Oomph and Doomph

The Kansas City, Missouri, Public Library ends its Sounds of Silents series today with Louise Brooks' good-girl-gone-better-when-she's-bad classic Diary of a Lost Girl. The 1929 film was her second and last with German director G.W. Pabst, who remade the exiled Hollywood starlet as a fearless siren. Former dancer Brooks, a native of Cherryvale, Kansas, was four years into her movie career when she played troubled Thymiane Henning, another in a string of bob-haired vixens, whores and hotties she portrayed with full-bodied lust and knowing fatalism. Local composer Jeffrey Ruckma and the Spoonbender Consort will accompany the movie on woodwinds, piano, percussion and accordion. See (and hear) the film at 3:30 p.m. today in the Truman Forum at the library's Plaza Branch (4801 Main). Call 816-701-3407 for details.
Sat., June 21, 3:30 p.m., 2008