dlee2012 Prix de Beauté is an interesting late Louise Brooks vehicle. Initially much lighter in tone than Pandora's Box or Diary of a Lost Girl, there is a sudden twist in the narrative at the end which changes the way in which one looks at the entire film.Brooks here is at her best, though she is playing a somewhat more sympathetic character than those she portrayed in her two best known films. Amusingly, her character, Lucienne, is referred to as Lulu in the opening minutes of the film, recalling her previous year's success. Although her voice is overdubbed in French, Brooks carries the role convincingly with her masterful use of facial expressions, learned during her years making silents.The opening scenes show her fiancé, Andre, bullying a work colleague yet this is depicted in a slapstick manner, leading one to think the film will be a comedy.Andre is depicted from the outset as a largely unsympathetic character due to his domineering nature but there is a slight nuance to the performance and one feels increasing sympathy as it is shown that Brooks' character is more interested in the glamour of her new career than remaining loyal to him and her fickleness in love allows one to understand the turn events take at the end.One interesting technique used throughout the film is to contrast scenes of the organic (Brooks and the other pageant contestants) with extreme close-ups of the mechanical (such as the printing press, the piano and various clocks.) The scene of the bird trapped in the cage may be a cliché now but it works effectively in this film as a symbol of Lucienne's feelings of being trapped in a drab life by Andre.Sound is not used in a particularly innovative way in this film but the score is delightful and suits the atmosphere of the story. In particular, the early jazz music and bal-musette piece during the ballroom scene are lovely.The film is well paced and tension builds quickly, though not abruptly, as the mood changes towards the end. The lighting becomes almost noir-like and the scenes of Lucienne dying whilst her image lives on, happily, on the screen, are a wonderfully ironic touch.Overall, this film will be of most interest to fans of Brooks and connoisseurs of early French cinema. It falls short of being a masterpiece but it is well-executed and intriguing, making it a solid work that can be enjoyed by all.

dreverativy Beauty prizes became a staple of many a municipality in the decade following the end of the Great War - perhaps they filled a gap left by many of the old throne and altar ceremonies of the ancien regime states that fell in 1918. In fact this beauty prize was set somewhere in northern Spain in 1930, when the Bourbons' were still in charge (just). We get a few brief glimpses of the girls on display, but I am at a loss to know what all the fuss was about.Opinion seems to be divided as to the merits of this film. That might be because different viewers have been seeing different versions. The one I saw (at London's National Film Theatre) was the silent version, but someone (I think the pianist, Stephen Horne) had interpolated a sound recording at the very end. It was a scratchy, haunting Edith Piaf. By this time Mr Horne had stopped playing. Lucienne Garnier (Louise Brooks) had stopped breathing, and the audience was left with no sound but that of Piaf as, on the screen, the occupants of a private cinema rushed about the body of Brooks beneath the movement of her recorded screen test. I don't know whether I have explained this well enough, but for me it was the best ending that I had seen (of a silent film) since I watched Anthony Asquith's "Shooting Stars" several years ago.The screenplay, by director Augusto Genina (and colleagues) seldom rises above the level of a soap opera, but this is beside the point. Having 'sold' Brooks to German audiences, G. W. Pabst (in league with Rene Clair) wished to do the same to the French. As 1930 was the end of the road for silent cinema - and as Brooks was no linguist - Pabst and Clair had a very narrow window in which to make a profit on Brooks. It didn't really work - French audiences were not quite moved, and Brooks was forced back to America where her reputation as a team player was, to put it mildly, low.Genina has produced a fine, naturalistic picture, on a subject well suited to his cosmopolitanism. The men in it (Georges Charlia as her dull and possessive fiancée, Andre; Yves Glad as a predatory, blacked up maharajah; Bandini as a randy White Russian playboy-prince) are almost incidental. They are simply walk-on characters that are required to give the film some momentum. For this is almost entirely about Brooks. Henri Langlois aptly likened the film to a lighthouse that only illuminates the audience when Brooks appears on screen, and then relapses into darkness. There are also some interesting shots of Parisians going about their business.Brooks was seldom sober enough to appreciate how effective she was in this film. Her deportment betrays no awareness that this was her evening. Her cinematic career after 1930 was to be tragic.

MartinHafer Please Note: I see from the various posts that there was an original silent version and also a sound version of this same film. I saw the sound version and it was esthetically yicky. Considering some indicate that the original version was LONGER and without crappy dubbing, my review must be read with this in mind.Although I know that Rene Clair has a lovely reputation as a film maker and Louise Brooks has a bit of a cult following as well, this is in many ways a technically poorly made film. While Hollywood had already pretty much switched to sound mode around 1929, up through the early to almost the mid-30s, a lot of famous French films were essentially silent films--with some dialog and sound effects very poorly slapped over top the film. The lip movements in many, and in particular this film, don't even come close to matching what is being said and this would explain why an American like Ms. Brooks could do a French film. This is just sloppy and I would have preferred they had just made a silent film--and as a silent film this is would have been an average film--with excellent camera work (at times) and some decent silent-style acting.The problem I also found with the film was the overly simplistic plot. For a silent morality play circa 1920, it would have been fine, but by 1930 standards the plot is a bit hoary (that means "old"--not "slutty"). A lady wins a beauty contest and her macho fiancé can't handle it. She gives it all up, temporarily, but is lured back to the fancy life and this spells her end! A tad melodramatic, huh? And also a bit simplistic and underdeveloped.Finally, the character of the fiancé's friend(?) I found very disturbing and unreal. He looked like Harold Lloyd and spent much of the movie being abused and picked on by the friend and everyone else. As he just took it throughout the movie and no resolution came about, his character seemed superfluous and the treatment he received mean-spirited. Were audiences supposed to laugh as he was abused? This seems to me that's what is implied and I don't like it at all.There are FAR better French films of the era (Le Million, La Femme du Boulanger, Fanny, Regain, and others) as well as better silent films. I just can't understand this film's high rating.

plegowik It is often only after years pass that we can look back and see those stars who are truly stars. As that French film critic, whose name escapes me, said: "There is no Garbo. There is no Dietrich. There is only Louise Brooks"; and there is, thank heavens! Louise Brooks! This is the third of her European masterpieces. But it is also an exceptional film for being one, if not the, first French talkie, for following a script written by famed René Clair, for reportedly being finished (the direction, that is) by Georg Pabst, and for incorporating the voice of Edith Piaf before she was well known! So much talent working on and in a film, how couldn't it turn out to be a masterpiece?! And that's what this film is. It's a shame Louise Brooks was blackballed by Hollywood when she came back to the States--so much talent cast so arrogantly by the wayside! In the film, in addition to getting to watch Louise Brooks in action, it's great to see pictures of Paris ca. 1930 and to hear Piaf's young voice. I never get tired of this film!