New Yorker cartoons – Page 19 – A New Yorker State of Mind

The End of the World

In today’s world of endless media options, it is hard to fathom the influence newspapers had over daily life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. There was one news source that many New Yorkers simply could not live without: The New York World.

March 7, 1931 cover by **Helen Hokinson.**

So when the World ceased publication after a 70-year run, many of its readers struggled to come to terms with the loss. Despite the World’s working class appeal and sensationalistic reporting, E.B. White nevertheless counted himself among its mourners, offering a lengthy eulogy in his “Notes and Comment” column (with Otto Soglow illustration)…

THE COLOR OF MONEY…Under the leadership of Joseph Pulitzer, who bought *The World* in 1883, the newspaper began an aggressive era of circulation building, and in 1896 enticed readers with pages printed by one of the world’s first four-color printing presses. *The World* was the first newspaper to launch a Sunday color supplement, which featured “The Yellow Kid” cartoon *Hogan’s Alley* (above, right). (5dguide.com)

A pioneer of yellow journalism, The World also featured sensational stories and headlines to capture the attention of readers…

…however, The World was also home to a number of prominent journalists, including the famed Elizabeth Cochran Seaman (aka Nellie Bly) and many writers from the social orbit of the Algonquin Round Table who were also early contributors to the fledgling New Yorker.

In his “Notes” essay, White suggests that he found something authentic in The World’s sensational style, and praised it for going after stories that more staid publications, like The New York Times, tended to ignore or downplay. The World’s staff of writers came from the rough and tumble, muckraking world of journalism, the same world in which The New Yorker’s founding editor, Harold Ross, first cut his teeth.

ALL-STAR LINE-UP…Many of *The* *World’s* famed writers inhabited the orbit of *The* *New Yorker* and the Algonquin Round Table, including, from left, music critic **Deems Taylor,** journalist and social critic **Heywood Broun**, “The Conning Tower” columnist **Franklin P. Adams**, and humorist **Frank Sullivan.** (deemstaylor.com/britannica.com/Wikipedia)

* * *

Swedish Sphinx?

Thirty years after her death, Greta Garbo remains an iconic figure in popular culture, due to her expressive eyes and sensuality, but perhaps even more so due to her elusive air. In her profile of the star for The New Yorker, titled “American Pro Tem,” Virgilia Peterson Ross refused to buy into the mysterious aura that was partly manufactured by Garbo’s handlers at MGM. The other part, however, was genuine Garbo, who detested parties, serious talk, and other formalities.

THE FACE…Like her contemporary Marlene Dietrich, **Greta Garbo** preferred an androgynous look. From left, Garbo wearing the flat-heeled oxfords she favored; publicity photo from 1932; wearing one of her trademark berets in the late 1930s. (garboforever.com)

Ross touched on Garbo’s love life—she never married in her 84 years, but she was close to her mentor, Finnish director Mauritz Stiller, who died in 1928, having been eclipsed by his protégé. Garbo’s co-star in the silents, John Gilbert—known as a great lover on the screen—wanted to marry Garbo, but she balked at his frequent proposals. The two lived together intermittently in 1926 and 1927, Gilbert helping Garbo not only with her acting also teaching her how to behave like a star and barter with studio bosses. Garbo later admitted that she was in love with Gilbert, but preferred to remain single because she “always wanted to be the boss.” Drink and despair would send Gilbert to an early grave in 1936. In her profile piece, Ross concluded that Garbo was “not a mystery to be solved,” but rather “a limpid child.”

THE MEN IN HER LIFE…**Greta Garbo** contemplates a new-fangled microphone with film director **Clarence Brown** on the set of Garbo’s first talkie, *Anna Christie*. Brown would direct Garbo in seven different films; Garbo with sometime lover **John Gilbert** in *Flesh and the Devil* (1926). They would appear in four films together; Garbo with Finnish director and early mentor **Mauritz Stiller**, in 1926. (Wikipedia/IMDB/garboforever.com)

* * *

Suffering Artist

Dorothy Parker continued to sub as theater critic for her friend, Robert Benchley, who was traveling abroad. It was not a task to her liking — during her temporary stint she had yet to see a play that didn’t insult her taste or her intelligence. Her review for the March 7 issue would prove no different.

BROADWAY BLAHS…**Dorothy Parker** had yet to find a play to her liking in her stint as theater critic for the *New Yorker*. To her credit, she had to sit through a couple of stinkers: *A Woman Denied* lasted about a month — 37 performances — and *Paging Danger* closed its curtains for good after just four performances. (Playbill/BBC)

* * *

The Misanthrope

To call Wyndham Lewis a character is an understatement. The English writer, social critic and painter (he founded the cubist-inspired Vorticist movement) managed to offend just about everybody before his death in 1957. He was described by the London Review as “fiercely unsentimental,” and that is how I would describe this opening paragraph from his short story “Dark Party”…

CLASSIC POSE…A 1929 portrait of **Wyndham Lewis** by photographer George Charles Beresford. (Wikipedia)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

A couple of ads appealing to women readers of the New Yorker, including this elegant bon voyage scene advertising travel clothes…

…and something you never see anymore, the “boneless” girdle…replaced today by Spanx and the like…

…Before we roll into our cartoons, some cinema-inspired art by Al Frueh…

…Alan Dunn went out to dinner…

…Garrett Price went on safari…

…E. McNerney channelled his inner Arno for this backstage scene…

…and the real Peter Arno gave us this passing scene which recalled his old Whoops Sisters gags…

Next Time: Age of Wonders…

Chaplin of the Jungle

In the 1920s and 30s the concept of the documentary film was still in its infancy, and beginning with the silent Nanook of the North (1922), the idea that a documentary and a drama were separate things was unknown to filmmakers.

Feb. 28, 1930 cover by **Theodore Haupt.**

What was known, however, was the box office appeal of films that explored unknown and exotic lands, like Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1927 blockbuster Chang, which featured a mix of staged events as well as the actual slaughter of wild animals. Audiences (and most critics) seemed little troubled that these films were a mix of fact and fiction. It was a movie, after all, and movies followed a story arc, and they had drama, and sometimes comedy. And so when Schoedsack (1893-1979) introduced audiences to an orangutan named Rango, publicists described the simian star as the “Charlie Chaplin of the Jungle.” The New Yorker’s John Mosher found the performances of the various apes “astonishingly adept”…

MONKEY BUSINESS…Clockwise, from top left, the Iowa-born **Ernest B. Schoedsack** cut his filmmaking teeth as a producer/director of quasi-documentaries, beginning with 1925’s *Grass*, which followed a caravan from Angora to Persia; a young Sumatran boy, Bin, bonds with the orangutan Rango; promotional theater card for the film. (filmaffinity.com)

