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.

Lulu (Louise Brooks) works as a typist and is missing something in her life. She enters a Miss France contest against the wishes of her boyfriend Andre (Georges Charlia) and she wins. She sets off for the Miss Europe title leaving her boyfriend behind. She wins again but returns home to Andre because he has asked her to. Once back together, her life becomes mundane again so one night she writes a note to him and leaves to experience the fame that is waiting for her as Miss Europe. Andre follows her.....This film is a silent film with a piano music-track all the way through. It is also sped-up in parts so at times everything seems too fast. Limited dialogue has been added on afterwards and it is very phony. The cast are alright bearing in mind that it is a silent film. The best part of the film comes at the end but the story goes on a little too long. After watching this, I'm not really sure what the big deal was over the looks of Louise Brooks - she has a terrible haircut that makes her face look fat. The film has a memorable ending that lends itself to another viewing.

A story of obsessive love pushed to its limits and of a lovely swan whose beauty is the very ticket to her own premature demise. Placed at the beginning of talkies, PRIX DE BEAUTE walks a thin line in being a full-on silent film -- which is still is at heart -- and flirting with sound and sound effects. The effect is a little irritating for anyone coming into this film because the recorded audio is extremely tinny and just doesn't help it at all. Hearing sound stage conversation edited over the beginning sequence which takes place in a beach, for example, is as part of the movie as the actress who dubs Louise Brooks' dialog and in doing so robs the audience of a fine performance. Other than that, the movie rolls along more or less well, with little jumps in continuity here and there -- something quite common in films from this era -- and has that vague sped up feel typical of silents. In a way, this is an experiment of a movie, and closer to the style of Sergei Eisenstein in visual presentation and near-intimate closeups that elevate it from what would be a more pedestrian level. Louise Brooks here plays a character less flapper than what she was known for: she's a stenographer who on a lark decides to enter a beauty contest despite the furious opposition of her extremely smothering boyfriend. Her role is quite Thirties and contemporary for its time; the last of the flapper/Jazz Baby roles were being shown on screen and now, with the onset of female independence, women as professionals were being represented in film. That Brooks's character decides to leave her boyfriend (even if she does "reconcile" with him later) is also a little ahead of her time. However, her character's fatal flaw is its willing to believe what isn't there -- that her boyfriend wants her to succeed -- and this is what leads to her end at the movie theatre. This final sequence looks like something straight out of Hitchcock in its heightened suspense (seen in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH) and cuts from Brooks, her image on screen, and the murderous boyfriend. Even more dramatic is the placement of the still singing "live" Brooks with the now dead one -- a chilling effect to a chilling, powerful movie.

Cult icon Louise Brooks was never better than she is in this early French talkie, which turned out to be her last staring role.While Brooks' two German films, "Pandora's Box" and "Diary of a Lost Girl" are far better known in the US, "Prix" is clearly just as good a film, in my view much better than the butchered "Diary.""Prix" tells a simple story of a working class French girl who dreams of a better life and sets out to get it by entering a beauty pageant. Rising all the way to the position of "Miss Europe," she then gives it all up for the working class man she loves. But she finds that life as a housewife in a dreary walk up flat is killing her soul, as is her jealous husband, and eventually she walks out when she gets a chance at a film contract. But her husband won't let her go and the film builds to a tragic ending that is still considered one of the best climatic scenes in film history.This film features strong direction, extremely exciting location photography by famed cinematographer (and later director) Rudolph Mate and an intelligent,Spartan script by Rene Clair.But the wonder of the film is Brooks herself. Although her voice is dubbed by a French actress (Brooks didn't speak French) the film was initially planned as a silent and in large chunks of it, her character doesn't speak, anyway. But Brooks' fortune was her face and what she could do with it and there are few in film history who could do more. While there are some echos of silent film technique in her work, she was so far ahead of her time that most of her performance seems as fresh today as it did in 1929. Whether she is the unhappy girl being dragged by her boyfriend through a working class mob at a carnaval, or the depressed housewife staring into a canary's cage and feeling just as trapped, Brooks is a revelation.But it is when she is happy in this film that Brooks simply leaps off the screen at you. In most of the still photos she shot over the years, Brooks doesn't smile, apparently because she'd promised herself not to ever wear one of those pasted on grins found on showgirls on stage. But when called upon in a film to express happiness, no one ever exceeded Brooks, who may be the most magnetic actress in film history.While "Pandora's Box" will always be her signature film, "Prix de Beaute" ranks a close second in my mind as the best film work of her career.