its eight-hour running time. The studio cut the film to two hours and burned the extra footage. Stroheim returned to acting, saving some of his finest performances for La Grande Illusion (1937) and Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), a role he hated, probably because it was too similar to the story of his own life."

Sunday, May 16, 2004

Roxie Theater

There is an article in today's San Francisco Chronicle about the Roxie, a local movie theater. It is the oldest operating movie theater in San Francisco. I have seen a number of films there over the years, including most memorably Dangerous Female (1931), the first film version of The Maltese Falcon (in which Louise Brooks is pictured as Sam Spade's girlfriend!), and a Norma Shearer film (introduced by Shearer's daughter.) My friend Lara works there as a projectionist.

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Austrian newspapers


Came across a website which had historic runs of Austrian newspapers, including three papers from Vienna from the period of the 1920's. The papers are not searchable by keyword, so I had to scroll through them page by page looking for interesting material. I had hoped to find something about Pandora's Box, which, I believe, showed in Vienna the first week of March, 1929. Nothing turned up. The three papers I scanned didn't seem to report on or review the cinema. Found no articles or advertisements.
Does anyone know of any similar on-line access to European newspapers of the 1920's or 1930's?
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