NOT SO CUDDLY…Two years after *Rango,* **Ernest B. Schoedsack** would co-produce and co-direct 1933’s *King Kong,* with **Merian C. Cooper. (**Britannica)

If interpretations of tropical life weren’t accurate in 1931, it wasn’t completely due to filmmakers taking dramatic license. Attitudes toward “exotic” lands and people commonly ranged from naively paternalistic to downright racist. In a letter to The New Yorker, Patrick T.L. Putnam (1904-1953) is decidedly of the former, portraying Congo pygmies as clever, amusing children who hoodwink unsuspecting “explorers”…

To Putnam’s credit, he showed a genuine interest (and respect for) in the lives of tribal peoples, and particularly the Mbuti of the Congo’s Ituri Forest. He remained in the Congo for the rest of his life. This thumbnail is the only photo I could find of Putnam:

* * *

Big Bill Turns Pro

In first decades of the 20th century it was still widely believed that athletic competition should be for its own sake rather than as a means for making money, so many top stars competed as amateurs. Professional golf wasn’t established until 1916, and professional leagues in basketball and football first formed in the 1920s. Amateur status was especially prized in tennis — before the “Open Era” began in 1968, only amateurs were allowed to compete in Grand Slam tournaments.

Sports promoter C. C. Pyle established the first professional tennis tour in 1926 with American and French stars playing exhibition matches in front of paying audiences. According to The New Yorker’s John Tunis, many in the crowd were finely dressed, with men in top hats and women turned out in the latest high fashion.

America’s top draw was “Big Bill” Tilden, the world’s number one player from 1920 to 1925 and the first American to win Wimbledon. It caused quite a stir when Tilden went pro on Dec. 31, 1930. He barnstormed across the country, playing one-night stands with a small group of professionals including the top Czech player Karel Koželuh. “The Talk of the Town” had this to say about the fledging game of professional tennis:

BARNSTORMERS…**Bill Tilden** (left) and **Karel Koželuh** toured America and Europe with a handful of other players in a series of exhibition matches in the fledgling professional tennis circuit. (Britannica/cyranos.ch)

In his sports column, John Tunis offered this description of the competitors:

NOW AND THEN…At left, you can still spot a few neckties at Wimbledon as the audience watches **Roger Federer** and **Andy Roddick** enter Centre Court in 2009; at right, Wimbledon crowd in 1925. (BBC/Vintage Every Day)

* * *

Triple Tripe

Dorothy Parker continued to sub in the theater column for her friend Robert Benchley, who was traveling abroad. She found little to like on the Great White Way, including three forgettable plays she reviewed in the Feb. 28 issue:

Apparently audiences agreed with Parker’s assessment. The Gang’s All Here closed after just 23 performances, The Great Barrington, after just 16. And Heat Wave was not so hot, closing after a mere 15 performances.

NOT SO GREAT…Program for 1931’s *The Great Barrington*. It lasted 16 performances. (IBDB)

Parker once again closed the column with a plea to her dear friend:

* * *

To Swash No More

In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White lamented the end of Douglas Fairbanks as the swashbuckler of the silents, and rejected the talkie version of the actor in Reaching for the Moon, a film in which Fairbanks portrayed Larry Day, a Wall Street millionaire who later loses his fortune in the 1929 stock market crash.

KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON, DOUG…From left, **Douglas Fairbanks** in the silent era’s *The Thief of Bagdad* (1924); Fairbanks on an ocean cruise with **Bebe Daniels** in *Reaching for the Moon.* The 47-year-old Fairbanks was still fit enough to pose shirtless, but **E.B. White** wasn’t having any of it. Despite his fit appearance, Fairbanks would die of a heart attack at the end of the decade. (IMDB)

The film today is perhaps best known for its sumptuous Art Deco sets…

…and for one of Bing Crosby’s earliest film appearances. Reaching for the Moon was originally intended to be a musical featuring numbers by Irving Berlin, however Berlin found director Edmund Goulding difficult to work with, so only one of the original five songs recorded for the film was used, “When the Folks High Up Do the Mean Low Down,” sung by Crosby. It was filmed late at night after he had completed his gig at the Cocoanut Grove.

SINGING WITH BA-BA-BEBE…A young **Bing Crosby** sings “When the Folks High Up Do the Mean Low Down” with **Bebe Daniels** in *Reaching for the Moon.* (IMDB)

* * *

Modern Living

E.B. White also commented on the modern world’s reliance on electric appliances, a habit a mere decade in the making since the gadgets he lists below did not exist before the 1920s:

ELECTRIC SURGE…Prior to the 1920s none of these electric appliances existed. By 1931 many homes were dependent upon them — although many country houses would have to wait for the Rural Electrification Administration (1935) and other New Deal programs get electrical service. (Pinterest)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

I’ve written before about Lux Toilet Soap’s celebrity-studded ad campaigns, but this two-page ad in the Feb. 28 issue caught my eye because it featured one of my favorite actresses, Jessie Royce Landis…

…who appeared in two of my favorite films, both by Alfred Hitchcock: To Catch a Thief (1955) and North by Northwest (1959).

MATERNAL ROLES…**Jessie Royce Landis** usually played older than she was in real life. Clockwise, from top left, detail of Lux ad; Landis circa 1930; opposite **Cary Grant** in 1955’s *To Catch a Thief;* and again with Grant in 1959’s *North by Northwest.* In the latter film she played Grant’s mother, but in reality she was only seven years older than Grant. (IMDB)

…much of the Douglas Fairbanks/Bebe Daniels film Reaching for the Moon was set on a luxury ocean liner…if the stock market didn’t get you down, you could also afford to travel in style with the Empress of Britain…

…or on one of the fine ships of the French Line fleet…

…the Imperial was one of the luxury cars that could get you to the docks…

…among the stranger ads to appear in The New Yorker was this one by the maker of clay plumbing fixtures…

…on to our cartoonists, Ralph Barton returned with this illustration for the theater section…

…Rea Irvin brought us another of his two-page series cartoons…

…Gardner Rea commented on the state of the art world…

…Peter Arno peered in on an unfortunate infant…

…Helen Hokinson gave us this exchange along a city street…

…Garrett Price illustrated a tall order for a blues musician…

…Carl Kindl found clashing styles in the shoe department…

…and James Thurber returned with a prelude to his battle of the sexes…

Next Time: The End of the World…

Super Tramp

The late film critic Roger Ebert once observed that “if only one of Charles Chaplin’s films could be preserved, City Lights would come the closest to representing all the different notes of his genius.”

Feb. 21, 1931 cover by **Rea Irvin,** marking the *New Yorker’s* sixth anniversary.

