
Louise Brooks
Actor · 1906 – 1985 · Cherryvale, Kansas, USA
Mary Louise Brooks (November 14, 1906 – August 8, 1985) was an American film actress and dancer during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as an icon of the Jazz Age and flapper culture, in part due to the bob hairstyle that she helped popularize during the prime of her career. Brooks began her career as a dancer. While dancing in the Ziegfeld Follies in New York City, she came to the attention of Walter Wanger, a producer at Paramount Pictures, and was signed to a five-year contract with the studio. She appeared in supporting roles in various Paramount films before taking the heroine's role in Beggars of Life (1928). Dissatisfied with her mediocre roles in Hollywood films, Brooks went to Germany in 1929 and starred in three feature films that launched her to international stardom: Pandora's Box (1929), Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), and Miss Europe (1930); the first two were directed by G. W. Pabst. By 1938, she had starred in seventeen silent films and eight sound films. After retiring from acting, she fell upon financial hardship and became a paid escort. For the next two decades, she struggled with alcoholism and suicidal tendencies. Following the rediscovery of her films by cinephiles in the 1950s, a reclusive Brooks began writing articles about her film career; her insightful essays drew considerable acclaim. She published her memoir, Lulu in Hollywood, in 1982. Three years later, she died of a heart attack at age 78. [preceding biography, edited, from Wikipedia]
Movies23
Movie7.4DramaCrimeThe rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.
Movie7.3DramaThymian Henning, an innocent young girl, is raped by the clerk of her father's pharmacy. She becomes pregnant, is rejected by her family, and must fend for herself in a harsh, cruel world.
Movie10.0WesternBuck runs into trouble when he buys a deserted cattle ranch that he turns into a dude ranch.
Empty Saddles
1936 · 1 votes
Movie7.5ComedyWally and Ray are cousins intent upon getting the fortune of their Scots grandad, an aviation nut. They become mixed-up with the U. S. flying corps and are wafted over the enemy lines in a runaway balloon. Through misunderstanding they are honored as heroes of the enemy forces, and sent back to the U.S. lines to spy. Here they are captured and almost shot, but everything ends happily. Only 20 minutes of this 6 reel comedy are extant.
Now We're in the Air
1927 · 3 votes
Movie8.3DocumentaryTV MovieClara Bow: Discovering the 'It' Girl features scenes from 25 of her films, as well as interviews with family members and acquaintances.
Clara Bow: Discovering the "It" Girl
1999 · 4 votes
Movie9.0DocumentaryTV MovieAmong the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara; The Miracle Man (1919), with Lon Chaney; He Comes Up Smiling (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks; an early lost sound film, Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), filmed in early Technicolor, and the only color footage of silent star Clara Bow, Red Hair (1928). The program is rounded out with interviews of film preservationists involved in identifying and restoring these films. Also featured is a new interview with Diana Serra Cary, best known as "Baby Peggy", one of the major American child stars of the silent era, who discusses one of the featured fragments, Darling of New York (1923).
Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films
2011 · 1 votes
Movie4.3DocumentaryBefore the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing. This eye-opening documentary examines the rampant sexuality of early Hollywood through movie clips and reminiscences by stars of the era. Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich and others relate tales of the artistic freedom that led to the draconian Production Code, which governed content from 1934 to 1968. Diane Lane narrates.
Why Be Good?: Sexuality & Censorship in Early Cinema
2007 · 5 votes
Movie5.7CrimeMysteryA beautiful showgirl, name "the Canary" is a scheming nightclub singer. Blackmailing is her game and with that she ends up dead. But who killed "the Canary". All the suspects knew and were used by her and everyone had a motive to see her dead. The only witness to the crime has also been 'rubbed out'. Only one man, the keen, fascinating, debonair detective Philo Vance, would be able to figure out who is the killer.
The Canary Murder Case
1929 · 28 votes
Movie4.8ComedyRomanceA notorious womanizer sets his sights on a pretty American tourist, only to be told by his doctor that he must give up all romance for his health.
God's Gift to Women
1931 · 9 votes
Movie8.0DramaRomanceThough billed second, the stunningly beautiful Louise Brooks is the focal point of the campus comedy Rolled Stockings. It's the old one about two collegiate brothers, Jim and Ralph Treadway (James Hall, Richard Arlen), in love with the same girl, Carol Fleming (Brooks).
