Widely acknowledged as a classic, The 39 Steps further solidified British director Alfred Hitchcock’s image as a master of suspense with American film audiences.
September 14, 1935 cover by Helen Hokinson. Over a twenty-year span, she contributed 68 covers and more than 1,800 cartoons to The New Yorker.
A successful follow up to 1934’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps was conceived and cast by the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation as a vehicle to establish British films in America. The film also featured one of Hitchcock’s favorite plot devices—an innocent man forced to go on the run—seen in such notable films as 1942’s Saboteur and 1959’s North by Northwest.New Yorker film critic John Mosher was among the film’s many admirers:
WE’LL TAKE THE STAIRS…Clockwise, from top left, poster for The 39 Steps; Alfred Hitchcock (second from right) directing the handcuffed Madeleine Carroll (as Pamela) and Robert Donat (as Richard Hannay) on the first day of filming; Hannay evades police on the heath; Pamela and Richard make the best of their predicament as handcuffed escapees. (Wikipedia/jimcarrollsblog.com/criterion.com)
* * *
Pop-Up Stores
“The Talk of the Town” had a look at the “madhouse” on Nassau Street that daily erupted from noon to 2 p.m. as peddlers took over the street to hawk their wares.
IF WE DON’T HAVE IT, YOU DON’T NEED IT…Hester Street peddlers in 1936. Photo by Berenice Abbott. (boweryboyshistory.com)
* * *
Art of the Artless
James Thurber dissected the workings of a “bad play,” examining varied techniques and familiar tropes. Excerpts:
…below is the complete illustration for Fig. 4, which got cut off in the excerpt above…Thurber depicted “the elderly lady who is a good sport, a hard drinker, and an authority on sex.”
* * *
The Petulant Painter
Known for a primitive style that included bizarre scenes of frolicking (or floating) voluptuous nudes, the painter Louis Michel Eilshemius (1864–1941) had a style all his own, and had no trouble telling anyone that his work was better than anything hanging in the finest museums (which would not consider him at all until after his death). In 1931 he began calling himself “Mahatma,” hence the title of this profile by Milton MacKaye (illustration by Hugo Gellert). Some brief excerpts:
IRASCIBLE RASCAL…Clockwise, from top left, Louis Michel Eilshemius in 1913; Standing and Reclining Nymphs (1908), Self-portrait (1915); Nymphs Sleeping (1920). Known for his numerous and vitriolic letters to newspaper editors, his letterheads would proclaim such accomplishments as “Educator, Ex-actor, Amateur All-around Doctor, Mesmerist-Prophet and Mystic, Reader of Hands and Faces, Linguist of 5 languages, Spirit-Painter Supreme.” He also claimed to be a world-class athlete and marksman as well as a musician who rivaled Chopin. (Wikipedia/Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery)
Eilshemius regularly visited art galleries, loudly condemning the works on display. No wonder museums would not consider his odd paintings, which were probably best received by the French, including the artists Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp; the latter invited Eilshemius to exhibit with him in Paris in 1917.
Eilshemius’ mental stability had deteriorated substantially by the time MacKaye wrote the profile, which concluded with this sad, final accounting of the man’s life.
Eilshemius would die in the psychopathic ward of Bellevue Hospital in 1941. In the years since, his work has gained a wide audience and can be found in such collections as the Smithsonian, The Phillips Collection, MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
SINGULAR VISION…Louis Michel Eilshemius, Afternoon Wind, 1899. (MoMA)
* * *
In Good Company
In her “Letter From Paris,” Janet Flanner noted that even the French honored the memory of Will Rogers, who had died in a plane crash with aviator Wiley Post on Aug. 15, 1935.
NOTED AND NOTABLE…As an example of Will Rogers’ worldwide fame, Janet Flanner noted that the Paris entertainment newspaper Comœdia published Rogers’ obituary next to that of famed neoimpressionist painter Paul Signac. The other obituary remembered the renowned Swiss soprano Lucienne Bréval. (gallica.bnf.fr via onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu)
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At the Movies
Coming down from The 39 Steps,John Mosher also sampled some of latest comedies gracing the silver screen…
…Mosher didn’t understand why Marion Davies, nearing the end of her film career, even bothered to appear in the romantic comedy Page Miss Glory (although she was also the producer), in which she portrayed a country girl who stumbles into fame while working as a chambermaid in a luxury hotel…
JUST LIKE CINDERELLA…Marion Davies and Pat O’Brien in Page Miss Glory. (IMDB)
…Two For Tonight featured a lot of fine crooning from Bing Crosby, and some hijinks, but fizzled out in the end…
Bing Crosby (right) takes aim in Two For Tonight. (IMDB)
…of the three comedies, Mosher found The Gay Deception to be the most winning. Directed by William Wyler, the film featured a sweepstakes winner pretending to be a rich lady (Frances Dee) who encounters a prince masquerading as a bellboy (Francis Lederer)…hilarity ensued…
THE WYLER TOUCH…William Wyler’s The Gay Deception, starring Francis Lederer (left) and Frances Dee, anticipated Wyler’s 1953 Roman Holiday, also a tale about a royal wanting to be a normal person. (letterboxd.com)
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From Our Advertisers
We welcome fall with the latest fashion from Forstmann Woolens…
…and here is where those wool dresses were spun…
Image from the National Archives depicts the spinning room at Forstmann & Huffman in Passaic, N.J., 1918. The Passaic plant closed in 1958. (Historical Society of Garfield, NJ)
…the makers of leaded gasoline continued to promote their product in full-color spots…
…General Tire (like competitor Goodyear) played up the safety theme and potential perils to loved ones to tout their “blow-out proof” tires…
…like many advertisers in The New Yorker, United Air Lines appealed to the affluent, hoping some of them would take to the air, since only they could afford it…
…for reference…
COZY…Interior of the Boeing 247. (Wikimedia Commons)
…Abe Birnbaum, who contributed nearly 200 covers to the New Yorker, offered this rendition of Mickey Mouse to Stage magazine…
…heading to the back of the book we find the latest in entertainment at the Plaza…
…James Thurber contributed the drawing at left (rendered in negative) on behalf of Libby’s tomato juice on page 75, and page 80 featured the spare, modern lines of a Cinzano ad…
…our cartoonists include Richard Decker, on the set with a missing extra…
…Charles Addams offered a new twist on the Sunday sermon…
…Peter Arno found an epic struggle in the shoe department…
…Robert Day offered this energy-saving tip…
…and we close with Helen Hokinson, and a lively game of charades…
Morris Markey embodied the ideal of “A Reporter at Large,” and for his Sept. 7 column he decided to stroll the steamy streets of Manhattan on a late summer night, finding the sidewalks alive with folks seeking a break from their stifling dwellings.
September 7, 1935 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
Markey (1899-1950) began “Summer Night” by describing a bus ride from Midtown to Washington Square with (I assume) his wife, Helen Turman Markey. They enjoyed the breeze atop the bus as they passed Central Park and heard the faint strains of music in the air.
FINAL NOTES…Morris Markey thought he heard music coming from the Central Park Casino (left) on that hot summer night; it would prove to be one of the Casino’s last summer nights since Robert Moses would have it demolished the following May; at right, Adolf Dehn lithograph Central Park at Night, 1934. (NYC Parks/Art Institute of Chicago)AMID THE BUSTLE the Markeys hopped off the bus at Washington Square and set out on foot. At left, Washington Square by night, 1945; at right, cacophony on Fifth Avenue, circa 1940. (Facebook)
The scenes described by Markey offer a glimpse of what has changed and what still remains of Manhattan night life after ninety years.