The New Yorker’s film critic in 1931, John Mosher, would have agreed. Before he previewed the picture, however, Mosher feared (along with others) that the great actor and director had seen his best days…

…instead, the film proved a hit with both audiences and critics, and today is regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. It was no doubt a relief to Ebert when the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry.

HE DOES IT ALL…United Artists issued several different types of posters to promote the film, including these two. (IMDB)

A TENDER FELLOW…The Tramp (**Charlie Chaplin**) encounters a blind flower girl (**Virginia Cherrill**) on a street corner and is instantly smitten; later that evening the Tramp saves a drunken millionaire (**Harry Myers**) from suicide. (IMDB)

The film has its tender moments, but being a Chaplin production it also had plenty of slapstick, including this famous scene in which the Tramp and his millionaire friend go out on the town and dig into plates of spaghetti…and in the Tramp’s case, some confetti…

Mosher (and many other critics since) believe the opening scene of the film—in which a statue is unveiled to reveal a sleeping Tramp—was Chaplin’s attack on sound movies:

CAUGHT NAPPING…The Tramp is unveiled along with a statue in the opening scene of *City Lights*. (IMDB)

Although the film had a full musical score and sound effects, there was no spoken dialogue. Rather, Chaplin poked fun of the tinny-sounding talkies of the day by putting not words, but the sounds of a kazoo, into the mouths of speechifying politicians gathered at the statue’s unveiling…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I0rcg0Fiqw

For all its humor, City Lights was a serious work by a serious actor and director who sought something close to perfection. The scene in which the Tramp encounters a blind flower girl on a street corner required three hundred and forty-two takes with actress Virginia Cherrill, who was a newcomer to film.

Writing in The New Yorker, critic Richard Brody (“Chaplin’s Three Hundred and Forty-Two Takes,” Nov. 19, 2013) noted that “Chaplin didn’t have a mental template that he wanted Cherrill to match; he approaches the scene not quite knowing what he wanted.” Brody observed that the perfection Chaplin sought was one of results, and not of conformity to a preconceived schema. “He sought what provoked, in him, the perfect emotion, the perfect aesthetic response — but he wouldn’t know it until he saw it. He started to shoot in the confidence that the thing — whatever it was — would happen.” Chaplin’s technique can be seen in this clip from the Criterion Collection’s 2013 DVD release of the film. Note that this footage was shot by The New Yorker’s Ralph Barton, a close friend of Chaplin’s:

* * *

Chaplin, Part Two

The Chaplin buzz was not confined to the movie section of the magazine, which featured more insights on the star in “The Talk of the Town.”

GENIUS LOVES COMPANY…Photo of **Albert Einstein** and **Charlie Chaplin** at the Los Angeles premiere of *City Lights*. Einstein said Chaplin was the only person in Hollywood he wanted to meet. (Wikipedia)

* * *

Funny In a Different Way

Like City Lights, Tod Browning’s Dracula is today considered a classic film. Indeed, Bela Lugosi’s timeless portrayal of the old bloodsucker set a standard for vampire flicks and horror films in general. The New Yorker’s John Mosher, however, would have none of it, dismissing the film in a single paragraph.

PAIN INTHE NECK…Count Dracula (**Bela Lugosi**) goes for a nibble on the fragile Mina (**Helen Chandler**) in 1931’s *Dracula. (*IMDB)

Mosher was also dismissive of Fritz Lang’s By Rocket to the Moon, originally released in German as Frau Im Mond (Woman in the Moon). The 1929 production is considered one of the first “serious” science fiction movies, anticipating a number of technologies that would actually be used in space travel decades later.

RETRO ROCKET…**Fritz Lang’s** *Woman in the Moon* would predict a number of technologies used decades later in actual space flight, including multi-stage rockets. Lang also anticipated the future in the much-acclaimed *Metropolis* (1927).

* * *

Bored on Broadway

Robert Benchley was visiting friends abroad, so Dorothy Parker did what any pal would do and subbed for his theater column. As it turned out, it was not a happy task, even if she did receive complementary tickets to one of the hottest shows on Broadway:

Having dispatched Katharine Cornell’s Barretts of Wimpole Street, Parker took aim at America’s Sweetheart, based on a book by Herbert Fields with music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Parker ended the savaging with a plea to her dear friend and colleague to return home soon:

THEY LAUGHED, THEY CRIED…**Katharine Cornell** (left) portrayed Elizabeth Barrett in *Barretts of Wimpole Street.* **Dorothy Parker** thought Cornell was a first-rate actress, but didn’t think much of her play. As for **Inez Courtney** (right) in *America’s Sweetheart,* Parker believed she did what she could, whatever that meant. (Pinterest)

* * *

Lest We Forget

The New Yorker turned six with this issue, and in the life of any magazine, that is something to be celebrated, and especially in hindsight as our beloved publication closes in on its centenary in 2025. Some thoughts from E.B. White:

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We’ve seen in past ads how Prohibition-era vintners marketed grape juice bricks that could be dissolved in water and fermented in the home. In this ad they took it a step further, sending expert cellarers direct to customers’ homes to help them create their own, perfectly legal, wine cellar…

…those with wine cellars might have preferred to live in a “highly restricted” community in Jackson Heights…

…and furnish their homes with the latest in modern furniture design…

…and here we have an early example of the “macho” smoker, anticipating the arrival of his buddy, the Marlboro Man…

…on to our cartoonists, another theater section entry by one of Charlie Chaplin’s closest friends, Ralph Barton…

…and cartoons by Peter Arno, who channelled Dracula via his Sugar Daddy…

…Garrett Price, and the burdens of the rich…

…Denys Wortman examined the follies of youth…

…and we end with dear Helen Hokinson, and the miracle of birth…

Next Time: Chaplin of the Jungle…

Wickersham Sham

Introduce the topic of the Wickersham Commission at your next dinner party and you will most likely be answered with a puzzled silence.

January 31, 1931 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

However, in January 1931 it was THE topic of the month, especially among New Yorkers keen to see the end of Prohibition, which was the focus of the commission.

Established by President Herbert Hoover, the 11-member Wickersham Commission (officially, the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement) was not seeking to repeal the 18th Amendment, but rather to examine the criminal justice system under Prohibition, everything from police brutality and graft to the rapid rise of organized crime.

SOBER UNDERTAKING…**George Wickersham** was featured on *Time’s* Feb. 2, 1931 cover for his leadership on the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, better known as the Wickersham Commission. (Time Inc.)

To the chagrin of many New Yorkers, the report (released on Jan. 7, 1931) called for even more aggressive enforcement of anti-alcohol laws.

