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 cards from Italy. The first card shown was once glued into a scrapbook or album. This somewhat distressed card is no. 31 in a set issued by G.B. Falci of Milano (Milan), Italy. The image of Brooks, by M. I. Boris, was used early on in the actress’ career as a Paramount publicity photo. Despite its association with that studio, Brooks is here associated with the Fox Film corp., which suggests this card dates to sometime around the time the actress appeared in A Girl in Every Port, a 1928 Fox release. More about the G.B. Falci Editore Milano can be found HERE.
The 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.
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| postcard, Italy G.B. Falci #31 |
product card, Italy as “Louise Broors” |
product card, Italy Falci Gold #680 |
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| postcard, Italy Falci #587 |
product card, Italy Film-Paramount |
product card, Italy Lurati #228 – R |
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| postcard, Italy Falci #510 |
postcard, Italy Falci #517 |
postcard, Italy Falci #627 |