GO BLOW YOUR HORN…Something taxis did then and do now; Markey described folks looking at hats in a shop window, probably similar to this 1930s store at right. (theguardian.com/Pinterest)
They concluded their stroll on the Lower East Side, where Markey noted a tenement clearance project on Allen Street. Considered one of the most densely populated places in the world, the street was widened by demolishing all of the buildings on its east side from Division to Houston Street.
HERE COMES THE SUN…The densely populated Allen Street was called “a place where the sun never shines.” The narrow street was mostly under the shadow of the elevated train tracks until it was widened in 1930s by demolishing all of buildings on its east side. Photo at left shows the public bath at 133 Allen Street (now used as a church). The demolition project, and the removal of the overhead “El” tracks in 1942, created a broad thoroughfare with a meridian mall in the center, as seen in the bottom photo of the intersection of Allen and Delancey circa 1950. (mcny.org/leshp.org/Facebook)
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At the Movies
Film critic John Mosher finally found a film he could gush about in Anna Karenina, and most notably its star Greta Garbo, who in Mosher’s words “sets the pace and the tone for the whole thing.” Mosher was not alone in his praise: Writing for The Spectator in 1935, Graham Greene wrote that Garbo’s acting in the film overwhelmed the acting of all the supporting cast save that of Basil Rathbone. This observation was later echoed by Roland Barthes, who wrote in 1957 that Garbo belonged “to that moment in cinema when the apprehension of the human countenance plunged crowds into the greatest perturbation, where people literally lost themselves in the human image.” Here is Mosher’s review:
GARBO AND THE OTHERS…Greta Garbo dominated the screen in 1935’s Anna Karenina. Clockwise, from top left, MGM poster for the film; Garbo with Fredric March as Anna’s lover, Count Vronksy; Garbo with Basil Rathbone, who portrayed Anna’s husband Karenin, and child actor Freddie Bartholomew as their son, Sergei; Maureen O’Sullivan took a break from the Tarzan films to portray Anna’s friend Kitty (here with Gyles Isham as Levin). (filmforum.org/Wikipedia/IMDB)
As Mosher noted, Garbo also portrayed Anna Karenina in the 1927 silent film Love, in which she co-starred with John Gilbert as Count Vronsky.
BEEN HERE BEFORE…Greta Garbo as Anna Karenina and John Gilbert as Count Vronsky in the 1927 silent film Love, the second of four films they made together. They were also lovers off-screen in the 1920s, but with the advent of sound pictures her star rose as his began to fall; in their last film together, Queen Christina (1933), Garbo insisted that Gilbert be cast opposite her in a final attempt to revive his declining career. He essentially drank himself to an early grave, dying of a heart attack in January 1936. (rottentomatoes.com)
Mosher also enjoyed the dance moves of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Top Hat (although it could have used less “patter and piffle”), and brought out his hankie for The Dark Angel, where he once again encountered the acting of Fredric March.
DEFYING GRAVITY…Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire made their complex dance moves look effortless as they glided through Top Hat, the fourth of ten films they made together. (americancinematheque.com)TEARS FOR FEARS…Fredric March and Merle Oberon portrayed old friends and lovers facing a rival lover and the horrors of World War I in the 1935 weeper The Dark Angel. (rottentomatoes.com)
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From Our Advertisers
We begin with a splash of color from the makers of Imperial washable wallpapers…not sure why a wire fox terrier is featured in the advertisement…they were a popular breed, and maybe Fido was the reason one needed washable walls…
…White Rock rolled out their tiny Colonel to promote mineral water as an ideal mixer…
…ever heard of Victor Moore?…well, he was quite the comedian back in the day, playing timid, mild-mannered characters on stage and screen…Moore (1876-1962) was also famous for his 1942 marriage to dancer Shirley Paige when Moore was 65 and Paige was 20…
…Camel rolled out another high society endorser, Maude Adele Brookfield van Rensselaer (1904-1945)…her color image is a watercolor by Leslie Saalburg…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with spot art by Abe Birnbaum…
and Maurice Freed…
…also in the opening pages this wordless contribution by James Thurber…
…Gluyas Williams found this midday repast anything but relaxing…
…Otto Soglow found a new “man’s best friend”…
…Denys Wortman encountered some frank advice at the cosmetics counter…
…Helen Hokinson found appreciation for the “strong and silent” acting style…
…Peter Arno gave us a department store clerk in need of some time off…
…and we close with Richard Decker, finding some truth in advertising…
Above: Will Rogers (with hat) visits with pilot Wiley Post near Fairbanks, Alaska, hours before their fatal crash on August 15, 1935. (okhistory.org)
It would be a challenge to find a place for a multi-talented, mega-star like Will Rogers in today’s over-saturated and segmented media landscape—he was a trick roper, vaudevillian, social commentator, comedian, journalist, author, and radio and film celebrity. His early fame on the vaudeville circuit, including the Ziegfeld Follies, would spark a film career in 1918 (he would appear in 71 films), and a 1922 town hall speech would lead to a nationally syndicated newspaper column. When radio became a nationwide phenomenon his voice could heard coast-to-coast. He was seemingly everywhere.
August 31, 1935 cover by Harry Brown. Brown illustrated eighteen covers for The New Yorker.
Rogers (1879-1935) was also a big promoter of aviation, and he gave his audiences many entertaining accounts of his world travels. In the summer of 1935 he announced plans to join famed aviator Wiley Post (1898-1935) on a flight to Alaska and beyond. It appeared to be routine, making the trip’s tragic ending all the more poignant.
Although E.B. White often seemed stuck in the past—he preferred Model Ts and rattily omnibuses to more more modern conveyances—he was a flying enthusiast, never missing a chance to hop aboard an airplane and marvel at the scene far below. However, when tragedy struck, White would become circumspect. When Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne’s Fokker Trimotor crashed into a Kansas wheatfield, White expressed doubts about air safety and pondered “safer” alternatives such as autogiros (a kind of early helicopter that wasn’t so safe or practical). Such doubts returned in his “Notes and Comment” for August 31, 1935:
The fated aircraft, a Lockheed Orion, was heavily modified by Post into a floatplane; one wing was even salvaged from a wrecked Explorer (an older Lockheed model). The pontoon floats he attached were also designed for a larger aircraft, which made the nose-heavy Orion even more unwieldy.
BUILT FOR SPEED…A Lockheed Model 9 Orion parked at Boeing Field, Seattle, in May 1935. With 200-mph speed, the single-engine passenger aircraft (5 to 6 passengers) was faster than any American military aircraft of the time. It was Lockheed’s last aircraft to use wood construction in the frame, which was lightweight but not designed for longevity on major airlines. (James Borden Photography Collection)TIGHT QUARTERS….Interior view of a Lockheed Orion 9. No doubt much of the passenger space was loaded with gear for the trip to Alaska. (James Borden Photography Collection)
When Post and Rogers arrived in Juneau, local bush pilots doubtfully regarded the Orion and asked Rogers about the flight plan. “Wiley and I are like a couple of country boys in an old Ford—don’t know where we’re going and don’t care,” he said. They were actually headed to Point Barrow, and from there planned to hop over to Siberia.
