Louise Brooks – Vintage French Postcards

  As with other Hollywood and non-Hollywood stars, Louise Brooks’ image could be found on a number of commercial products. In the 1920s and 1930s, these products included printed items such as postcards, trading cards, and what are colloquially known as cigarette cards. The most familiar, of course, are postcards. They require a postage stamp to be sent through the mail, typically had an image on the front and space for a message on the back, and measure approximately 4 x 6 inches (or 10.2 x 15.2 cm). Trading or product cards were, as a rule, smaller in size, and were usually inserted into the packaging of a variety of items such as bread, cookies, candy (chocolate and gum), sugar, flour, and tobacco. The cards known as cigarette cards are considered a subset of trading cards, but differ in that they were inserted into just one type of product, namely packs of cigarettes. Essentially, trading cards were novelty items inserted into product packaging as an inducement to purchase… as in buy our product and “collect them all”. Though such cards were considered disposable and sometimes poorly printed, others were finely printed, attractive, and collected by film buffs or fans of the actor or actress they depicted. Some card publishers, whose series ran into the dozens or hundreds, even issued albums as a further inducement to collectors. Along with cards, albums also survive.

This page on the Louise Brooks Society website gathers a selection of vintage tradings cards and postcards from France. Notably, cards were issued by two different French film magazines, Le Film and Cinemonde. Both of these French magazines also featured Louise Brooks on the cover of various issues. Details behind some of these cards is lacking. If you know additional information about any of these cards, or possess other cards and would like to share a scan of your vintage treasure, please CONTACT the Louise Brooks Society. Thanks so much for your interest.

trading card, France (front) Le Film #9	trading card, France (back) Le Film #9	cigarette card, France (front) #68, circa 1932	cigarette card, France (back) #68, circa 1932
postcard, France (variant) Cinemonde #486	postcard, France Cinemonde #486	postcard, France Cinemonde #599	postcard, France Cinemonde #625
cigarette card, France Cinemonde	postcard, France Europe #377	postcard, France Europe #599	postcard, France Europe #918
postcard, France JRPR #421	postcard, France JRPR #422	postcard, France JRPR #423	postcard, France JRPR #424
postcard, France JRPR #425	postcard, France JRPR #426	postcard, France Studio G.L. MANUEL Freres	cigarette card, France Studio G.L. MANUEL Freres

 

Postcards could sometimes be more than just a postcards. The two cards shown below served as a memory aid, as way not to forget. The Cinemagazine-Edition card to the left was likely annotated on the back sometime in the late 1920s; it reads “A girl in every port avec Victor Mac Laglen, Maria Casajuana.” Perhaps the person who wrote those words had seen the film, liked it, and bought a souvenir. The JRPR card to the right was annotated sometime after Louise Brooks’ death in 1985. The card notes the actress died on August 8, 1985 after suffering a heart attack. It incorrectly notes that she was born in 1907.

postcard, France (back) Cinemagazine-Edition	postcard, France (back) JRPR #422	postcard, France (front) JRPR #442

 

If you were a film buff or cineaste in France in the silent and early sound era you may have noticed postcard advertisements in Cinemonde, a popular film magazine. LIke Picturegoer in England, it issued its own series of movie star postcards. The ad below lists in alphabetical order the many actors and actress whose image was available on a postcard. Like Ross Verlag and Iris Verlag,Cinemonde offered high quality sepia-toned postcards. Brooks is listed on the ad below with one card to her name. More would follow in the next couple of years. This ad dates to June 1929.