Louise Brooks stars in Los Angeles series

Silent film star Louise Brooks - the subject of a not-to-be-missed
series of films at the Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles.

By Thomas Gladysz

[Attention Bay Area readers: The films written about below are being shown in Los Angeles, not San Francisco.]

Los Angeles has long had a love affair with Louise Brooks. That relationship continues with a series of Wednesday night screenings at the Silent Movie Theatre on North Fairfax Avenue. Throughout May, the quirky cinema showcase will screen four films featuring the legendary silent film star.

It all began with what might be Brooks’ first film review. On August 31, 1925 the Los Angeles Times commented on the actress’ appearance in The Street of Forgotten Men (1925). Brooks’ bit part was a brief, uncredited role as girlfriend to a gangster. Nevertheless, an anonymous critic for the paper went out of their way to write, "And there was a little rowdy, obviously attached to the 'blind' man, who did some vital work during her few short scenes. She was not listed."

The Los Angeles Times was the only newspaper in the country to take notice of the 18 year old showgirl making her film debut.

Over the years, most every Los Angeles newspaper would  go on to sing the praises of the actress. And sometimes, they would even swoon.

When the now lost Evening Clothes (1927) had its world premiere at the Metropolitan Theater, the Daily Illustrated News gushed, “Louise Brooks - yes, the one you dream about - is as alluring and pert as ever.” The Los Angeles Evening Express echoed the competition when it found Brooks’ “haunting vivacity has necessitated the restringing of more than one male's heartstrings.”

It wasn’t only male newspaper critics struck by the actress. Eleanor Barnes stated in her Daily Illustrated News review of Rolled Stockings (1927), “Louise Brooks, judging by this film, is destined to go a long way. She has some of Colleen Moore's qualities with a dash of Florence Vidor thrown in, and a lot of her own distinctive personality.”

If you’ve never seen a Brooks’ film, expect to be bowled over by her charisma and otherworldly beauty.

On successive Wednesdays throughout May, Brooks takes center stage at the Silent Movie Theatre (611 N Fairfax Avenue) in Los Angeles. On May 6th at 8 pm, the theater will screen Pandora’s Box (1929), a film considered not only Brooks’ best but one of the great masterpieces of the silent era. In truth, the film (heavily censored in its time and still incomplete today) is only just above average. However, because of Brooks’ truly sensational performance as Lulu the film has achieved its stellar reputation. It is riveting.

Pandora’s Box was based on two turn-of-the-last-century plays by the German writer Frank Wedekind (who also authored the text behind the recent Broadway smash Spring Awakening). In it, Brooks’ reveals a unique persona – that of an unknowing femme fatale whose “sinless sexuality hypnotizes and destroys the weak, lustful men around her.” And for the ladies in the audience, Pandora’s Box features the screen’s first lesbian. Brooks’ magnetism knew no bounds.

On May 13th at 8 pm, the theater will screen Diary of a Lost Girl (1929). Both it and Pandora’s Box were directed by G. W. Pabst – one of the great German directors of the interwar period. In Diary of a Lost Girl, a film in some ways more satisfying than Pandora’s Box, Brooks plays a not dissimilar role, that of a beautiful young innocent raped, abandoned, and sent to a brutal reformatory from which she escapes to a brothel in search of revenge and redemption. It’s a morality play, really.

Brooks’ two German films are not infrequently screened in the Unites States. What is shown less frequently are the American silent films of this Kansas-born actress.

On May 20th at 8 pm, the Silent Movie Theatre will show It's The Old Army Game (1926). A comedy, the film stars W.C. Fields as a wacky druggist who gets mixed up in a real-estate scam. Brooks plays his assistant. When the film opened at the Metropolitan Theater in Los Angeles, Jimmy Starr wrote in the Los Angeles Record, “Louise Brooks is evidently very proud of her comely figure. This is the third picture in which she has worn that black bathing suit. However, Louise is a clever little actress.”

And on May 27th at 8 pm, the theater will screen the rarely shown minor masterpiece Beggars of Life (1928). This is the film the great director William Wellman made just after Wings, the first movie to win an Academy Award. Based on a book of the same name by the once popular hobo writer Jim Tully, Beggars of Life tells the story of a wronged girl who commits murder and, disguised as a boy, runs from the law and rides the rails into a threatening hobo underworld.

When Beggars of Life played at the Metropolitan in October 1928, the Los Angeles Times commented, “Richard Arlen and Louise Brooks also capture honors for their sincerity and a poignant, moving quality they infuse into their roles without seeming to act at all. Miss Brooks, who has hitherto qualified as a particularly provocative figurante, now establishes herself as a real actress.”

However, the character of an androgynous wronged girl did not sit well with everyone. The role, though convincingly played, was quite different from the mostly charming characters with which the actress had long been associated. Louella Parsons expressed her discomfort in the Los Angeles Examiner. “I was a little disappointed in Louise Brooks. She is so much more the modern flapper type, the Ziegfeld Follies girl, who wears clothes and is always gay and flippant. This girl is somber, worried to distraction and in no comedy mood. Miss Brook is infinitely better when she has her lighter moments.”

In its dark mood, in its air of pastoral malevolence - Beggars of Life prefigures the more sophisticated roles the actress would play in her two German films and in the French Prix de Beaute (1930). Though her work on the Continent marked the beginning of the end of her American career, these European films would gain Brooks film immortality.

Fans that miss the Silent Movie Theatre screenings in May will be able to catch Brooks on the big screen when the Los Angeles Conservancy presents Pandora’s Box as part of their 23rd Annual Last Remaining Seats series. That screening will take place on Wednesday, July 1st at the Orpheum Theatre. Acclaimed organist Robert Israel will accompany the film on the Orpheum’s Mighty Wurlitzer. Hosting the evening is Hugh Munro Neely, film historian and director of the superb documentary Louise Brooks, Looking for Lulu (1998). The sponsor for the Los Angeles Conservancy event is Hugh Hefner, a longtime fan of the actress.