This caused such a stir that The New Yorker dedicated the entire first page of “The Talk of the Town” to a satirical commentary furnished by E.B. White. An excerpt:

LEAVE MY NAME OUT OF IT…Former US Attorney General **George Woodward Wickersham,** left, was tapped by President **Herbert Hoover** to lead the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement. Humorist **Will Rogers** weighed in on the likely outcome of the Commission’s report. (Wikipedia/PBS)

Humorist Will Rogers also commented on the report in this letter published on page 19 of the Jan. 26, 1931 edition of The New York Times…

…Algonquin Round Table co-founder Franklin P. Adams, on the other hand, summed up the Commission’s report with a poem:

Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can’t stop what it’s meant to stop.
We like it.
It’s left a trail of graft and slime
It don’t prohibit worth a dime
It’s filled our land with vice and crime,
Nevertheless, we’re for it.

Back to The New Yorker, Howard Brubaker weighed in with his column, “Of All Things,” correctly noting that the majority of Americans wanted an end to Prohibition laws despite the Commission’s recommendations…

…and Rea Irvin gauged the mood of the parlor crowd in light of the report:

* * *

Polar Plunge

On to happier news, “The Talk of the Town” looked in on preparations for a North Pole trip by a refitted and renamed military submarine, Nautilus. An excerpt:

POLAR OBSESSED…Above, the *Nautilus* arrives at Plymouth, England, on June 26, 1931. It left New York City on June 4 on the first leg of a voyage that was to continue on to Spitsbergen, Norway and ultimately to the North Pole and a rendezvous with Germany’s *Graf Zeppelin*. At right, crew members **Cornelius P. Royster, John R. Janson**, and **Harry Zoeller** dine in the Nautilus galley, April 20, 1931. (amphilsoc.org)

HOW IT WORKED…The June 1931 issue of *Modern Mechanics* asked the question, “Will the Nautilus Freeze Under the North Pole?” Stay tuned. (Modern Mechanix)

* * *

Dorothy, Abridged

Laid up with the flu, Dorothy Parker turned to some reading during her convalescence, only to find that the books provided to her (for review) were far from uplifting. One in particular, a censored version of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, was downright galling. Excerpts:

FIFTY SHADES OF EMBARRASSMENT…**D.H. Lawrence’s** *Lady Chatterley’s Lover* was published privately in 1928 and swiftly banned by the United States the following year. Amazingly, the first unexpurgated edition would not be published in the U.S. until 1959, in the edition pictured above issued by the fledgling Grove Press. (mhpbooks.com/orbooks.com)

* * *

Old Before Her Time

Lois Long was only 29 years old when she wrote her “Doldrums” series for The New Yorker, but the chronicler of Jazz Age nightlife who once epitomized the flapper lifestyle felt much older given how much the world had changed in just a few short years. She was particularly appalled by the younger generation’s embrace of “health and vitality” over her own generation’s lust for the party life…

GETTING THEIR KICKS…**Lois Long** was appalled by the new generation’s healthier pursuits, left, contrasted with the flapper lifestyle Long embodied in the 1920s. (Pinterest)

…Long was mother to a toddler at the time, and would divorce husband and New Yorker colleague Peter Arno in the spring. This, no doubt, contributed to her feeling of estrangement from the younger generation:

Endnote: Bernarr MacFadden (1868-1955), referred to above, was an early proponent of body building and healthy diets that anticipated the rise of physical culture icons such as Charles Atlas and Jack LaLanne.

* * *

The Last Warrior

Paris correspondent Janet Flanner noted the passing of 78-year-old French Field Marshal Joseph Joffre, the last of the great World War I military leaders. Note that Flanner referred to Joffre’s war as “the world war,” since the next world war was still on the horizon.

AU REVOIR…French Field Marshal **Joseph Joffre** (saluting) in 1922. (Library of Congress)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We have two of New York’s finest hotels advertised along with the newly opened National Hotel in Havana, Cuba. All three were under the same management at the time. The Cuban hotel would be heavily damaged two years later in a coup led by Fulgencio Batista. It would be restored, and eventually nationalized by Fidel Castro. The Savoy-Plaza would not be so lucky, demolished in 1965 to make way for the General Motors Building…

NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T…The elegant Savoy-Plaza (left) was razed in 1965 to make way for the General Motors Building. (Wikipedia)

…and we have this lovely color ad from the makers of Alcoa aluminum chairs, which bespoke “the new vogue.” Alcoa created the market for aluminum furniture in the 1920s in an effort to increase demand for its aluminum products. It obviously worked, as all kinds of aluminum chairs and desks became ubiquitous by mid-century, especially in the workplace…

…on to our cartoonists…the Jan. 31, 1931 issue marked a big moment in New Yorker cartoons, as it featured James Thurber’s very first…

…Alan Dunn showed us a man who could not be distracted from financial woes…

…William Steig settled in as a New Yorker regular…

…Carl Rose gave us a lot of sour faces in a bank lobby…

…and Gluyas Williams demonstrated the effects of decaf coffee…

…and before I go, here is a scene from the Third Academy Awards, which are referred to as the 1931 awards, although they were actually held on Nov. 5, 1930 in the Fiesta Room of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles….

Next Time: And the Winner Is…

Ten Cents In Stamps

Like E.B. White, James Thurber and Dorothy Parker who came before him, S. J. Perelman was one of those New Yorker writers whose name would become synonymous with the magazine.

Jan. 24, 1931 cover by William Crawford Galbraith.

Perelman’s first New Yorker article, “Ten Cents in Stamps,” appeared in the Jan. 24, 1931 issue, his subject a collection of self-help and “how to” books he introduced with this Editor’s Note: “Upsetting as it may seem, all the books reviewed in the following article are genuine.”

FOR THE BIRDS…**S. J. Perelman** (1904–1979) sampled Canary Breeding for Beginners among other titles in his first humorous short for *The New Yorker.* The above 1935 photograph was made by **Ralph Steiner**, who recalled “when I made this photograph I said ‘this is a foolish thing for two grown men to be doing with their time,’ Perelman answered: ‘We may be the only two men in the world at this moment not doing harm to anyone.'”(amazon/akronartmuseum.org)

Without further ado, some excerpts…

…Perelman offered us a taste of Martini’s poetic gifts…

MARTINI WITH A TWIST…**S.J. Perelman** wanted “a little tighter thinking” from **Martini, The Palmist**, in his book, *How to Read Eyes.* (Etsy/johnesimpson.com)

…and also sampled the wisdom of Jacob Penn, who wrote a book titled How to Get a Job Through Help Wanted Advertisements. Perelman zeroed in on the book’s appendix, which contained “Successful Model Letters”…

* * *

Dorothy Returns

After a long absence, Dorothy Parker returned to her immensely popular “Reading and Writing” column. Parker had been staying at an alpine sanitorium in Switzerland, providing moral support for her friends Gerald and Sara Murphy while their young son was treated for tuberculosis. Parker had originally fled to Europe (France, specifically) to write her “Great American Novel,” only to end up on the Swiss mountaintop, where she composed a long letter just recently published (2014) under the title Alpine Giggle Week. Back in New York, she returned to her typewriter and released her wit on Charles Noel Douglas, editor of Forty Thousand Sublime and Beautiful Thoughts.

