a bore but for Brooks

Louise Brooks is now rightfully considered one of THE great early film actresses for her work on two German silent films directed by D.W. Pabst, "Pandora's Box" and "Diary of a Lost Girl," but in her own time she was a Hollywood reject due to her reputation for being "difficult" to work with while the critics panned her acting as being too inexpressive. After returning to America she spent a few years slumming it in B-westerns before quiting film and moving to New York. There she labored away in obscurity as a sales clerk, among other menial jobs, for decades until her films were critically "rediscovered." Later in life, she found a niche as gifted essayist and a collection of her works titled "Lulu in Hollywood" is still in print.

Prix de Beaute is a film that D.W. Pabst had adapted for Brooks, but due to his scheduling conflicts he was unable to direct and produce it himself. Instead, Augusto Genina took over the project, which is a shame, because the story would've been infinitely more compelling had it been filmed with Pabst's expressionist aesthetic and obvious appreciation for and understanding of how to capture Brooks' natural animal magnetism.

Genina's photography is, by contrast, pretty conventional. Worse, his direction of Brooks leaves her looking sapped of energy and more confused than conflicted in several key scenes. Perhaps most damning is the fact that even though Brooks spends much of her time in the film walking about in a bathing suit she never strikes the viewer as being a particularly erotic figure, especially when compared to her performances in the two aforementioned Pabst films.

All that said, with so few Louise Brooks films around today this will still be a must-see for her dedicated fans, but for those not already caught up in her spell "Pandora's Box" is a much, much better place to start falling in love with Lulu.

5/10