After stopping in Fairbanks they set off for Point Barrow in bad weather. Lost in the murk, they landed short of their destination in the shallow waters of Walakpa Lagoon, fifteen or so miles southwest of Point Barrow. Post and Rogers then took off—despite warnings from locals about the conditions. But the weather wasn’t the worst problem: Post had a bad habit of taking to the air in an abrupt, steep climb, which likely caused the engine to stall. Powerless, the ungainly aircraft plunged into the lagoon and landed on its top. Post and Rogers were killed instantly.
JUST A COUPLE OF COUNTRY BOYS…Top photo, Will Rogers on the wing of the Lockheed floatplane belonging to famed aviation pioneer Wiley Post, hours before their fatal crash on August 15, 1935. Below photo, inverted wreckage of the float plane in Walakpa Lagoon. (Wikipedia/vintageaviationnews.com)
Rather than eulogize the fallen Rogers, “The Talk of Town” offered up an anecdote about his rise as a newspaper columnist, which was sparked by a backhanded endorsement speech:
A HUMAN FACE…Top left, Will Rogers backstage with the 1924 Ziegfeld Follies cast. At right, Rogers made his film debut in the now lost silent film Laughing Bill Hyde (1918) with co-star Anna Lehr. The magazine ad at right quoted producer Rex Beach, who called Rogers “the most human player who ever faced a camera.” (Will Rogers Memorial Museum/Wikipedia/IMDB)FINAL CURTAIN…Top photo, Will Rogers with co-star Anne Shirley in Steamboat Round the Bend. Rogers wrapped filming just before heading to Alaska. The film was released posthumously on September 6,1935. Bottom image is a detail from a full-page ad in the October 1935 issue of Picture Play Magazine. Oddly, the ad makes no mention of Rogers’ death, proclaiming that “Will blazes a new path in his screen career as he scores his greatest triumph!” (theretrorocket.blogspot.com/IMDB)
* * *
Putting it Mildly
In “Onward & Upward With the Arts,” H.L. Mencken continued to explore the quirks of American language, this time looking at the pervasive (and evasive) use of euphemisms by “professional uplifters.” Excerpts:
INTELLIGENCE TEST was suggested by “professional uplifters” as a polite replacement for giving someone “The Third Degree.” Image is from the 1941 noir thriller I Wake Up Screaming, starring Victor Mature, pictured here getting his “intelligence test.” (cinematography.com)
* * *
At the Movies
We join film critic John Mosher to take a look at the latest epic from Cecil B. DeMille,The Crusades, which to Mosher’s disappointment was a rather mild epic, with little to astonish. However, our critic did find something to admire in a more recent historical drama, Diamond Jim.
ANTISEPTIC EPIC?…Clockwise, from top left, movie poster for The Crusades offered up an image one typically does not associate with religious warfare, but you had to bring ’em in somehow; Henry Wilcoxon and Ian Keith in a scene from the film; co-stars Loretta Young as Berengaria of Navarre and Wilcoxon as Richard the Lionheart; the film also featured Joseph Schildkraut as Conrad of Montferrat and Katherine DeMille as Princess Alice of France (bottom left). A talented actress, Katherine reportedly landed the role as a Christmas gift from her adoptive father, Cecil B. DeMille. (cecilbdemille.com)HEY BIG SPENDER…At right, Edward Arnold in the title role (here with Eric Blore) in Diamond Jim. At left, Cesar Romero moves in on Diamond Jim’s love interest, portrayed by Jean Arthur. (Rotten Tomatoes/IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
We begin with this advertisement from Lord & Taylor, featuring the latest fall fashions for young women heading to college…notable here is the inclusion of Mickey Mouse in the illustration…the animated rodent was in vogue as much the latest fashions…
…John Hanrahan, whose advertising savvy helped guide The New Yorker through its lean early years, was publisher of the richly designed Stage magazine, promoted here on the inside front cover…
…soft drink giant Coca-Cola recalled its soda fountain origins in this ad that promoted its 6.5-ounce bottled product…
…on the inside back cover Goodyear continued its series of perilous ads illustrating the dangers of tire blowouts (but not the obvious hazard of children riding untethered in a rumble seat, where they doubtless inhaled all manner of noxious fumes)…
…the majority of back covers in 1935 featured tobacco companies…here we learn that Lucky Strikes were more than cigarette; they were your “best friend”…
…on to our cartoonists, we start with this “Profile” illustration by William Steig…the profile was a two-parter featuring a clever summons server…
…Adolph Dehn adorned the “Goings On” section with this illustration…
…unsigned, but I’m pretty sure this is H.O. Hofman…
…here we get a lift from Robert Day…
…Al Frueh conjured up a nightmare of leaping sheep…
…Helen Hokinson gave us some famous footwear…
…Hokinson again, with Romulus and Remus providing a convenient metaphor…
…Kemp Starrett was bogged down in the rules of a game…
…George Price discovered a budding talent…
…Richard Decker took to the back roads…(reminds me of a scene from The Long, Long Trailerwith Lucy and Desi)…
…James Thurber raised a glass to a dry do-gooder…
…Alan Dunn brought an unexpected windfall to Westchester…
…and to close we Dunn again, and a bit of flattery…
City life is a noisy life, especially in places like Manhattan, one of the most densely populated places in the world.
August 24, 1935 cover by Rea Irvin.
In his “Notes and Comment” column, E.B. White described the occasional “intestinal stoppage” of traffic outside The New Yorker’s offices at West 45th Street, an entire block “laden with undischarged vehicles, the pangs of congestion increasing till every horn is going—a united, delirious scream of hate, every decibel charged with a tiny drop of poison.”
ABOVE THE FRAY…E.B. White with his pet dachshund Minnie at the West 45th Street offices of The New Yorker. (New York Times)AND DON’T CALL ME SHIRLEY…New York City’s Commissioner of Health, Shirley Wynne (right), created a Noise Abatement Commission in 1929. After eight months of research the Commission published City Noise, which included recommendations for a quieter city. (Wikipedia/trevianbooks.com)
The city began addressing the problem in 1929, when New York City’s Commissioner of Health, Shirley Wynne (1882-1942), created a Noise Abatement Commission, likely the first such commission in the U.S. The Commission cited the “mounting roar and crash of traffic, building, manufacture and sundry other noises which have accompanied the growth of the city.” After eight months of research the Commission published City Noise, which included recommendations for a quieter city.
URBAN CHORUS…A chart featured in City Noise depicted some of sources of noise in New York City.PIPE DOWN!…Clockwise, from top left: The Noise Abatement Commission took to the streets with a municipal acoustics-measuring truck in 1930; cartoon in the New York Herald Tribune illustrated the challenge ahead; Commission officials conducting noise tests in Times Square, circa 1930; poster circa 1936 promoted Mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s anti-noise drives. A 1936 noise code put sound restrictions on everything from radios to the “prolonged and unreasonable blowing of a horn.” A first offense cost $1; the second, if committed within the next year, $2. (hii-mag.com/Bloomberg.com/NYTimes.com)
Not one to leave a stone unturned, White also added this note about the noisy doors on Pullman train car toilets…
Here are the Otto Soglow spot drawings that accompanied the “Talk” piece:
Final note: A colorful exploration of sound can be found on the One Thousand Birds site,Hii Magazine.Check it out!