A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS?…**Charles Noel Douglas** had 40,000 of them, **Dorothy Parker** discovered.(amazon/britannica.com)

* * *

A ‘Tables’ Reprise

Lois Long was also back, in a way, reviving her “Tables for Two” column for on a one-off on the city’s Broadway hot-spots…

AFTER THE CURTAIN FALLS on Broadway there were plenty of nighttime diversions to keep theater crowds entertained into the wee hours.Clockwise, from top left, singer-dancer **Frances Williams** worked wonders with **Harry Richman** and his orchestra at the Club Richman; **Bobby Dolan** wielded a smart baton at Barney’s; and crooner **Morton Downey** (pictured with wife and actress **Barbara Bennett**)… lent his golden tenor to adoring crowds at Club Delmonico. The couple spawned the combative star of 1980s “Trash TV” **Morton Downey Jr**. (Pinterest)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We begin with a full page of ads for various Broadway shows…

…and if you wanted to get tickets to one of those shows, here is 1931’s version of StubHub…

…and we are reminded that it is indeed 1931 with overtly racist ads such as this…

…back home, the help isn’t treated much better. “Cook” can suffer as long as the food remains fresh in the gleaming Frigidaire…

…meanwhile, our stylish Camel smokers (illustrated by Carl “Eric” Erickson) are keeping cool on the slopes…

…and perhaps this is the one and only time a painting by Thomas Gainsborough is compared to a tire…

…on to our illustrators and cartoons, the editors tossed in this old spot illustration by H.O. Hofman to fill space on the events page…

…an then we have this spot (sorry, I can’t identify the artist) that imagines disastrous consequences for the Empire State Building’s “mooring mast” (which was never used as such)…

…and Ralph Barton returned to lend his artistry to the theater review section…

…for our cartoons, we begin with Sewell Johnson’s lone contribution to The New Yorker…

…Carl Rose was at the movies…

…Isadore Klein warmed things up in this parlor scene…

…Alan Dunn justified the existence of thriller author Edgar Wallace…

...John Reehill gave us a look at an unlikely radio act (however, from 1936 to 1956 ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy, would be hugely popular radio stars)…

…Rea Irvin paid a visit to the diner in this full-page cartoon…

…and another full-page cartoon from Peter Arno, who looked in on an intimate moment…

Next Time: The Wickersham Sham…

Rise of the Gangster Film

During the early years of the Depression and before censorship guidelines were imposed by the Hays Code, Hollywood cranked out a slew of “Pre-Code” films filled with sex and violence, including 1931’s Little Caesar, the first “talkie” gangster film that defined the genre for decades to come.

Requiem For the Flapper

The Vassar-educated Lois Long was an icon of the flapper generation and a reigning voice—witty and smart—of New York nightlife in the Roaring Twenties.

Jan. 10, 1931 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

In one of her early “Tables for Two” columns, the famously hard-partying Long made this request of her New Yorker readers: “Will someone do me a favor a get me home by eleven sometime? And see that nobody gives a party while I am catching up? I do so hate to miss anything.”

DONT START THE PARTY WITHOUT ME…Carefree days at your neighborhood speakeasy. (Manchester’s Finest)

By the dawn of 1931 few were in the mood for a party, including the 29-year-old Long, who was mother to a toddler and would soon divorce husband and New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno.

But it wasn’t motherhood or a tempestuous marriage that soured Long on the party scene. Rather, blame fell to the whiny, self-absorbed crowd that had displaced her fun-loving Jazz Age revelers. In the Jan. 10, 1931 issue Long began to assess the decade ahead in a six-part series titled “Doldrums.” The first installment, “Bed of Neuroses,” suggests Long missed the joie de vivre that characterized the previous decade:

“It is all so discouraging; so very, very, sad. Six million people in New York, and apparently no one in the white-collar class who can lose himself for a moment in the ecstasy of a roller-coaster. Six million people in New York, and every one of them a curious little study in maladjustment. Thousands of young men who own dinner jackets, and I am always drawing someone who makes scenes in public because he once had a little cat that died and he has never got over it.”

With that, Long’s partying days were officially over. Some excerpts from “Bed of Neuroses”…

SALAD DAYS…Clockwise, from top left, **Lois Long** relaxing on the beach in a image captured from a 1920s home movie; silent film star **Charlie Chaplin,** *Vanity Fair* editor **Frank Crowninshield,** sculptor **Helen Sardeau**, **Lois Long** and screenwriter **Harry D’Arrast** pose in a Coney Island photo booth, 1925; Long with husband Peter Arno and daughter **Patricia**, 1929; Long at the office in a classic flapper pose, circa 1925. (PBS/Joshua Zeitz/Patricia Long/Wikipedia)

Long recalled the days when one could hold his or her liquor…

There has been a trend among the bright young drinkers toward a glass of sherry before meals instead of cocktails, a bottle of wine during dinner, port with the cheese, a liqueur with the coffee — instead of one highball after another.

…and when one’s personal hang-ups remained personal, and were not subject to tedious public display:

Long’s nightlife column, “Tables for Two” folded a few months after the 1929 stock market crash, but she would continue to make unsigned contributions to the “Comments” and “The Talk of the Town” sections into the 1950s. Her main focus at the magazine, however, would be her fashion column, “On and Off the Avenue,” which she would write until 1968. Upon her death in 1974, New Yorker editor William Shawn remarked that Long “was the first American fashion critic to approach fashion as an art and to criticize women’s clothes with independence, intelligence, humor and literary style.”

* * *

The Age of Giants

Architecture critic George S. Chappell took in the grandeur of the nearly completed Empire State Building, which rose from the rubble of the old Waldorf-Astoria hotel and perhaps more than any building served as a giant exclamation point for the 20th century metropolis. Chappell did not buy developers’ claims regarding the building’s “mooring mast,” calling it a “silly gesture” that the building would have been better served without. Looking back from our time, however, it is hard to imagine the building without its distinctive spire:

DIZZY HEIGHTS…Completed in 1931, the Empire State Building stood as the world’s tallest until 1970. Clockwise, from top left, *New Yorker* critic George Chappell viewed the “mooring mast” as a publicity stunt, and believed the building would have been better without it; interior of the building at its grand opening in May 1931; ground-level view of the setbacks Chappell admired; the completed tower in 1931. (lajulak.org/Associated Press/Acme/Pinterest)

Chappell also made note of a neo-Georgian style building designed by Joseph Freedlander for the Museum of the City of New York:

HISTORY’S HOME…The main facade of the Museum of the City of New York facing Fifth Avenue. (Wikipedia)

* * *

Ignoble Deeds

“The Talk of the Town” looked in on some aging veterans of the 19th century “Indian Wars” and found the old coots reminiscing about the massacre of various North American tribes…

NO HARD FEELINGS?…Crow warrior **White Man Runs Him** poses with 82-year-old Gen. Edward Settle Godfrey, a survivor of the Battle of Little Bighorn, at the 50th Anniversary of the battle in 1926. (Wikipedia)

* * *

Cheeky

E.B. White assumed the nom de plume “Eustace Tilley” to answer an earnest query letter from Leslie Fulenwider of Famous Features Syndicate. Fulenwider probably didn’t know what he was in for…

ALTER EGO…**E.B. White** periodically assumed the role of New Yorker mascot Eustace Tilley in handling magazine correspondence.

