San Francisco Silent Film Festival Opens with Louise Brooks

The Castro Theater was packed for opening night of the 18^th San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The star of the night was Louise Brooks (1906-1985) in her only French film, Prix de Beaute (1930). Two versions, silent and talking, were issued. The festival runs July 18-21.

Brooks, with milk white skin and sleek “black helmet,” is always visually appealing. She was most active in silent cinema from1925 to 1930 appearing in mostly modest but interesting productions.  

Brooks' career flourished in Europe with her famous work with G. W. Pabst, especially Pandora's Box (1929). Brooks' sex appeal was cemented as Lulu with a subtle, erotically charged performance. Though the film was not successful in 1929, it has been in high at film festivals and commercial screenings since the late 1980s. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival has screened it to packed houses twice in recent years.

Brooks made two other films in Europe - Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), again with Pabst, and Prix de Beauté (1930), her only French film based on a story by Pabst & Rene Clair. (Both screened by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival in recent years.) When her European work ended, Brooks returned to Hollywood for sound films with very disappointing results.

In Prix de Beaute, Brooks plays Lucienne, a Parisian typist wins a beauty contest and finds herself swept up in a whirlwind of fame and publicity. Among the elite, the newly christened "Miss Europe" thrives on the affectionate attentions of several potential paramours and shuns her previous life and a former lover. Brooks’ brief singing at the end is dubbed by Edith Piaf.

Prix de Beaute is not as polished or as interesting as Pandora’s Box, but Brooks’ intriguing youthful look and her enthusiasm in the role is memorable. Reportedly, her performance suffered due to heavy alcohol consumption.

Barry Paris’s “Louise Brooks: A Biography” (1989) is an excellent examination of Brooks’ life and times. “Lulu in Hollywood” by Brooks is a well done memoir.

James Patterson

Adviser, Dorothy and Lillian Gish Theater
Bowling Green State University
(415) 516 3493