* * *
Puff Pushers
Tobacco companies like Philip Morris have long been savvy in finding ways to expand their market, including taking their product directly to the consumer, as “The Talk of the Town” explained in this entry:
SMOKE FREE…Sample pack of Philip Morris cigarettes, circa 1930s. (Ebay)
* * *
A Rare Glimpse
Before Roger Angell started writing about baseball in 1962, there wasn’t a whole lot written about the sport in the pages of The New Yorker. In the magazine’s early years, the game was probably perceived as too low-brow, while other athletic pursuits such as golf, tennis, and polo were more in line with the desired or perceived readership. Early contributors such as Ring Lardner had also soured on the sport, thanks to the Black Sox Scandal of 1919 and the greed of team owners. So here is a rare look at baseball, and Yankee coach Joe McCarthy (1887-1978), in “The Talk of the Town.” Excerpts:
BRONX BOMBERS…Coach Joe McCarthy (center) with sluggers Lou Gehrig, left, and Babe Ruth during the 1932 World Series. The first manager to win pennants in both the National and American leagues, McCarthy’s teams would win a total nine league pennants and seven World Series championships. (CARLI Digital Collections)
* * *
Music Under the Stars
The monumental Lewisohn Stadium was a popular classical music venue on the City College of New York campus until its unfortunate demolition in 1973. According to BBC Music Magazine, “for nearly half a century, Lewisohn Stadium gave people from all walks of life the chance to hear performances by the likes of violinist Fritz Kreisler, soprano Leontyne Price and clarinettist Benny Goodman for as little as 25 cents admission. The New Yorker paid a visit during eighteenth season of the Stadium Concerts. Excerpts:
CLASSICAL MASSES…At left, cover of the 1935 Stadium Concerts Review; at right, Andre Kostelanetz conducts before a crowd of thousands at Lewisohn Stadium in 1939. The stadium was demolished in 1973 to make way for City College of New York’s North Academic Center. SeeThe New York Philharmonic Archive for the complete digital version of the 1935 Stadium Concerts Review. (NY Philharmonic Archive/PressReader.com)
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At the Movies
Film critic John Mosher continued to search in vain for a film he could endorse, but he came away empty-handed after screening a star-studded screen adaptation of Jack London’s novel The Call of the Wild. Star power also fell short for Mosher in the screen version of Booth Tarkington’sAlice Adams.
SMALL TALK…The film adaption of Booth Tarkington’sAlice Adams seemed to have all of the right elements in place, including director George Stevens and stars Katharine Hepburn and Fred MacMurray (left), but critic John Mosher found it somewhat average. In a 1991 retrospective review, however, The New Yorker’sPauline Kael deemed the romantic comedy “a classic” and stated that “Hepburn gives one of her two or three finest performances.” At right, the character of Alice Adams was first portrayed on the silver screen by Florence Vidor in a 1923 silent film. (Toronto Film Society/Wikipedia)THE BIG CHILL…Clockwise, from top left, Clark Gable and Loretta Young brave the Yukon wilds (actually Washington State) in The Call of the Wild; Jack Oakie provided comic relief as Gable’s sidekick Shorty Hoolihan; Young watches the filming of a scene on location at Mt. Baker National Forest; Gable shoots a scene with the St. Bernard Buck. (IMDB/Wikimedia)CLARK’S BEST FRIEND…Dog lover Clark Gable became very close with Buck during the filming of The Call of the Wild. Buck appeared in seven more films from 1935 to 1940, even receiving star billing as “Buck the Wonder Dog.” (Facebook/Pinterest)
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From Our Advertisers
Colorful ads returned to the August 24 issue, featuring familiar sponsors who could afford full-page, full-color spots, namely tobacco and liquor producers…Camel was back with their athletic theme, however they might have chosen someone other than Bill Tilden, who looked perfectly ancient…
…Old Gold returned with another George Petty-illustrated ad…
…Courvoisier cognac took the back page spot…
…Powers Reproduction showed off their color printing expertise…I wonder if that is a Lucky she is smoking…
…because I believe she is the same woman who appeared in this ad from the July 27 issue:
…back to August 24, where we were encouraged to enjoy a Johnny Walker highball to stave off the late summer heat…
…the distinctive crown of Hotel Windemere on the Upper West Side was an eye-catcher even in this one-column ad from the back of the book…photo at right from around the time it was completed, 1927…
…on to our cartoonists, an unexpected profile caricature by William Steig (this two-part profile featured process-server Harry Grossman)…
…interesting spot drawings by George Shellhase (top) and Leonard Dove (bottom right), and at left, two by Christina Malman…
…Malman (1912-1959) produced at least two-dozen covers for The New Yorker between 1937 and 1956, including this gem from 1941:
…some baby names have real meaning, according to Alan Dunn…
…Peter Arno offered caution about dancing with a prickly Colonel…
…Fritz Wilkinson answered one cat call high above the city…
…Franz Shubert met Busby Berkeley, via Carl Rose…
…George Price persisted in threading a needle…
…Robert Day gave us a pacifist of sorts in a game of tug-of-war…
…Burma Shave jingles seemed to be everywhere in the 1930s, per Alain…
…An example of replica Burma Shave signs along Route 66:
(roadsideamerica.com)
…some parenting tips came our way via Helen Hokinson…
The 1935 film She was one of those old movies you’d see on television during the 1970s when there were only three or four channels (plus UHF) and local stations would tap into the “B” movie vault to fill airtime. One of those films was She.
August 3, 1935 cover by Helen Hokinson.
Film critic John Mosher felt a bit sorry for Helen Gahagan, who portrayed “She Who Must Be Obeyed” (aka “She”)—an immortal who ruled an exotic, lost civilization near the Arctic Circle. The challenge for Gahagan was to seem imperious before her co-stars Randolph Scott and Helen Mack, who seemed more suited to the high school hijinks of an Andy Hardy picture. The film was a pretty standard adventure tale, in the mold of producer Marian C. Cooper’s 1933 King Kong, with two explorers falling in love during a perilous journey.
ARCHETYPE…At left, Helen Gahagan as “She” (Who Must Be Obeyed). Her costume possibly inspired the Evil Queen in Disney’s 1937 animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. At right, lobby card that promoted the film. (Scifist.net/Reddit)WHEN YOU PLAY WITH FIRE…She Who Must Be Obeyed (Helen Gahagan), believing that the explorer Leo Vincey (Randolph Scott) was a reincarnation of his ancestor (whom she loved), and jealous of his girlfriend Tanya (Helen Mack), invites Leo to join her in the eternal flame. Unfortunately, her re-entry into the flame that gave her immortality turned her into a dying, withered crone. (The Nitrate Diva/Scifist.net)
The 1887 H. Rider Haggard novel, She, inspired eponymous silent films in 1908, 1911, 1916, 1917, and 1925. The 1935 film reviewed here received tepid reviews and lost money on its first release, however in a 1949 re-release it fared much better. She was re-made in 1965 with Ursula Andress in the lead role, and again in 1984 in a post-apocalyptic film that had virtually nothing to do with Haggard’s novel.
SHE THROUGH THE YEARS…Clockwise, from top left, “She” (Marguerite Snow) offers a dagger to Leo Vincey (James Cruze) in a 1911 two-reel (24 min.) adaptation; Valeska Suratt as “She” in the 1917 film (now lost); Betty Blythe took the title role in the 1925 production, considered to be the most faithful to the 1887 H. Rider Haggard novel; Sandahl Bergman appeared dressed for a Jazzercise video in the 1984 post-apocalyptic She; and finally, Ursula Andress and John Richardson in the 1965 CinemaScope production of She. (Wikipedia / digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu / cultcelebrities.com / Reddit)
* * *
Colonial Ambitions
With most of Africa carved up by other European powers (Britain, France, Belgium etc.) in the 19th century, Italy set its sights on Ethiopia, which by the end of the 19th century was the only independent country left on the continent. Ethiopia fought off Italy’s first attempt at conquest in the Battle of Adwa (1896), but with the rise of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, Italy paid a return visit, this time with heavy artillery and airstrikes that included chemical weapons. E.B. White tried to make sense of this latest invasion in his opening comments.
