SUBLIME CINEMA #615 - DIARY OF A LOST GIRL

Louise Brooks was peerless among silent film stars - she was like the female predecessor to Cagney, modern and timeless. Her films were not always popular. She had to decamp to Germany and start making movies out of Hollywood to finally be recognized internationally, and this was her second and final collaboration with GW Pabst. 

She was a great writer too - Lulu in Hollywood is one of the greatest books about film ever written. 

Brigitte Helm: the perils of hedonism

There is no face more closely associated with the grandeur of Weimar Cinema than that of Brigitte Helm. Her first appearance on film was in the iconic dual-role of the teacher and the robot in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). As the villainous clone, her frenzied dancing and her kohl-rimmed eyes in winking close-ups incarnated a particularly timely force of evil: the giddy whirl of decadent 1920s…

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMFKib_Byb8

Discovered Dave Van Ronk’s cover of “Mack the Knife” yesterday. Last night I went on TubiTV’s MST3k channel—they were showing The Creeping Terror and referenced Van Ronk. It’s just one of those funny coincidences.

Anyway, I’ve decided to see where this wave takes me and am now rewatching GW Pabst’s The Threepenny Opera. Why not? “Mack the Knife” (in nearly all its incarnations) has always been a favorite of mine. It has some of the most descriptive, lurid lyrics ever and has a pretty interesting history in itself (I like songs that take on lives of their own, like “Stagger Lee” and Resző Seress’ “Gloomy Sunday.”)

Pabst’s film isn’t perfect (it scrambles Kurt Weill’s score for reasons I’ve never learned) but I like German films from the 20s and 30s that wallow in the seedy underbellies of metropolitan cities. (See also: Fritz Lang’s M and Dr. Mabuse movies, Pabst’s Pandora’s Box), Even if Weill’s songs are out of order, they’re still great songs, and it’s always fun to watch Lotte Lenya in anything.

Propaganda

Devika Rani (Achhut Kanya)—She was grandniece of Rabindranath Tagore (laureate). She was sent to boarding school in England at age nine and grew up there. After completing her schooling, she joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the Royal Academy of Music to study acting and music, at a time when aristocratic women did not enter showbiz. She studied filmmaking in Berlin. It is well known that she underwent training at the UFA Studios in the art and technique of acting under Eric Pommer, and other aspects of film production including costume and set designing and make-up, under eminent directors like GW Pabst, Fritz Lang, Emil Jannings and Josef von Sternberg. She is also reported to have worked with Marlene Dietrich. She had a multi-faceted personality and took on many responsibilities of film production at Bombay Talkies, a studio that she co-founded with Himanshu Rai in Mumbai in 1934. She often took care of hair and make up, supervised set design and editing, scouted for new talent and mentored them. She was the face of Bombay Talkies, and also the reason behind the political and financial backing the studio received, at a time when even women from red light districts refused to work as actresses. She was the first recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, when it was instituted in 1970.

Diahann Carroll (Paris Blues, Carmen Jones, Porgy and Bess)— Face of an angel. She had the range. She brought chemistry with every romance she portrayed. She also had a great fashion sense, and was so pretty Mattel made a doll based off of her.

This is round 4 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Devika Rani:

Achhut Kanya (1936) is the only one of hers I've seen but hot DAMN

Diahann Carroll:

Another groundbreaking black actress, although she might be better remembered for her television roles. She was also an activist and worked with charities to support women in need.

here she is hanging out with shadow prince anthony perkins :3

Articulating Artaud

Even the most arcane esoteric abstract aesthetic theorist of the 20th century turns out to have a pop culture angle. A few in fact. The first is that long before his theatrical scribblings reached the world Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) was a movie actor (do you doubt it? Look at that photo!). He appeared in films by Carl Dreyer, GW Pabst, Fritz Lang, Maurice Tourneur, Abel Gance at al between 1923…

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German actress Brigitte Helm as she appeared in the 1932 film L'Atlantide. Directed by GW Pabst, the German-French fantasy-adventure was a remake of Jacques Feyder's 1921 silent movie of the same name. In L'Atlantide, which was released in English as "The Mistress of Atlantis," Helm plays Antinea, who "has a habit of taking men as lovers, [and] then when she's done with them, she kills them and keeps them mummified." (from IMDB's synopsis.)

Diary of a Lost Girl ~ G. W. Pabst ~ 1929

Feat: Louise Brooks

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Pandora’s Box

Another one of my attempts to make a youtube video. Would really, really appreciated if anyone that’s interested watched it and gave a thumbs up.

l’atlantide (1932)

SUBLIME CINEMA #224 - PABST’S PANDORA’S BOX

A movie completely ahead of its time, invoking the awakening of sexual freedom and identity that stand in stark contrast to later code films of Hollywood until the late 60′s blew the top off of taboos again. Pabst was another Weimar director. This was one of the most interesting and brief fertile periods of creative history; a kind of renaissance was happening in Germany before the Nazis took over. 

Iconic silent film star and magnet Louise Brooks was not beloved on set. ’Brooks reflected that Pabst used the actors' personal animosities and dispositions toward one another to the benefit of the film's character dynamics, subtly urging them to sublimate their frustrations, and recalled his direction as masterful’

Open Pandora's Box on Eureka Blu-ray this year

Blulu-ray? Brooks set? No, I’ll start again. Very welcome news from Eureka Entertainment! The good people of Eureka, who have brought us so many beautiful silent film Blu-rays, in the past are releasing Pandora’s Box (GW Pabst, 1929) on Blu-ray on 30 October this year. This is the film’s debut on Blu-ray in the UK. Continue reading Untitled

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Pandora’s Box (1929) dir. G.W. Pabst

Seen in 2018:

Westfront 1918 (G.W. Pabst), 1930