Featuring the luminous Louise Brooks in her last major role (at age 24), this film has a history as illustrious and troubled as its star's. Based on a treatment by G.W. Pabst, it was scripted as a silent by its intended director, René Clair. But Clair left the project when he was forced to rework the script for the addition of sound, and direction was taken over by Augusto Genina, who, with master cinematographer Rudolph Maté, brought an air of actuality to this tale of a Parisian typist who wins a beauty contest and a movie contract, only to face the violent disapproval of her husband. Tonight we screen a new restoration of the silent version, reconstructed by the Cinémathèque Française and the Cinetecas of Bologna and Milan. With a key scene restored to its proper place in the narrative, and without dubbed dialogue and sound effects, the simple plot becomes a potent vehicle for reflections on the mechanics of celebrity and the power of the photograph. Melodrama and real life ironically converge in the breathtaking ending, with the tragically mortal heroine juxtaposed against her own immortal filmic image-the image of Brooks, a timeless star whose meteoric career was already beginning its rapid decline.-Juliet Clark