THOSE GUYS AGAIN…Italy invaded Ethiopia on October 3, 1935, a significant act of aggression in the lead up to World War II. Despite facing a technologically superior Italian army (top) equipped with modern weapons, including tanks, aircraft, and chemical weapons, the Ethiopian forces (bottom photo) mounted a strong resistance. (Wikipedia)
In his weekly column, Howard Brubaker mused on the Italian aggressions and other rumblings of the coming European war.
* * *
Author, Author
The writer Willa Cather was a favorite of New Yorker critics, including Clifton Fadiman, however her latest novel was a bit too mild for his tastes.
HERE’S LUCY…Clifton Fadiman confessed he was “mortified” to admit that he found Willa Cather’s latest novel a bit too gentle. At right, portrait of Cather on her birthday, December 7, 1936. (willacather.org)
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From Our Advertisers
We begin with more fearmongering from the folks at Goodyear, who offered weekly reminders of the perils of not choosing their all-weather tires…
…the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company conjured up this “naughty maiden” to encourage even timid souls to take up the habit…
…on the other hand, the makers of the upstart KOOL brand kept it simple with their chain-smoking penguin, who was grabbing ever more market share from rival menthol pusher SPUD…
…ads in the back of the book offered up even less sophisticated products, such as Crown Smelling Salts…
…while Dr. Seuss and Norman Z. McLeod continued to make a living with their distinctive illustrations…
…at the very back of the magazine, this tiny ad from Knopf promoted Clarence Day’sLife With Father, published just months before Day’s death on Dec. 28…
…which brings us to our cartoonists…Constantin Alajalov kicked us off with this happy number…
…James Thurber found steamy goings on in the parlor…
…Charles Addams came down to earth with this pair…
…George Price showed us the rough and tumble of news reporting…
…Mary Petty contributed this sumptuous drawing of a croquet match…
…Helen Hokinson was in a transcendental mood…
…and Ned Hilton had a big surprise for one garage tinkerer…
…on to August 10 and a rich summer scene by Arnold Hall:
August 10, 1935 cover by Arnold Hall.
“The Talk of the Town” checked the lunch crowd at Mary Elizabeth’s Tea Room, where some preferred to drink their lunch.
TEA AND SWEETS (and cocktails) were among the offerings at Mary Elizabeth’s Tea Room at 36th and Fifth, seen here circa 1912. (Photo by Karl Struss via Facebook)
* * *
Comic Relief
Film critic John Mosher offered an appreciation of W.C. Fields, noting that civilization needed films like Man on the Flying Trapeze during those hard years. Mosher also found some worthy distractions in the Jean Harlow vehicle China Seas, but was prepared to consign Spencer Tracey’s latest offering to the “lower circles of cinema hell.”
ANSWERING HIS NATION’S CALL…W.C. Fields brought joy to millions during the Depression in movies such as Man on the Flying Trapeze. Above, from left, Kathleen Howard, Fields, and Mary Brian. (IMDB/Rotten Tomatoes)SHORE LEAVE…At left, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, and Clark Gable on the set of China Seas; top right, Hattie McDaniel with Harlow in a scene from the film; below, Gable, Rosalind Russell, and C. Aubrey Smith with Harlow in China Seas. (musingsofaclassicfilmaddict.wordpress.com / Pinterest)FRESH FACE…Cinema newcomer Rita Hayworth was credited as Rita Cansino (she was born Margarita Carmen Cansino) in Dante’s Inferno. Here she is flanked by Spencer Tracy and Gary Leon. Dante’s Inferno was Spencer Tracy’s final film for 20th Century Fox. It was at MGM where his career really took off. (IMDB)
* * *
All Wet
In his London Letter, Conrad Aiken (pen name Samuel Jeake Jr) examined the priggish ways of England’s seaside resorts.
SITE OF SCANDAL…Bathing huts at Bognor Regis, circa 1921. (bognorregistrails.co.uk)
* * *
Beware the Bachelor
In her “Tables for Two” column, Lois Long examined some of the city’s seasonal escapes for “summer bachelors.”
GHOSTS OF THE PAST…Lois Long recommended the air-conditioned lounges of the Madison Square Hotel and the Savoy Plaza (center) or the cooling breezes of the Biltmore roof (right), which featured music by Morton Downey. Sadly, all three of these beautiful buildings have been demolished. (geographicguide.com/Wikipedia)
Other more casual venues recommended by Long included Nick’s Merry-Go-Round…
…a menu from Nick’s dated 1937…
(nypl.org)
…and its cryptic back cover…
From Our Advertisers
…speaking of the Biltmore and Morton Downey, we kick off our advertising section…
…the ad on the left announced the private residences at the Waldorf-Astoria…
Clockwise, from top left, the Waldorf Astoria circa 1930; the Waldorf’s Starlight Roof in the 1930s; after eight years and billions in restorations and renovations, the hotel has seen many changes including the transformation of the Starlight Roof into a swimming pool. Decades of grime were also cleaned from the building’s exterior. (mcny.org/loc.gov/som.com)
…another ad from the makers of Lincoln suggesting that the market for their luxury auto wasn’t confined to citified execs…
…the Camel folks introduced us to their latest society shill…
…I didn’t find much about Beatrice Barclay Elphinstone (1916-1977), described in the Camel ad as a “charming representative of New York’s discriminating younger set”…she did make the Times‘ Dec. 10, 1937 society wedding announcements, however…
…Dr. Seuss was back with another twist on Flit insecticide…
…on to our illustrators and cartoonists, a nice charcoal by Hugo Gellert for a profile titled “Yankee Horse Trader,” written by Arthur C. Bartlett…the harness horse racing legend Walter Cox (1868-1941) was known in New England as “the king of the half-milers”…
…James Thurber contributed this cat and dog face-off to the opening pages…
…Helen Hokinson offered her perspectives on the summer dog show across pages 16-17…
…and for a closer look…
…Gluyas Williams went back to nature in his “Club Life” series…
…Leonard Dove introduced us to an undaunted salesman…
…in the world of George Price, crime didn’t pay…
…Barbara Shermund gave us a rare glimpse into the secret lives of men…
…patronizing words were unwelcome at this chess match, per William Steig…
…Denys Wortman took us on a family outing…
…and we close with Alain, and a mother of multiples…except words…
Above: H.L. Mencken at the Baltimore Sun, circa 1930. From April 1934 to September 1949, Mencken contributed more than fifty articles to The New Yorker.
The American journalist Henry Louis Mencken (1880–1956) was well-known as a biting satirist and cultural critic, but he was also a noted scholar of the English language and its various quirks.
May 11, 1935, Mother’s Day cover by William Cotton.
