It’s hard to beat Chicago as a source for hardboiled storytelling, and two of its best newspaper reporters, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, would draw on their rough and tumble newsroom experiences to create one of Broadway’s most-beloved plays.
Although they were Chicago boys, the New Yorker crowd viewed Hecht and MacArthur as adopted (or perhaps naturalized) Manhattanites. So when John Mosher wrote his glowing review of the film adaption of The Front Page, he was writing about the work of a pair well known to the Algonquin Round Table set.
MacArthur (1895-1956) was especially close to the Algonquin group, having shared an apartment with Robert Benchley and a bed with Dorothy Parker in the early 1920s. In 1928 MacArthur would marry one of Broadway’s most beloved stars, Helen Hayes.
For his part, Hecht (1893-1964) contributed short fiction pieces to the New Yorker during its lean first years, 1925-1928. After the success of The Front Page, Hecht would go on to become one of Hollywood’s greatest screenwriters.
Here’s Mosher’s review:
Playwright and essayist James Harvey observes that The Front Page was “Hecht and MacArthur’s Chicago…(and) that counts most deeply in the imagination of Hollywood. And their play, the first of the great newspaper comedies, did more to define the tone and style, the look and the sound of Hollywood comedy than any other work of its time.”
A footnote: Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur were close throughout their careers, and remain so even in death: they are buried near each other on a hilltop in Oak Hills Cemetery, Nyack, NY.
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In the late 1920s and early 1930s several illustrators drew inspiration from the style Carl “Eric” Erickson made famous with his elegant series of ads for Camel cigarettes…I’m not sure if this ad (part of a series promoting “The New Chevrolet Six”) is by Erickson or an imitator, but it seems the artists were likely inspired by the actress Greta Garbo and her signature beret…
…and for comparison, an Erickson Camel ad from the March 21, 1931 issue…
…and our inspiration, Greta Garbo circa 1930…
…those Chevy buyers might have considered investing in Velmo mohair upholstery to boost the resale value of their auto…
…among other technological wonders of the age — furniture crafted from aluminum, soon to become ubiquitous in workplaces across the country…
…and then there was the electric refrigerator, still new to a lot of households in 1931 as icemen began to hang up their tongs and head for the sunset…
…if you were a modern man or woman of means, you could ditch the auto altogether and get yourself a Pitcairn autogiro…
…in the 1920s and 30s the autogiro was considered by many to be the transportation of the future, a flying machine as easy to operate as driving a car…
…for those who preferred to be passenger rather than pilot, they could relax in the comfort of an airplane cabin and enjoy some…hmmm…beef broth! From what I understand, passenger flight was not this cosy in 1931…this was long before pressurized cabins, when you had to mostly fly in the weather, and not above it, and you probably had to fight to keep from upchucking that Torex all over the lovely flight attendant…
…while we are on the subject of flight, we turn to our cartoons, beginning with Garrett Price…
…meanwhile, William Steig explored the trials of young love…
…a rare two-pager from Ralph Barton…
…Leonard Dove adopted an alias for a cartoon that seems inspired by a recent trip to Persia…
…Otto Soglow illustrated one man’s dilemma at a bus stop…
…Gardner Rea found offense in an unlikely setting…
…Barbara Shermund defined pathetic in this sugar daddy’s boast…
…while on the other end of the spectrum, I. Klein illustrated the burdens of life as a Milquetoast…
…and we sign off with Mary Petty, and one woman’s terms of endearment…
Next Time: Last Stand for Beau James…
A New Yorker State of Mind 