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Release: August 22, 2017

$7.99

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An American silent film classic, Beggars of Life (1928) stars Louise Brooks as a train-hopping hobo who dresses like a boy to survive. After escaping her violent stepfather, Nancy (Brooks) befriends kindly drifter Jim (Richard Arlen). They ride the rails together until a fateful encounter with the blustery Oklahoma Red (Wallace Beery) and his rambunctious band of hoboes, leading to daring, desperate conflict on top of a moving train. Based on the memoir of real-life hobo Jim Tully, and directed with adventuresome verve by William Wellman (The Ox-Bow Incident), Beggars of Life is an essential American original. Special Features: Digitally restored from 35mm film elements preserved by the George Eastman Museum | Audio commentary by actor William Wellman, Jr. | Audio commentary by Thomas Gladysz, founding director of the Louise Brooks Society | Booklet essay by film critic Nick Pinkerton | Musical score compiled and performed by The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, employing selections from the original 1928 Paramount cue-sheet

Release: October 20, 2015

$6.99

Description

The second and final collaboration of actress Louise Brooks and director G.W. Pabst (Pandora's Box), DIARY OF A LOST GIRL is a provocative adaptation of Margarethe Bohme's notorious novel, in which the naive daughter of a middle class pharmacist is seduced by her father's assistant, only to be disowned and sent to a repressive home for wayward girls. She escapes, searches for her child, and ends-up in a high-class brothel, only to turn the tables on the society which had abused her. It's another tour-de-force performance by Brooks, whom silent film historian Kevin Brownlow calls an actress of brilliance, a luminescent personality and a beauty unparalleled in screen history.

Release: January 27, 2026

$7.99

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Flicker Alley and San Francisco Film Preserve proudly announce the release of Focus on Louise Brooks, a Blu-ray Disc compilation of the iconic star’s early performances, including her debut in Herbert Brenon's The Street of Forgotten Men. This 1925 melodrama has been fully restored and is being made available for the very first time, joined by extant materials from three additional early Brooks features: The American Venus (1926), Just Another Blonde (1926), and Now We’re in the Air (1927). The Street of Forgotten Men stars Mary Brian as Mary Vanhern, a woman who successfully escapes her difficult upbringing on the streets of New York’s Bowery district only to have her past return to threaten her future happiness. Although only onscreen for a brief, uncredited scene, one need only glimpse Brooks to be reminded of the charisma that immediately makes her a screen icon. Restored from a 35mm nitrate negative preserved at the Library of Congress, the film’s missing second reel has been reconstructed using film stills as well as text and dialogue based on a copy of the original script, preserved by the New York Public Library. It features a musical score by Stephen Horne. Although most of Paramount Pictures’ beauty contest comedy The American Venus no longer survives, all extant material (including trailers, test footage, and a Technicolor fragment) have been gathered. Brooks’ first substantial role places her opposite Ford Sterling, Lawrence Gray, real 1925 Miss America Fay Lanphier and, in one of his earlier performances, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Brooks plays against type in director Alfred Santell’s Coney Island rom-com Just Another Blonde, starring as bookish Diana O'Sullivan opposite Dorothy Mackaill in the title role. The surviving footage includes segments from five of the original six reels as well as the film's original trailer. Finally, director Frank R. Strayer’s high flying World War I comedy Now We’re in the Air delivers a double dose of Lulu, setting her as twin sisters Griselle and Grisette opposite hapless aviators played by Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton. Sadly, only Grisette’s role still exists today in the film’s surviving 22 minute sequence. Focus on Louise Brooks represents the first entry in a new Flicker Fusion series that will explore newly restored films, some lost and/or fragmentary, ripe for rediscovery, and featuring some of early cinema’s biggest names. This deluxe Blu-ray edition is made possible thanks to the generous underwriting and funding from the Sunrise Foundation for Education & the Arts. BONUS MATERIALS INCLUDE: Restoration Demo - A look at the painstaking process that went into preserving the films included in this set Audio Commentaries - Informative audio tracks are included with film scholars Pamela Hutchinson on The Street of Forgotten Men, with author and film historians Thomas Gladysz and Kathy Rose O’Regan on Just Another Blonde, and with Gladysz and Robert Byrne on The American Venus and Now We’re in the Air. Looking at Lulu - Explore the fascinating behind the scenes life of Louise Brooks with an extended featurette hosted by historian Pamela Hutchinson Image Galleries - Featuring production stills and promotional material Booklet Insert - With an essay by film historian Thomas Gladysz and restoration notes by Robert Byrne English closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing, as well as subtitle tracks in English, Spanish, French, and German Blu-ray Authoring by David Mackenzie of Fidelity In Motion All Region Encoding (A,B,C)