One of those quirks was explored in Mencken’s essay, “The Advance of Nomenclatural Eugenics In the Republic,” for the column “Onward & Upward With The Arts.” Broadly defined, eugenics refers to the discredited belief that selective breeding could be used to improve the human race. Mencken used the term satirically to describe the anglicization of immigrant names, either to conform to English spellings or, in many cases, to avoid racial and ethnic discrimination. An excerpt:
A PERFECT PAIRING, for H. L. Mencken, was a beer and a cigar. Here he is accepting “his first public glass of post-Prohibition beer” at the Rennert Hotel in Baltimore on April 7, 1933. In 1924 Mencken wrote: “Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists.” (digitalmaryland.org)
Many Jewish immigrants also abandoned their surnames, seeking to blend in and avoid discrimination. Historian and author Kirsten Fermaglich (A Rosenberg by Any Other Name, 2016) found that persons with Jewish-sounding last names made up 65 percent of all name change requests in New York in the first quarter of the 20th century. Mencken observed:
MEET BERNARD, BETTY, ISSUR AND MARGARITA…Some more famous examples of name changes in the first half of the 20th century. From left, actors (and New Yorkers) Tony Curtis (Bernard Schwartz), Lauren Bacall (Betty Joan Perske), Kirk Douglas (Issur Danielovitch Demsky), and Rita Hayworth (Margarita Carmen Cansino). (Wikipedia)
* * *
Canada Dry
In his column, “Of All Things,” Howard Brubaker noted the “well-merited spanking” FDR gave to military leaders who were talking about fortifying the border with Canada. Brubaker agreed with FDR’s action, observing how Canadians came to the aid of thirsty Americans during Prohibition.
* * *
Air France
Paris correspondent Janet Flanner considered the state of French aviation as well as signs of war preparation. She also noted the birthday of German dictator Adolf Hitler, the birth of French television, and the streamlined taxis that had suddenly appeared on the streets of Paris. Excerpts:
SOME ICE CREAM WITH YOUR SLICE OF HATE?…Clockwise, from top left, bakers carefully carry Adolf Hitler’s birthday cake in April 1935; the French, meanwhile, were ramping up war production including the manufacture of the M210 bomber; airplane factory workers fashion sheet metal in a factory in Châteauroux-Déols; streamlined Peugeot 401 taxis hit the Paris streets in 1935. (reddit.com/dassault-aviation.com/imcdc.org)
* * *
Vamps and Vampires
John Mosher offered mixed reviews of Hollywood’s latest fare, finding Marlene Dietrich’s latest vehicle “fun,” and the singing and dancing of husband/wife Al Jolson and RubyKeeler “uninspired,” a term he also applied to Bela Lugosi’s latest vampire flick.
TAKE YOUR PICK…Critic John Mosher sampled some very different films including, left, Marlene Dietrich and Lionel Atwill in The Devil Is a Woman; top, Ruby Keeler with her then-husband Al Jolson in Go Into Your Dance; and Bela Lugosi did his vampire schtick with the help of Carroll Borland (who played Dracula’s daughter) in Mark of the Vampire. (MoMA/Pinterest/Instagram)
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From Our Advertisers
We start off with a bang from Goodyear…tire blowouts were common in the 1930s as tire technology could not keep pace with the increasing speed of automobiles, nor the poor condition of many roads…
…after many weeks, the back cover went to something other than cigarette manufacturers…
…let’s take a look at some of the one-column ads from the back pages…many of them highlighted the various nighttime entertainments, from the rooftop of Hotel Pierre to the air-conditioned lounge at the Savoy-Plaza (plus that weird ad that suggested Corn Flakes as a nightcap)…
…interior designer Elsie de Wolfe rolled out “Iron with Tape” chairs, which might be the first example of what would become the ubiquitous webbed lawn chair…also advertised were apartments in the former Pulitzer mansion…
…the Pulitzer apartments were one happy outcome of the Great Depression, which foiled the plans of investors to demolish the house in 1934 and erect an apartment building…
The Pulitzer mansion still stands today, now divided into high-class coops. (daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com)
…here’s something new from the Jay Thorpe shop, “noted for unusual sportswear”…
…perhaps inspired by Hollywood…
Ruby Keeler in 1935’s Shipmates Forever. (Reddit)
…illustrator Lyse Darcy created many of these distinctive ads for Guerlain products from the 1930s through the 1950s…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with spot art from James Thurber…
…and Thurber again…
…and we have two from George Price…
…Otto Soglow continued with his multi-panel tricks…
…Howard Baer did some eavesdropping on the rails…
…while Barbara Shermund checked in on her modern women…
…Alan Dunn gave us a mother who took care of herself on Mother’s Day…
…Peter Arno found some kindly advice in the crowded city…
…Al Frueh put the “tennis” back into table tennis…
…and we close with Charles Addams, who had become a regular contributor but was still more than three years away from launching his “Addams Family” cartoons…
Above: King George V and Queen Mary posed for portraits by John St Helier Lander to commemorate the king’s Silver Jubilee in 1935. (Wikipedia)
The British Royal Family has never been my cup of tea, but its hard to deny their influence on world affairs, even if today it is mostly ceremonial. The king and queen were also figureheads back in 1935, however they could still claim to lead a vast empire, albeit one badly fraying at the seams.
May 4, 1935 cover by Ilonka Karasz.
Then as now, the power of the royals lay largely in their ability to boost the political and economic fortunes of their island nation. Such was observed by The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent Janet Flanner, who penned a two-part profile of Queen Mary (nee Mary of Teck or more formally Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India). Flanner wrote the profile of Queen Mary (1867-1953) in anticipation of the Silver Jubilee of her husband, King-Emperor George V (1865-1936). Excerpts:
A DEB AND A DUKE…In 1886 Mary was a an unmarried British princess who was not descended from Queen Victoria, so she was a suitable candidate for the royal family’s most eligible bachelor, Mary’s second cousin Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale. In early December 1891 Albert Victor (left photo) proposed marriage to Mary, but he died six weeks later in the Russian flu pandemic. Less than two years later (July 1893) Albert Victor’s brother, Prince George, Duke of York, would wed Mary—at right, their wedding day photo. (Wikipedia)
Flanner noted that the King George V and Queen Mary were rated by British industrialists as the Empire’s “two best salesmen,” however it was Mary who proved the most influential whether she was buying a hat or a refrigerator. Excerpts:
SILVER AND GOLD…Top photo: to mark the king’s Silver Jubilee on May 6, 1935, King George V and Queen Mary greet their subjects from a balcony at Buckingham Palace with their grandchildren, (from left) Princess Margaret Rose, Hon. Gerald Lascelles, Princess Elizabeth, and Viscount Lascelles. Below, King George V, the Duke and Duchess of York, and Princess Elizabeth take a trip in the royal carriage, 1933. The Duke and Duchess would succeed the throne upon the death of King George in 1936 and the abdication of the Duke’s brother, Edward, that same year. (Reddit/Town & Country)
Naturally, not everyone in the kingdom was thrilled by the Silver Jubilee…
OPPOSING VIEWPOINT…The anti-monarchist cartoonist Desmond Rowney commemorated the Silver Jubilee with this cartoon in the Daily Worker. The public expense for the Silver Jubilee in the midst of a financial depression caused some controversy. (National Archives UK)
* * *
Corn-fed Canvasses
Critic Lewis Mumford, like many East Coast intellectuals, was allergic to the over-patriotic and the sentimental, so when it came to assessing the work of the regionalist painter Grant Wood (1891-1942), Mumford found himself perplexed but hopeful that Wood would one day “find himself” and produce “first rate” art.