* * *

Too Cool for School

In his weekly art gallery column, Murdock Pemberton noted the New Year’s Day opening of the New School for Social Research in a “timid landmark” designed by Joseph Urban of theatrical design fame. The school’s boardroom featured a series of murals by realist painter Thomas Hart Benton.

NEW LOOK FOR NEW SCHOOL…**Joseph Urban’s** interpretation of the International Style for the New School for Social Research at 66 West 12th Street.

AMERICAN TABLEAU…Three panels from **Thomas Hart Benton’s** ten-panel mural, *America Today.* Originally installed in the New School’s boardroom, it is now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (charlesmcquillen.com)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

“If you’re to be among this season’s southbound fortunates,” as this ad begins, you’ll want to check out these Bradley bathing suits designed for a variety of privileged personalities…

…but before you hit the beach, you might consider an “Ardena Bath” to take away some of that winter fat…

…this 1932 illustration (below) demonstrates how a full-body, Ardena paraffin wax bath works. An Elizabeth Arden advertisement described the procedure thus: You step into a tub lined with waxed paper. Over you they pour a warm liquid paraffin which slowly hardens until you are encased in a paraffin shell. Your face becomes pink. You are permeated in a sense of well-being. Suddenly, the perspirations bursts from you, for the shell forms a vacuum which causes the pores to open and, consequently, impurities are drawn away…

…on to our cartoons, we have two from William Steig, who produced 2,600 drawings and 117 covers for The New Yorker and whose work would span two centuries, delighting both adults and children alike, most notably the picture book Shrek! that would lead to a hugely successful movie series. According to The Numbers: Where Data and the Movie Business Meet, “after the release of Shrek 2 in 2004, Steig became the first sole-creator of an animated movie franchise that went on to generate over $1 billion from theatrical and ancillary markets after only one sequel.”

Here is Steig’s first New Yorker cartoon, from the Aug. 9, 1930 issue:

…and back to the Jan. 10, 1931 issue, in which Steig offered these glimpses into city life…

…and then have a look into the posh set from New Yorker stalwart Helen Hokinson…

…some bedside manner with Leonard Dove…

…Peter Arno continued to explore the complexities of love…

…and Gardner Rea showed us the softer side of a hardened criminal…

…and before we close I want to bring to your attention to this wonderful New Yorker parody that Peter Binkley recently shared with me. Binkley writes that the Dec. 20, 1930 cover “was the model for a parody issue that friends of my grandparents in the Village made for them when they visited for the holidays. My grandparents had lived in New York for a couple of years but moved away in 1929. They and this group of friends lived in the same building on Morton St., and were fervent New Yorker readers. The parody is interesting, I think, for giving a glimpse of what New Yorker fans below the top-hat-wearing class enjoyed about it at the time.”

Below, left, is the cover of the Dec. 30 issue by Constantin Alajalov, and next to it the terrific parody cover.

…and a couple of the interior pages, with parodies of cartoons by Peter Arno and John Held Jr….

You can check out the full parody issue here.

Next Time: Rise of the Gangster Film…

The Road to 1931

The New Yorker entered its sixth year in 1931, and despite the deepening Depression managed to stay afloat and even gain new subscribers. Perhaps more than ever folks needed that weekly dose of levity the magazine ably supplied.

**Rea Irvin** rang out the old and welcomed the new with back-to-back covers for the Dec. 27, 1930 and Jan. 3, 1931 issues. The second cover commemorated the New York Auto Salon, mentioned later in this blog entry.

That isn’t to say the magazine’s contributors donned rose-colored glasses. Rather, they commiserated with their fellow Americans:

CRANKY COUPLETS…**Ogden Nash** lent his droll verse to the nation’s economic woes. In 1931, while working as an editor at Doubleday, Nash submitted a number of poems to the *New Yorker* and spent three months working on the magazine’s editorial staff. (poeticous.com)

Over the course of 1930 many Americans, including Ogden Nash, woke to the fact that their business and political leaders were ill-suited to lift them out of the economic mess, and were likely responsible for it in the first place. At the top of the list was President Herbert Hoover, who was profiled in The New Yorker in three installments beginning with the Dec. 27 issue. This brief excerpt gives you a glimpse into a very different White House 89 years ago:

The first installment of the profile was accompanied by a Cyrus Baldridge portrait of the president (left), but the final two installments featured a less-than-flattering Abe Birnbaum rendering that first appeared in The New Yorker in the March 2, 1929 issue:

* * *

Vorse Was a Force

Social critic, labor activist and novelist Mary Heaton Vorse (1874–1966) was no fan of Herbert Hoover or wealthy business tycoons, and in the first decades of the 20th century joined with Lincoln Steffens and other muckraking journalists in advocating for social reform. Vorse, however, also had a background in fiction writing and in observational pieces like the one below (excerpts) in which she commented on the rustic old ladies she found everywhere in the city:

FOR THE CAUSE…**Mary Heaton Vorse** (left) with fellow activists preparing to leave on a relief expedition to aid striking Kentucky miners, 1932. At right, a 1925 drawing of Vorse by **Hugo Gellert.** (nysut.org/Smithsonian)

* * *

The Mystic

Before the Beatles made the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi a famed Transcendental Meditation guru in the 1960s, there was George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, a Russian/Greek/Armenian spiritual teacher of the “Fourth Way,” which promised a path to a higher state of consciousness and full human potential. Gurdjieff also enjoyed living in a French chateau and taking trips to New York to share his wisdom with eager Americans, including famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. “The Talk of the Town” had these observations on the visiting mystic:

HE COULD SEE THINGS…**George Ivanovich Gurdjieff,** in an undated photo.

