| With the shuttering of Paramount's Astoria facility and her subsequent relocation to Los Angeles, Louise Brooks lost the influential proximity to her east coast champion, Walter Wanger. Not unexpectedly, the quality of her studio assignments grew less important. She began 1927 as the secondary love interest in Evening Clothes, a comedy tailored to the proven talents of Adolphe Menjou. Virginia Valli was his nominal leading lady, cast as the wife with whose interests Menjou has little in common-until after he sojourns in Paris, where he finds solace with a vivacious charmer, singularly named Fox Trot (Brooks.) For Louise, the most notable thing about Evening Clothes was the decision to scrap her traditional hairstyle for one that featured-in one sequence-what Paramount publicists termed a "hysteria of curls". The radical change in her appearance refocused attention on Louise and garnered her additional publicity. The New York Times found the revelation of her newly exposed forehead "stunning", while Variety observed that Fox Trot was "neatly performed by the trim Louise Brooks". |
Copyright: McKenna W. Rowe, 1997-2006