FLANKING THE ICONIC painting American Gothic (1930) are Grant Wood’s Self Portrait (1932) and, at right, Arnold Comes of Age (1930). Lewis Mumford considered American Gothic to be Wood’s best work. (figgeartmuseum.org/whitney.org/sheldonartmuseum.org)
Mumford did not mince words, however, when it came to Wood’s contemporary landscapes, which he called “unmitigatedly bad…If that is what the vegetation of Iowa is like, the farmers ought to be able to sell their corn for chewing gum…”
BUBBLEGUM TREES…From 1919 to 1925, Grant Wood taught junior high art in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The seasonal nature of teaching allowed Wood to take summer trips to Europe to study art, and his early work showed strong post-impressionist influences, including his impressionistic Vegetable Farm (top) from 1924; below, Mumford thought Grant’s later landscapes looked like they were made of cotton and sponge rubber, including Near Sundown, from 1933. (wikiart.org)HOPE AND NOPE…Mumford wrote that Wood’s more “hopeful” works included, top left, Death on Ridge Road and, top right, Adolescence. On the other hand, he found the portraiture in Dinner for Threshers (bottom) vacuous, suggesting “a color photograph of a model of Life in Iowa done for a historical museum.” (wikiart.org/figgeartmuseum.org)
* * *
Daring Young Man
“The Talk of the Town” paid a visit to William Saroyan (1908–1981), an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer who would go on to receive a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940 and a 1943 Academy Award for Best Story for the film The Human Comedy. An excerpt:
HIGH WIRE ACT…The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and Other Stories (1934) was the first collection of 26 short stories by William Saroyan (pictured here in 1940). The book became an immediate bestseller. (Wikipedia)
* * *
Not Long For Long
In his column “Of All Things,” Howard Brubaker noted that the “loose talk” of Huey Long, a U.S. Senator from Louisiana and prominent critic of the New Deal, could be squelched by a Senate vote. As it turned out, it wouldn’t be necessary; Long was felled by an assassin’s bullet four months later.
* * *
Ode to Abode
E.B. White turned to verse to offer his thoughts on where one should live:
* * *
Tough Guys
After a musical comedy, a Shakespeare adaptation (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and another comedy, James Cagney returned to familiar form with an exciting crime drama, G Men. Critic John Mosher was pleased that Cagney was back to tap-dancing with machine guns rather than showgirls.
CRIME PAYS…AT THE BOX OFFICE… James Cagney takes aim at his new role as a federal agent James “Brick” Davis in G Men. With the Hays Code in force, Warner Brothers made the film to counteract what many leaders claimed was a disturbing trend of glorifying criminals in gangster films. (Still from film)
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From Our Advertisers
According to General Motors’ Fischer division, good taste was in order whether you were choosing a spouse or an automobile…
…New Yorker ads continued to display bright colors to sell everything from cars to whiskey to sparkling water (with apparent health benefits)…
…the shadowy Dubonnet mascot was back, here making the claim (against the wisdom of the ages) that a lunchtime drink will clear your head for the afternoon ahead…
…no health claims here from Penn Maryland, just pure magic as depicted by Otto Soglow…
…and what goes better with whiskey than the Kentucky Derby…
…the 1935 Kentucky Derby was won by Omaha, a three-year-old Thoroughbred; he was the third horse to ever win the Triple Crown (Omaha was the son of Gallant Fox, the 1930 U.S. Triple Crown winner)…
Omaha in 1935 (Wikipedia)
…on the subject of Thoroughbreds, Camel offered up testimonials from top athletes in a variety of sports…they all agreed that the cigarettes “don’t get your wind”…so what did that mean?…according to R.J. Reynolds, “It means you can smoke Camels all you want”…
…Camels also calmed the nerves, and so apparently did Chesterfields…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with a spot by Charles Addams at the top of page 2…
…later in the issue James Thurber contributed this drawing to stretch across the bottom of page 62 (“On and Off the Avenue”)…
…Thurber again, with the life of the party…
…William Steig offered up a page-full of wits…
…plus one more on the preceding page…
…Gluyas Williams continued to follow the strange ways of club life in America…
…and we close with Alan Dunn, and service with a smile…
William Penn Adair Rogers, aka Will Rogers (1879–1935), was a man of many talents. Today he is mostly referred to as a humorist, but he was also an actor, a social and political commentator, a trick roper and a vaudeville performer. To Americans he was a national icon.
April 13, 1935 cover by Barney Tobey.
Rogers was also internationally famous, having traveled around the world three times and appearing in 71 films (50 of those silent). He also wrote more than 4,000 newspaper columns—nationally syndicated by The New York Times—that reached 40 million readers, and there were also magazine articles, radio broadcasts and personal appearances. He seemed to be everywhere.
ROPING THEM IN…In 1902, Will Rogers joined Texas Jack’s Wild West Show & Circus in South Africa as the “Cherokee Kid”—he was born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, in the Indian Territory that is now part of Oklahoma. By 1910, he had created a sensational vaudeville act by mixing trick roping with witty monologues. Clockwise, from top left, Rogers in a publicity photo from 1916, the year he joined the Ziegfeld Follies; on stage with the Follies in 1924; poster from his circus days; backstage with the 1924 Follies cast. (National Portrait Gallery)MULTIMEDIA MULTI-TALENT…Left, Rogers catches a few moments to write one of his 4,000 nationally syndicated newspaper columns; from 1929 to 1935 he used the exciting new medium of radio to broadcast his newspaper pieces. His weekly Sunday evening show, The Gulf Headliners, sponsored by Gulf Oil, ranked among the top radio programs in the country. (National Portrait Gallery)
When John Mosher reviewed Rogers’ latest film, Life Begins At Forty, he found it to be one of Rogers’ best. It would also prove to be one of his last. On August 15, 1935, a small airplane carrying Rogers and aviator Wiley Post would crash on takeoff near Point Barrow, Alaska, claiming the lives of both men. Rogers would appear in three more films in 1935, the last two posthumously.
THAT’S LIFE…Will Rogers with Richard Cromwell and Rochelle Hudson in Life Begins at 40. Rogers’ film took its title from a 1932 self-help book by Walter B. Pitkin. Pitkin maintained that keeping a positive attitude toward life could give a person many fulfilling years after age 40. By the time of his death in 1935, the 55-year-old Rogers was Hollywood’s highest paid actor. (Wikipedia/IMDB)
* * *
Not Toying Around
“The Talk of the Town” looked in on the serious business of toymakers, with 1935 being the year of streamlined tricycles, Buck Rogers disintegrator pistols, and, of course, Shirley Temple dolls.
RIVALED ONLY BY MICKEY MOUSE, Shirley Temple was the most popular celebrity to endorse merchandise for children and adults, including the “one and only” Shirley Temple Doll (left, ad from 1935); the Buck Rogers XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol (top) was produced in 1935 by Daisy, and was available in both copper and nickel finishes–it was also offered as a premium from Cream of Wheat cereal; at bottom, the American National Streamline Velocipede Tricycle (1935), just one example of the hundreds of products receiving the streamlining treatment in the 1930s. (flickr/airandspace.si.edu/onlinebicyclemuseum.co.uk)
* * *
Literary Spirits
E.B. White welcomed the return of literary tea party, which thanks to the repeal of the 18th Amendment had been re-dubbed the “literary cocktail party.” He shared his thoughts in “Notes and Comment”…
AMUSING MUSES…Actress, writer and socialite Peggy Hopkins Joyce hosted literary “teas” in the 1920s, while former Cosmopolitan editor Ray Long inspired a book on adventures in the South Seas shortly before his death; from left, Joyce in 1923; photogravure of Long, 1925. (Wikipedia/photogravure.com)
* * *
Proto Feminist
Emily Hahn was one of the more lively figures in The New Yorker’s stable of journalists and writers, leading an adventurous life that included a hike across Central Africa in the 1930s and getting into all kinds of trouble during the Japanese invasion of China. According to Roger Angell, Hahn was, “in truth, something rare: a woman deeply, almost domestically, at home in the world. Driven by curiosity and energy, she went there and did that, and then wrote about it without fuss.” It is no surprise that Hahn’s latest novel, Affair, didn’t shy away from topics like abortion. According to reviewer Clifton Fadiman, the novel’s “anonymous grayness” exposed the banality of love in the twentieth century.