* * *

Sunny Days

Forget about financial woes or spiritual dilemmas. What are you going to wear next summer? Fashion writer Lois Long (“On and Off the Avenue”) asked the question and looked to the south for some answers:

…numerous ads peppered the Dec. 27 issue urging Manhattan’s snowbirds to dress appropriately for the warmer climes…

…and operators of “PlaneTrains” promised to get them there as quickly as possible…

…and if you were headed to Cuba you could stay at the brand new National Hotel…

…here’s what it looked like three years ago when I was in Havana…I can guarantee you the hotel service was WAY better in 1931…

…whether home or abroad, New Yorkers were celebrating the New Year by “dancing to the melodies of Old Vienna” and smoking like chimneys…

…a popular New Year’s Eve destination was the The Roosevelt Hotel, where Guy Lombardo’s orchestra helped ring in the New Year from 1929 (radio’s first nationwide New Year’s Eve broadcast) to 1959…

I stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel in late December, and found Lombardo still presiding over the bar…

…we also find New Year’s revelry in the cartoons, with Mary Petty…

…Isadore Klein…

…Otto Soglow...

…and Leonard Dove…

…and for those who stayed home, we have this scene of domestic bliss from Don Herold…

* * *

On to the Jan. 3, 1931 issue, we have Howard Brubaker (“Of All Things”) waxing sour on the state of the economy…

…so what a better way to cheer up than to look at shiny new cars, especially the ones almost no one could afford? The New Yorker paid another visit to the New York Automobile Salon at the Grand Central Palace…

…according to the article, 1931 was “a streamline year,” and leading the way was the REO motor car company, which despite its innovative ways would drop its car line altogether in 1936 — a casualty of the Depression…

FLOWING FENDERS…The 1931 REO Royale was a trendsetter, introducing streamlining designs. The Great Depression would cause REO to abandon the manufacture of automobiles in 1936. (historicvehicle.org)

…over at the Chrysler Building, which served as that corporation’s headquarters from 1930 until the mid-1950s, new cars were on display on the building’s first two floors…

CATHEDRAL OF CARS…The first two floors of the Chrysler Building served as an auto showroom during the building’s first decade. (Wikipedia/thewelcomeblog.com)

…we segue to our advertisements, many from car companies touting their displays at the New York Automobile Salon. Like REO, Marmon was noted for various innovations, including the introduction of the rear-view mirror. It also manufactured a stunning 16-cylinder automobile that was on display at the 1931 Salon. But also like REO, the Depression proved too much for Marmon, and it was defunct by 1933…

SLEEK…The 1931 Marmon Sixteen. (RM Auctions)

…another car company that would fall to the Depression was the luxury brand Pierce Arrow. Without a lower-priced car in its lineup to provide cash flow, the company ceased operation by 1938…

…by contrast, the Chrysler Corporation had several low-priced models to help it survive the lean years and enable it to produce its luxury model, the Imperial…

ANOTHER FIRST…Chrysler was also known for its innovative ways. A custom version of the Chrysler Imperial Eight included a dictaphone. (hemmings.com)

…the Hudson Motor Car Company is long gone, but in 1930 it was the third largest carmaker after Ford and Chevrolet, and instead of luxury it touted the affordability of its cars, especially its low-priced Essex line, priced $1,000 less than its predecessor from ten years earlier. The $595 Essex would be comparable to a $9,000 to $10,000 car today (by comparison, the 1931 Marmon or Imperial would set you back somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000, roughly equivalent to a $46,000 – $78,000 range today)…

…so let’s say the Depression has wiped you out and you can’t even afford an Essex…well you could try to “smoke your way back to normalcy”…

…or be like this pair, who seem content with their Chesterfields…

…of course the movies were another means of escape from the cruel world, and Paramount’s Publix Theatres promised plenty of sex to ease troubled minds…

PRE-CODE WORLD…During a brief period of the early sound era, many films used both sex and violence to attract audiences to theaters. The Publix Theatres ad above implied that these three films had plenty of sex, or “it” — clockwise, from top left, **Fredric March** ran around in his skivvies in *The Royal Family of Broadway* (1930); **Mary Brian** and **Ina Claire** portrayed acting sisters Gwen and Julie Cavendish in *The Royal Family of Broadway*; **David Manners** and **Ruth Chatterton** shared an embrace in *The Right to Love* (1930); and **Marlene Dietrich** lured a schoolmaster into a life of madness and despair in *The Blue Angel* (1929-30).

…and we close with our cartoonists…Reginald Marsh heralded the new year with this two-page spread depicting the heavens glorifying dental hygiene…

…Leonard Dove inked two cartoons featuring table talk…

…E. McNerney continued The New Yorker tradition of cartoons featuring sugar daddies and gold diggers…

…Gardner Rea pondered the value of kitsch in a regal setting…

…A.S. Foster looked in on a crowd of John Does at a speakeasy…

…and Lillian Reed took us shopping with a very specific request…

Next Time: Requiem For the Flapper…

Happy Holidays 1930

Happy Holidays to readers of A New Yorker State of Mind! We open with an image of Christmas shoppers at 34th and Broadway, circa 1930, and peruse the Dec. 20, 1930 issue of the world’s greatest magazine.

Dec. 20, 1930 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

“Notes and Comment” began with a Christmas message of sorts from E.B. White, his holiday cheer tempered by the Great Depression and the lingering effects of Prohibition…

…Howard Brubaker seconded White’s mood in his “Of All Things” column…

…keeping things on the lighter side was Margaret Fishback, who turned her talents as a poet into a successful career as an ad writer for Macy’s. By the 1930s she was one of the world’s highest-paid female advertising copywriters. For the Dec. 20 issue she offered this holiday ditty:

THANKS MARG...Margaret Fishback, circa 1930s. (Wikipedia)

* * *

More Marlene

Last week we looked at Marlene Dietrich’s breakout performance in The Blue Angel (reviewed by John Mosher in the Dec. 13, 1930 issue) that launched her into international stardom. Although Mosher had some gripes about the film’s dialogue, Dietrich’s performance nevertheless created enough of an impression to warrant a lengthy note on the German star in the Dec. 20 “Talk of the Town”…

I’LL BE BACK…**Marlene Dietrich** in a still from *Shanghai Express*, 1932. (Wikipedia)

Even though John Mosher gave a rather tepid review of The Blue Angel in the Dec. 13 issue, he obviously couldn’t shake it (or Dietrich) from his head, returning to the film and its star in the opening paragraphs of his Dec. 20 cinema column.:

Mosher also observed that new Hollywood version of Dietrich (in 1930’s Morocco) was “far prettier” than the German version. You decide:

The German Marlene Dietrich in Ufa’s The Blue Angel…

…and the Hollywood Dietrich in Paramount’s Morocco (with Gary Cooper)…

…on to our advertising…Dietrich pops up again in this ad for Publix Theatres (which were owned by Paramount)…

