Originally posted to Facebook on 1/12/2019
Pandora's Box is our third film from 1929, and the second time we've seen Louise Brooks, after 1928's Beggars of Life. It was directed by G. W. Pabst and based on two plays by Frank Wedekind.
Though we have so far seen a number of European stars and directors come to the United States to make movies (e.g. Victor Sjöström, F. W. Murnau, Conrad Veidt), Brooks is possibly the only prominent American star we've seen shift to European films. In this film she plays Lulu, who is young and vivacious, but also selfish and duplicitous -- which is quite different than the pensive and timid character she played in Beggars of Life. She is in an ongoing relationship with Dr. Schön (played by Fritz Kortner), but also ends up in a love triangle with his son Alwa (Francis Lederer). Kortner is engaged to another woman, and is aware that his relationship with Brooks is self-destructive -- even saying at one point, "It'll be the death of me." A family friend, played by Alice Roberts, is infatuated with Lulu as well -- which was not entirely clear to us until well into the film. ("Why is she glaring at Lulu?" we wondered.) Needless to say this subplot was very unusual for the time.
The film is divided into two parts, which I believe correspond to the two plays on which it is based. The first part, which concerns the trajectory of the relationship between Kortner and Brooks, has a more focused narrative (and is, I believe, more successful) than the the second, which deals with the aftermath. The first portion tells a complete story, and in fact could stand alone as a cohesive film with only minor modifications. I am not sure that is true of the second portion, which is more fragmented.
Next week we see Escape from Dartmoor, a 1929 thriller directed by Anthony Asquith. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Showing posts with label Louise Brooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Louise Brooks. Show all posts
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Beggars of Life (1928)
Originally posted to Facebook on 9/18/2018
Beggars of Life was our tenth film from 1928, and the first film we've seen starring Louise Brooks. The screenplay was adapted by Benjamin Glazer, who also wrote the screenplays for 1927's 7th Heaven and 1926's Flesh and the Devil. It was directed by William Wellman and costarred Richard Arlen, both of whom we encountered in 1927's Wings. It also prominently features Wallace Beery, who has popped up in several films we've seen.
Arlen plays a hobo who enters a house looking for food, and finds a recently murdered man. He also finds Louise Brooks, who admits to the killing, though in self-defense. The two quickly leave, with Brooks disguised (not terribly convincingly) as a boy. They try to put some distance between themselves and the dead man while avoiding trouble, and eventually meet up with a band of other hobos, including Wallace Beery.
This depiction of homeless transients treated in a serious way feels new compared to the other American films we've seen as part of this project, certainly as embodied in a big-budget film with name stars. This film in fact felt to me like a premonition of the end of the twenties, and the beginning, in some sense, of the thirties, when poverty and hunger and hand-to-mouth existence became much more focused in the national consciousness. It has a grittiness and a danger to it -- up until the point, about halfway through, where the hobos, led by Beery, decide to hold a mock trial, which devolves into a series of limp jokes involving misuse of legal terminology. The film to that point had seemed basically naturalistic, but the artifice and theatricality of the trial broke the spell (for me at least), and though the film eventually rallied, it never quite recovered.
Beery gives the most charismatic performance in the film, dangerous but charming and mercurial. Arlen and Brooks play their parts as worried, fearful, and increasingly dependent on one another -- less vivid than Beery, but completely appropriate to their roles. There is, also, interestingly, a black character named "Black Mose", played by Blue Washington, who is given a significant amount of screen time. He is played and written stereotypically, but, as I discussed with the kids, I am genuinely unsure whether this is better or worse than the complete absence or extremely minimal roles for black actors which has been the general practice in the vast majority of the films we've seen to this point.
Next week we'll see Road to Ruin, our eleventh film from 1928. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Beggars of Life was our tenth film from 1928, and the first film we've seen starring Louise Brooks. The screenplay was adapted by Benjamin Glazer, who also wrote the screenplays for 1927's 7th Heaven and 1926's Flesh and the Devil. It was directed by William Wellman and costarred Richard Arlen, both of whom we encountered in 1927's Wings. It also prominently features Wallace Beery, who has popped up in several films we've seen.
Arlen plays a hobo who enters a house looking for food, and finds a recently murdered man. He also finds Louise Brooks, who admits to the killing, though in self-defense. The two quickly leave, with Brooks disguised (not terribly convincingly) as a boy. They try to put some distance between themselves and the dead man while avoiding trouble, and eventually meet up with a band of other hobos, including Wallace Beery.
This depiction of homeless transients treated in a serious way feels new compared to the other American films we've seen as part of this project, certainly as embodied in a big-budget film with name stars. This film in fact felt to me like a premonition of the end of the twenties, and the beginning, in some sense, of the thirties, when poverty and hunger and hand-to-mouth existence became much more focused in the national consciousness. It has a grittiness and a danger to it -- up until the point, about halfway through, where the hobos, led by Beery, decide to hold a mock trial, which devolves into a series of limp jokes involving misuse of legal terminology. The film to that point had seemed basically naturalistic, but the artifice and theatricality of the trial broke the spell (for me at least), and though the film eventually rallied, it never quite recovered.
Beery gives the most charismatic performance in the film, dangerous but charming and mercurial. Arlen and Brooks play their parts as worried, fearful, and increasingly dependent on one another -- less vivid than Beery, but completely appropriate to their roles. There is, also, interestingly, a black character named "Black Mose", played by Blue Washington, who is given a significant amount of screen time. He is played and written stereotypically, but, as I discussed with the kids, I am genuinely unsure whether this is better or worse than the complete absence or extremely minimal roles for black actors which has been the general practice in the vast majority of the films we've seen to this point.
Next week we'll see Road to Ruin, our eleventh film from 1928. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
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