Louise in The Canary Murder Case
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Louise celebrated her divorce from Sutherland in the company of George Marshall, with whom she spent six weeks driving about the country. That ended with a committment to Paramount for The Canary Murder Case, the first (and least) of several Philo Vance movies to be derived from the best-selling novels by S.S. Van Dyne. William Powell was cast as socialite/detective Vance, with Louise and Jean Arthur as his leading ladies. By this time, Louise's burgeoning career verged on the brink of stardom, and here she was promised second billing only to Powell. But, although hers was the title role-that of a gold-digging, blackmailing showgirl who performed in feathers on a giant swing-it's memorable but brief, as she's killed off early on. Once again, Brooks was stuck with Malcom St. Clair, the mug-happy director she'd previously endured on A Social Celebrity and The Show-Off. As she later recorded: "I hated working with him. (On) The Canary Murder Case, he was drunk all the time."
That picture was shot as a silent film, but not immediately released. Before it reached audiences early in 1929, there would be important alterations, including the addition of a vocal soundtrack and diminution of billing for Louise brooks. With filming completed, she made her habitual departure for Manhattan, completely disregarding the possible need for retakes at Paramount. At a time when the sound revolution threatened the future of many a movie career, Louise couldn't have cared less. Never one to play the so-called "Hollywood game", she turned her back on studio politics, ignorant even of the fact that (as she later told John Kobal) her former mentor, Walter Wanger, was no longer a Paramount executive. |
Copyright: McKenna W. Rowe, 1997-2006