Toronto has long had a love affair with Louise Brooks.
That relationship is renewed when the Toronto Silent Film Festival screens a romantic comedy featuring the actress as part of its second annual event. On Wednesday April 6th, It’s the Old Army Game (1926), starring Louise Brooks and screen legend W.C. Fields, will be shown at the historic Fox Theater in Toronto, Canada.
Brooks and the city of Toronto have a history. The actress’ films were shown there in the 1920s and 1930s (as they were elsewhere across Canada) and were often well reviewed. Later in life, while living in Rochester, New York, Brooks struck up a relationship with another film group, the Toronto Film Society, after some of her early films were reviewed by that group in the late 1950s.
These mid-century screenings are historically of note, as they were some of the earliest post-WWII screenings of Brooks’ films in North America. Because of their interest, Brooks visited the city and served as an official patron of the group from 1965 to 1982. She also contributed short essays to Toronto Film Society program notes.
Brooks’ relationship with Toronto continued with the publication of Lulu in Hollywood in 1982. Excerpts from Brooks’ bestselling collection of autobiographical essays were serialized in the Toronto Star.
In It’s the Old Army Game, Fields plays Elmer Prettywillie in what was described as an “Epic of the American Druggist.” Prettywillie is a man who suffers the endless abuse of petty customers, overbearing relatives, obnoxious children, and various offensive everyday objects in his quest for simple peace and quiet. It's a typical Fieldian dilemma. And it’s enough to drive a man to drink.Brooks co-stars as the object of his affection and as the drug-store “counter attraction.”
It’s the Old Army Game was a popular film in its day. Carl B. Adams,writing in the Cincinnati Enquirer, noted “Next to Fields, the chief attraction of It’s the Old Army Game is Louise Brooks, one of the most promising finds of the season. All that she has to do to make a hit is wear a bathing suit, which she does in this picture.”Adams comments were echoed by Ward W. Marshin the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “Louise Brooks and William Gaxton carry what is generally known as the necessary love interest. Gaxton amounts to nothing, but Miss Brooks parades the personal magnetism to the limit, and late in the story is found wandering around in a bathing suit - for no sound reason except to display a form which assuredly needs not a bathing suit to set it off. There is no complaint, however, on the appearance in the bathing suit.”
T. O. Service, writing in the trade publicatio nExhibitor’s Herald, stated “Louise Brooks is the other important person in the picture and, as insinuated rather bluntly on the occasion of her first appearance - in The American Venus – she’s important. Miss Brooks isn’t like anybody else. Nor has she a distinguishing characteristic which may be singled out for purposes of identification. She’s just a very definite personality. She doesn’t do much, perhaps because there isn’t much to do but probably because she hits hardest when doing nothing, but nobody looks away when she’s on screen. If Miss Glyn should say that Miss Brooks has ‘it,’ more people would know what Miss Glyn is raving about. But in that case she would not be raving.”
Today, It’s the Old Army Game is considered an important film within the Brooks’ canon. The film reunited Brooks and Fields: the two became friends after having appeared together on the stage in the 1925 Ziegfeld Follies. Brooks wrote about their time together in "The Other Face of W.C. Feilds," one of the essays collected in Lulu in Hollywood. (J.P. McEvoy, who wrote material for Fields and for the 1925 Follies, also contributed to the story behind It’s the Old Army Game.)
The film features Gaxton and the once celebrated stage actress Blanche Ring. Interestingly, It’s the Old Army Game was directed by Ring’s nephew, Eddie Sutherland, who soon became Brooks’ first husband. The two met during the making of the film in early 1926, and were married in July shortly after its release.
Prior to It’s the Old Army Game, the Toronto Silent Film Festival will screen the 1924 Harold Lloyd film, Hot Water. Both films will be accompanied by Toronto organist Andrei Streliaev.
For more info: The Toronto Silent Film Festival runs through April 7, 2011. It’s the Old Army Game will be shown on Wednesday April 6 at 8:30 pm at the Fox Theater, 236 Queen Street East, in Toronto. Complete program notes and information on ticket availability can be found at http://www.torontosilentfilmfestival.com/home.html
In 1995, Thomas Gladysz founded the Louise Brooks Society, an internet-based archive and international fan club devoted to the legendary film star. Gladysz has contributed to books on the actress, organized exhibits, appeared on television and radio, and introduced her films around the world. Recently, he edited and wrote the introduction to a new “Louise Brooks edition” of Margarete Bohme’s The Diary of a Lost Girl.
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