Love 'Em and Leave 'Em (1926), Louise Brooks : Wichita's Mega-Star

Director : Frank Tuttle
Starring:
Louise Brooks - Janie Walsh
Evelyn Brent - Mame Walsh
Osgood Perkins - Lem Woodruff
Lawrence Gray - Bill Billingsley

Love 'Em and Leave 'Em is the tale of two sisters with the older one pledged to look after the younger one that takes place between a department store, NYC's Central Park and a boarding house.

The older sister is a sweet, old-fashioned type and the younger sister is a jazz-age flapper who takes whatever falls her way. Mame, the older one, goes on vacation and returns home to find that her kid sister, Janie, has vamped her way into the arms of Mame's intended.

On her deathbed, Mame Walsh's mother made her promise to always take care of her little sister, Janie. But Mame didn't expect her baby sister to grow up into a free spirited flapper with a cute little bob of jet-black hair and a set of gorgeous gams!

The two sisters work together at Ginsburg's department store, where Mame puts her nose to the grindstone and younger Janie mostly flirts with the customers.

After Mame sees Janie kissing the young man she's sweet on, Bill Billingsley, she gives up and decides to adopt her sister's motto of "love 'em and leave 'em!"

She impetuously starts a relationship with Lem Woodruff, a shady gambler and conman. Mame learns Janie has been gambling the store's money and owes quite a bit to this crook. When it looks like her sister could go to jail, Mame decides to risk all to get the money back from Woodruff and keep her little sister out of the hoosegow.

A charming silent comedy truly emblematic of the "Roaring Twenties", Love 'Em and Leave 'Em is best remembered as the star-making turn for 20-year-old former Ziegfeld Follies girl and Wichitan, Louise Brooks.

In the following years Brooks would start in "A Girl in Every Port" (1928) and "Beggars of Life" (1928) for the same studio, but it was the films she made in Europe for director G.W. Pabst, "Pandora's Box" (1929) and "Diary of a Lost Girl" (1929) that would lead cinephile Henri Langlois to proclaim, "There is no Garbo. There is no Dietrich. There is only Louise Brooks!"

Osgood Perkins also stars in this delightful film. Perkins was an accomplished stage actor (he originated the role of Walter Burns in "The Front Page on Broadway") but had some memorable moments on the silver screen, including in the original "Scarface" (1932) and "Gold Diggers of 1937" (1936).

Osgood is best remembered today as the father of Psycho star Anthony Perkins.
---
Posted in 1440HD
This video is for educational, historical, and informational purposes only and has not been monetized in any manner whatsoever.
It has been posted to be ad-free.

In Title 17 U.S.C. section 106A-117 of the US Copyright Law and under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, historic preservation, scholarships, education and research.

Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.