Louise Brooks with Jean Arthur
Paramount Studios Film Still from THE CANARY MURDER CASE
September-October, 1928 · Hollywood, California

It is one of the greatest ironies wrought by the transition to talkies that an actress with a voice as remarkably lovely as Louise Brooks' was denied the chance to sufficiently demonstrate it in films. So, while Jean Arthur—with the voice once affectionately likened by a critic to a foghorn—dutifully returned with the rest of THE CANARY MURDER CASE'S cast to Paramount for sound conversion retakes, Louise snubbed the studio that had apathetically allowed her to quit, and hop a boat for Germany and silent film immortality instead. For her rebellion, Brooks received the punishment meted out to most movie stars with chips on their shoulders: bad publicity. According to Paramount, Louise's voice didn't record well, and thus, a stand-in was found to dub her lines. Brooks's career would never recover from her own contrariness and the ensuing reprimand.