Release: September 27, 2022

$7.99

Description

What causes a man who seemingly has everything ― a thriving business and family ― to snap and throw it all away? It's the question that this provocative and intelligent psychological drama investigates. Successful New York magazine publisher Paul Steward (Hal Holbrook, The Fog and All the President's Men) has reached his breaking point and today is the day he has decided to kill himself, his wife and their children. His marriage to Miriam (Louise Fletcher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Strange Behavior) has grown cold and distant. On this final day, he seeks the answers that might relieve him of his despair, through encounters with a psychiatrist (Viveca Lindfors, Creepshow and Dark City), an astronaut, a friend who survived the Holocaust (Jose Ferrer, Dune and Lawrence of Arabia), five prostitutes in a brothel and a lonely woman on the train ride home... Writer, director and editor Jeff Kanew (Revenge of the Nerds and Troop Beverly Hills) established himself in Hollywood as one of the industry's most sought-after trailer editors of the 1960s and '70s. Having become a leader in that field, he adapted Julius Horwitz's controversial novel Natural Enemies for himself to direct. The result is a blistering and devastating work that recalls Taxi Driver, and which shocked audiences and critics when it was first released in 1979. Having been out of circulation for nearly four decades, this worldwide Blu-ray premiere has been sourced from the best-surviving element, a 35mm deposit print held by the Library of Congress. Bonus Features: 1. New 2K restoration from 35mm deposit print held by Library of Congress 2. Booklet with a new essay by Jason Bailey 3. Newly recorded audio commentary by Bill Ackerman of the Supporting Characters podcast 4. “The Road to Natural Enemies,” a newly-filmed, two-part video interview with director Jeff Kanew 5. Video introduction by director Jeff Kanew 6. Theatrical trailer

Release: October 15, 2024

$7.99

Description

One of the masters of early German cinema, G. W. Pabst seemed to have an innate talent for discovering actresses. And perhaps none of his female stars shone brighter than Kansas native and onetime Ziegfeld girl Louise Brooks, whose legendary persona was defined by Pabst’s lurid, controversial melodrama Pandora’s Box. Sensationally modern, the film follows the downward spiral of the fiery, brash, yet innocent showgirl Lulu, whose sexual vivacity has a devastating effect on everyone around her. Daring and stylish, Pandora’s Box is one of silent cinema’s great masterworks and a testament to Brooks’s dazzling individuality. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 2K digital restoration Four musical scores, by Gillian Anderson, Dimitar Pentchev, Peer Raben, and Stéphan Oliva Audio commentary by film scholars Thomas Elsaesser and Mary Ann Doane Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu (1998), a documentary by Hugh Munro Neely Lulu in Berlin (1971), a rare interview with actor Louise Brooks, by Richard Leacock and Susan Steinberg Woll Interviews with Leacock and Michael Pabst, director G. W. Pabst’s son PLUS: An essay by critic J. Hoberman, notes on the scores, Kenneth Tynan’s 1979 “The Girl in the Black Helmet,” and an article by Brooks on her relationship with Pabst

Release: May 21, 2024

$6.99

Description

Based on S.S. Van Dine’s bestselling novels, these classic Pre-Code murder-mysteries showcase the case-cracking prowess of the debonair detective Philo Vance, as portrayed by cinema’s icon of gentlemanly sleuthing, William Powell (The Thin Man, Take One False Step). THE CANARY MURDER CASE (1929) – Who silenced The Canary? A scheming showgirl known as The Canary turns up dead, and so does the lone witness to the killing. Only Philo Vance stands a chance at cracking this case. Directed by Malcolm St. Clair (A Woman of the World); co-starring screen great Jean Arthur (Easy Living) and the legendary Louise Brooks (Beggars of Life) as the conniving Canary. THE GREENE MURDER CASE (1929) – Members of the wealthy but loathsome Greene family gather at a spooky old castle to establish the terms of a will, only to be mysteriously murdered one-by-one. Philo Vance scrutinizes the clues and suspects. Directed by Frank Tuttle (This Gun for Hire); co-starring the dazzling Jean Arthur (A Foreign Affair) and Florence Eldridge (An Act of Murder). THE BENSON MURDER CASE (1930) – When a ruthless, crooked stockbroker croaks at his luxurious country estate, Philo Vance just so happens to be there to investigate. Directed by Frank Tuttle (Lucky Jordan); co-starring acting ace Paul Lukas (By Candlelight) with William “Stage” Boyd (The Locked Door) and one of Powell’s Thin Man suspects, Natalie Moorhead (Private Detective 62). Special Features: • Brand New 4K Restorations of THE CANARY MURDER CASE and THE GREENE MURDER CASE • 2K Restoration of THE BENSON MURDER CASE • NEW Audio Commentaries for THE CANARY MURDER CASE and THE GREENE MURDER CASE by Novelist/Critic Kim Newman and Writer/Journalist Barry Forshaw • NEW Audio Commentary for THE BENSON MURDER CASE by Professor and Film Scholar Jason A. Ney • Optional English Subtitles