This excellent documentary about the life and career of American actress Louise Brooks is told in as straightforward a manner as possible for a woman whose life story is anything but straightforward. It begins with her birth as Mary Louise Brooks in Cherryvale, Kansas in 1906 to a businessman father and a mother who had strong artistic and intellectual interests. It tells how at age fifteen Louise went to New York to study dancing. From there she worked as a chorus girl in the George White Scandals, and then as a specialty dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies. In 1925, when she was eighteen, Louise began working as an actress in the movies. Her acting career consisted of seventeen silent pictures and eight talkies. She made her last picture in 1938.
This collection of facts, dates, and numbers are mere footnotes in the life of a fascinating woman who has become a legendary, almost mythical figure in cinematic history. For many, the trajectory of Brooks' life and career has become symbolic of the tremendous opportunities for success and fame offered to those who get caught up in the business of motion pictures, as well as the possibility of tragedy and failure. Her very real story could easily have been the script of a studio produced soap opera about a girl from the Midwest who found acclaim as a movie star and then fell from grace and was forgotten by the public, only to be rediscovered years later and given the chance to start life anew.
Brooks was known as much for her great beauty as for her acting ability. At least at first. But as she matured, her energy, personality, and photogenic quality began to get her more attention and better films. After playing a succession of sexy flapper roles, William Wellman directed her in the serious drama BEGGARS OF LIFE in 1928, costarring along with Wallace Beery and Richard Arlen. This was a turning point in her career. Her studio, Paramount, cast her in a showcase role in a mystery called THE CANARY MURDER CASE. Unfortunately, this film was made at the time when her contract was up for renewal. The studio, trying to save money to cover the tremendous costs of converting to sound pictures, offered Brooks less money, and she turned them down. Instead, she accepted an offer from a German director named G.W. Pabst to go overseas and make a film for him.
The film was PANDORA'S BOX (1929), a very adult silent film that won a lot of attention in Europe, but was largely ignored in an America that was obsessed with the new talkies. She made another film for Pabst that same year, DIARY OF A LOST GIRL, a downbeat, expressionistic drama that also got little attention in America. But Paramount gave her another chance when they asked her to come back and record her dialogue for THE CANARY MURDER CASE, which was being converted to sound. Brooks refused, angering the studio. They spread the lie that her voice was unsuitable for sound pictures. Her part in THE CANARY MURDER CASE was shortened and poorly dubbed by another actress.
She made her sound debut in the French film PRIX DE BEAUTE aka MISS EUROPE (1930), her voice being dubbed once again. Although G.W. Pabst wanted her to continue working in Europe, Brooks refused and returned to Hollywood. She found herself limited to small parts in low budget films until William Wellman offered her the female lead in THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931). She refused this chance as well and the role went to Jean Harlow.
Brooks left Hollywood and returned to dancing. After a few years she tried to make a comeback in films, but could only find work in low budget Westerns. After appearing opposite a young John Wayne in OVERLAND STAGE RAIDERS in 1938, she quit the movies for good. For a time, she returned to her native Kansas and operated a dancing school. When that failed, she returned to New York and worked as a salesgirl, tried her luck as a radio actress, and eventually worked as a call girl for an escort service. As the years went on, she became a reclusive alcoholic, forgotten by the movie industry and the public.
In the 1950's, film critics and students began discovering the three films she had made in Europe. Suddenly her work was getting the attention and appreciation of a new generation of adoring fans. She relocated to Rochester, New York and was associated with the George Eastman House and its extensive film archives. Miss Brooks became an accomplished writer and film critic and eventually published her memoirs in a book entitled LULU IN HOLLYWOOD. Lulu, of course, was the name of the tragic character she had portrayed in PANDORA'S BOX. Brooks herself understood how strongly fantasy and reality had merged in her life. LOOKING FOR LULU features several clips from interviews she gave during the 1970's where she talks freely about her life and why she made some of the choices that profoundly affected her career.
She died in 1985 at the age of seventy-nine. Her last years were spent in ill health and seclusion. And yet her legendary status is secure and remains so to this day. It almost seems as though this intelligent, beautiful woman had been writing her incredible story while she was living it, with all the fame, downfall, resurrection and triumph planned and plotted on each page, and in every year, of a life that was as much a collection of images on a movie screen as it was a flesh and blood reality.
Shirley MacLaine narrates the film. Some of the commentators include actress Dana Delaney, writer Adolph Green, actor Roddy McDowell, a close personal friend, and actor Francis Lederer, who worked with Miss Brooks in PANDORA'S BOX. The documentary was directed by Hugh Munro Neely for Turner Classic Movies.
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