Rolled Stockings
1927 · 1 votes
MovieComedyRomanceIn this silent romantic comedy-drama, a reality-challenged title writer must navigate the perils and possibilities of two worlds: the one in his head, and the one in which he has a chance at real love.
Away with Words
2026
Movie8.3DocumentaryAn unprecedented anthology of never-before-told true stories by and about some of Hollywood's most interesting stars, legends, and wannabes, and takes readers inside Hollywood's inner sanctum to show how casting decisions are made, who makes them, and who has the final word.
The Casting Couch
1995 · 3 votes
Movie6.8RomanceComedyAn Australian opera singer hires a husband so she can work in the U.S. Moore sings "Minnie the Moocher" in one scene.
When You're in Love
1937 · 10 votes
Movie7.4DocumentaryTV MovieDocumentary recounting the life story of Louise Brooks in 5 sections: "Lulu in Toe Shoes"; "Lulu in Hollywood"; "Lulu in Berlin"; "Lulu in Hell"; and "Resurrection".
Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu
1998 · 10 votes
Movie6.4DramaLucienne, typist and gorgeous bathing beauty, decides to enter the 'Miss Europe' pageant sponsored by the French newspaper she works for. She finds her jealous lover Andre violently disapproves of such events and tries to withdraw, but it's too late; she's even then being named Miss France. The night Andre planned to propose to her, she's being whisked off to the Miss Europe finals in Spain, where admirers swarm around her. Win or lose, what will the harvest be?
Movie7.2DramaCrimeEasy-Money Charley, the best fake crippled beggar in New York, loses his beloved dog and adopts a dying prostitute's daughter to fill the empty place in his heart.
The Street of Forgotten Men
1925 · 4 votes
Movie7.1DramaCrimeAfter killing her treacherous step-father, a girl tries to escape the country with a young vagabond. She dresses as a boy, they hop freight trains, quarrel with a group of hobos, and steal a car in their attempt to escape the police, and reach Canada.
Beggars of Life
1928 · 43 votes
Movie5.0ComedyDruggist Elmer Prettywillie is sleeping. A woman rings the night bell only to buy a two-cent stamp. Then garbage collectors waken him. Next it's firemen on a false alarm. And then a real fire.
It's the Old Army Game
1926 · 12 votes
MovieDocumentaryThe film tells the cultural story of Berlin during the Weimar Republic through interviews with a number of persons who were involved in literature, film, art, and music during the period. It includes interviews with Christopher Isherwood, Louise Brooks, Lotte Eisner, Elisabeth Bergner, Francis Lederer, Carl Zuckmayer, Gregor Piatigorsky, Claudio Arrau, Rudolf Kolisch, Mischa Spoliansky, Herbert Bayer, Mrs. Walter Gropius, and Arthur Koestler.
Movie6.5RomanceComedyJimmy O'Connor and Scotty are a couple of New York City gamblers and sharpies who decide to go straight and, since they are such good friends, split 50-50 "even steven" on anything they get or do. Jimmy, a confirmed bachelor, doesn't care for women but Scotty falls in love with Diana O'Sullivan, a Coney Island girl. They decide that Jimmy needs a girlfriend and they opt for Jeannie Cavanaugh. But, following their 50-50 pact, Jimmy, although he has fallen in love with Jeannie, praises Scotty to her.
Just Another Blonde
1926 · 2 votes
Movie6.0AdventureComedyTwo sailors with a rivalry over chasing women become friends. But when one decides to finally settle down, will this mysterious young woman come between them?
A Girl in Every Port
1928 · 25 votes
Movie5.2WesternAfter gold shipments from a mining town have been hijacked, the three Mesquiteers buy a plane to fly the gold out. The owner of the shipping line brings in Eastern gangsters to thwart them.
Overland Stage Raiders
1938 · 15 votes
Movie5.6ComedyTo prove his thesis that any product--even one that doesn't exist--can be merchandized if it is advertised properly, a young man gets together with his father's savvy secretary to market a non-existent laundry soap. Complications ensue when his "product" turns out to be more successful than even he imagined--and now he has to deliver.
It Pays to Advertise
1931 · 6 votes
Series2
TV8.4DocumentaryA 1980 documentary series exploring the establishment and development of the Hollywood studios and its impact on 1920s culture.
Hollywood
1980 · 17 votes
TV5.0DocumentaryMysteries and Scandals is an American television program hosted by A.J. Benza. The series was originally broadcast on the E! network from March 1998 until February 2001.
Mysteries and Scandals
1998 · 6 votes