…the same ad block also featured light fare, such as 1930’s Tom Sawyer…

AIN’T THEY CUTE?...Mitzi Green as Becky Thatcher and **Jackie Coogan** as Tom Sawyer in 1930’s Tom Sawyer. Jackie was a famous star by 1930, thanks to his co-starring performance with Charlie Chaplin in 1921’s *The Kid.* In adult life Coogan would play Uncle Fester in TV’s *The Addams Family.* Green would have less success, and retire from films in the 1950s. (IMDB)

…not all advertisers were thinking about Christmas, but rather were turning their sights to the southern climes and the fashions they would require…here’s an appeal from Burdine’s of Miami…

…and Fifth Avenue’s Bonwit Teller…

…travel agencies created enticing scenes such as this to lure snowbirds to places like Bermuda…

…of course in those depressed times you had to be a person of means to spend your winters in the Caribbean, or to surprise your family with a new Buick for the holidays…

…and for those stuck at home, they had to console themselves with bootleg liquor, perhaps jazzed up with one of these “flavors”…

…but if you were in the holiday spirit, you might head to the Roosevelt for New Years Eve with Guy Lombardo…

…once again, the issue was sprinkled with spot drawings on the holiday theme…

…and our cartoonists, Garrett Price at the doctor…

…E. McNerney in Atlantic City during off-season…

…Al Frueh, and the clash of modern aesthetics with Christmas traditions…

…and for those in that last, desperate holiday crush, we close with Alan Foster…

Next Time: The Road to 1931…

A Blue Angel

The German actor Emil Jannings was well-known to American audiences when The Blue Angel (Der blaue Engel) premiered at New York’s Rialto Theatre. Although the film was created as a vehicle for the Academy Award-winning Jannings (he won the Academy’s first-ever best actor award in 1929), it was the little-known Marlene Dietrich who stole the show and made it her ticket to international stardom.

Dec. 13, 1930 cover by **Ralph Barton,** surprisingly his only cover for *The New Yorker.* The illustration sadly belies Barton’s state of mind at the time; he would take his own life the following spring.

New Yorker film critics, including John Mosher, generally found foreign films, particularly those of German or Russian origin, to be superior to the treacle produced in Hollywood, and Jannings was a particular favorite, delivering often heart-wrenching performances in such silent dramas as The Last Laugh (1924) and The Way of All Flesh (1927). In those films he depicted once-proud men who fell on hard times, and such was the storyline for The Blue Angel, in which a respectable professor falls for a cabaret singer and descends into madness.

NO CONTEST…**Emil Jannings** had star billing for the English language version of **Josef von Sternberg’s** *The Blue Angel,* but it was **Marlene Dietrich’s** portrayal of cabaret singer Lola Lola that stole the show. (IMDB)

I was surprised by Mosher’s somewhat tepid review of this landmark film, which was shot simultaneously in German and English (with different supporting casts in each version). He referenced “bum dialogue,” which was doubtless the result of German actors struggling with English pronunciations. Filmed in 1929, it is considered to be Germany’s first “talkie.”

PRIDE BEFORE THE FALL…A proud and stern schoolmaster named Immanuel Rath (**Emil Jannings)** falls for cabaret singer Lola Lola (**Marlene Dietrich**), and from there his life unravels; he loses the respect of his pupils, then resigns his post to marry Lola. To make ends meet, Rath tries to sell racy photos of his wife, and then becomes a clown in her troupe and is regularly humiliated on stage. Destitute, he dies at the end of the film. (IMDB)

* * *

All Wet

Sergei Tretyakov’s avant-garde play Roar China made an impression on The New Yorker for the striking realism of its set, which featured an 18,000-gallon tank of water onstage at the Martin Beck Theatre. “The Talk of the Town” described some of the demands of the production:

STAYING AFLOAT…The elaborate set for Roar China featured a model battleship in 18,000 gallons of water.

ROAR CHINA! was an anti-imperialist play depicting the Wanhsien Incident during the Chinese Civil War. Many in the Chinese cast members were non-professional actors. (New York Public Library)

* * *

By Any Other Name

Like many college football teams in first decades of the 20th century, Notre Dame was referred to by a number of nicknames, including the “Fighting Irish.” In this “Talk of the Town” item, however, the team was known as the “Ramblers.” According to the University of Notre Dame, this nickname (along with “The Rovers”) was considered something of an insult: “(Knute) Rockne’s teams were often called the Rovers or the Ramblers because they traveled far and wide, an uncommon practice before the advent of commercial airplanes. These names were also an insult to the school, meant to suggest it was more focused on football than academics.”

RAMBLERS NO MORE…The 1930 National Champion Notre Dame football team. (nd.edu)

* * *

The Wright Stuff

Eric Hodgins penned a profile of aviation pioneer Orville Wright, who just 27 years earlier made a historic “first flight” with his brother, Wilbur, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. An excerpt:

DRESSED FOR SUCCESS: Aviation pioneer **Orville Wright** (1871 – 1958) sits in one of his biplanes dressed in a three-piece suit and a cap, Dayton, Ohio, 1909. (ge.com)

* * *

No Love Parade, This

French singer and actor Maurice Chevalier made his Hollywood debut in 1928 and quickly soared to stardom in America. French audiences, however, were not so easily swayed, especially the elite patrons Chevalier faced, alone on the stage, at the cavernous Théâtre du Châtelet. Janet Flanner explained in this dispatch from Paris:

THEY LIKE ME IN TINSELTOWN…**Jeanette MacDonald** and **Maurice Chevalier** in *The Love Parade* (1929). (IMDB)

GULP…**Maurice Chevalier** faced a tough crowd — his compatriots — at Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet. (en.parisinfo.com)

* * *

Man’s Best Friend

The New Yorker’s book section recommended the latest from Rudyard Kipling, Thy Servant a Dog…

WOOF…Illustrations for **Rudyard Kipling’s** *Thy Servant a Dog,* by **Marguerite Kirmse.** (Etsy)

* * *

Fun and Games

As an extension to her fashion column, Lois Long shared some recommendations for holiday cocktail-party games:

KEEPING THINGS MERRY…Pokerette and Gee-Wiz were popular cocktail party diversions during the Christmas season of 1930. (Worthpoint/Invaluable)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We start with this ad from Horace Liveright promoting Peter Arno’s third cartoon collection, Hullaballoo, featuring one of Arno’s leering old “Walruses”…

…Doubleday Doran offered a few selections for last-minute Christmas shoppers, led by the Third New Yorker Album…

…The UK’s Harold Searles Thorton invented the table top game we now call “foosball” in 1921 and had it patented in 1923. Below is possibly the game’s first appearance in the U.S. — an ad for a “new” game called “Kikit.” Foosball would be slow to catch on, but would rapidly gain popularity in Europe in the 1950s and in the U.S. in the 1970s…