If Hollywood is looking for a new biopic, Hahn would make a fascinating subject (Kristen Stewart would be perfect for the part). According to IMDB, there is an “Untitled Emily ‘Mickey’ Hahn Project”—a TV series—that has been in development since 2022, but so far nothing has come of it.
DOWN ON LOVE?…Emily Hahn’s 1935 novel Affair exposed the banality of love in the twentieth century. (abebooks.com/susanbkason.com)
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From Our Advertisers
We begin with this advertisement from Goodyear, featuring what appears to be a father teaching his daughter how to drive, or in this case, fly, just like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang…
…and we stay airborne with the makers of the streamlined Nash, who claimed their automobile had “flying power”…
…and we return to earth with Cadillac’s budget model, the LaSalle, which featured “flashing performance”…
…by contrast, Pierce Arrow took a minimalist approach, gimmicks and splashy colors being reserved for the lower orders…
…one of the world’s most iconic ocean liners took to the sea with much fanfare in 1935. The SS Normandie was the largest and fastest passenger ship afloat; it remains the most powerful steam turbo-electric-propelled passenger ship ever built…
…if you happened to smoke Webster cigars, it could have been a sign that you were favored by the heavens…
…the “20-year rule” in fashion suggests that trends have a tendency to re-emerge every two decades, and that seems to be the case here…
…this next ad tells us everything we need to know about the Stetson wearer: he is a wealthy country gentleman who values tradition but who is also a man of the future…from the 1920s to midcentury the autogyro was thought to be the answer to the long-dreamed of flying car…
…whoever coined the term “night cap” probably wasn’t thinking about cold cereal…
…although Harold Ross’s old high school friend, John Held Jr., contributed many woodcut-style cartoons and faux maps to The New Yorker from 1925 to 1932, Held was more famous for his shingle-bobbed flappers and their slick-haired boyfriends in puffy pants, a style more apparent in this ad for Peychaud’s Bitters (the original was a one-column ad, split here for clarity)…
…Held provides a segue to our illustrators and cartoonists, beginning with a sampling of spot art from the April 13 issue…
…James Thurber got things going on page 2…
…and also contributed this observation of the hypnotic arts…
…Otto Soglow did some careful surveying (this originally appeared across two pages)…
…Alain looked in on some Vatican gossip…
…Richard Decker pitched a Shirley Temple murder caper…
…Carl Rose gave us a sweet send-off…
…and we close out with a big bang, courtesy of Alan Dunn…
Above: Illustration and article on "Typhoid Mary" that appeared in 1909 in The New York American. At right, Mary Mallon with other quarantined inmates on North Brother Island. (Wikipedia)
The Irish-born Mary Mallon (1869–1938) lived a simple life as a maid and a cook, and it would have been a life of anonymity save for a sad twist of fate on the day she was born.
Jan. 26, 1935 cover by Perry Barlow.
History knows Mary Mallon as Typhoid Mary. From 1901 to 1907 she would cook for seven wealthy New York families that would later contract typhoid. Mallon was born to a mother who was infected with typhoid, which offers a possible explanation as to why she became an asymptomatic carrier of the disease. Forcibly quarantined on North Brother Island (near Long Island) from 1907 to 1910, Mallon agreed upon her release to take hygienic precautions, including ending her occupation as a cook.
When other jobs failed to pan out, Mallon returned to cooking—this time in restaurants and hotels—infecting many more while evading investigators who were desperately trying to track her down (it is estimated she infected up to 122 people, resulting in as many as four-dozen deaths). When she was finally arrested in 1915, she was returned to North Brother Island, where she would live out her days. Stanley Walker (1898–1962), a native Texan, longtime editor of the New York Herald Tribune, and a New Yorker contributor from 1925 to 1956, featured Mallon in a profile for the Jan. 26, 1935 issue. Some brief excerpts:
* * *
The Latest Sensation
Mary Mallon was the source of sensational headlines in the early 1900s, but even she couldn’t top the media frenzy prompted by the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and the trial of accused murderer Bruno Hauptmann.The New Yorker’s Morris Markey went to the courthouse in Flemington, New Jersey, to file this report for “A Reporter at Large.” Excerpts:
TRIAL OF THE CENTURY…Clockwise, from top left: Bruno Hauptmann (center) at his murder trial, which ran from Jan. 2 to Feb. 13, 1935, in Flemington, New Jersey; Charles Lindbergh takes the witness stand; novelist Fanny Hurst and gossip columnist Walter Winchell at the trial on Jan. 30, 1935—the “Trial of the Century” was followed by more than 700 reporters; police ropes contained the large crowds gathered at the courthouse. (Library of Congress/umass.edu/Courier Post)
Hauptmann would be convicted of the crime and immediately sentenced to death. On April 3, 1936, he would meet his end in an electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison, maintaining his innocence to the very end.
* * *
From Our Advertisers
On to our ads, we begin with another colorful spot from Penn Maryland, and jolly times on Miami Beach…
…here is the first in a series of ads that the makers of Old Gold cigarettes (Lorillard) began running in 1935, featuring a sugar daddy and his leggy mistress…they were drawn by George Petty (1884–1975), famed for his “pin-up girls” featured on many magazine covers as well as in ads for Old Gold, Jantzen swimsuits, and TWA, among others…
…here is Petty at work in 1939…
…Buffalo-based Pierce-Arrow was known for its expensive luxury cars, which were not exactly hot sellers during the Great Depression; moreover, Pierce was the only luxury brand that did not offer a lower-priced car to provide cash flow to the company, and contrary to the claims in this ad, Pierce-Arrow would close its doors by 1938…
…one thing alive and well in the 1930s was sexism, and here is a good example from the makers of a popular line of soups…
…The Theatre Guild called upon the talents of James Thurber to promote their latest production…
…and we continue with Thurber as move into the cartoons…
…where Robert Day found some miscasting in a Civil War epic…
…George Price’s floating man seemed to be coming back to earth…
…Day again, with a sure-fire way to defend one’s goal…
…Alan Dunn offered words of wisdom from the pulpit…
…and we close with Barbara Shermund, and a familiar face…
Above: Ringing in the New Year at Times Square, 1934.
We bid adieu to 1934 with some odds and ends, beginning with E.B. White’s observations for the upcoming year, which if anyone had noticed the uptick in Ascot tie purchases, just might be a bit rosier than previous years of the decade.
Dec. 29, 1934 cover by S. Liam Dunn.
White was also hopeful for a new year with a less dreadful press, particularly the pandering type promulgated by William Randolph Hearst.
GOOD RIDDANCE…E.B. White wryly noted the positive signs heading into 1935. While actresses Billie Seward and Lucille Ball rang in the New Year, Erroll Flynn was sporting an ascot tie and Henry Ford was proclaiming that the Depression was over. (Pinterest)
* * *
Dr. Peeper
“The Talk of the Town” noted that Dr. Allan Dafoe, the country doctor who gained fame for delivering the Dionne Quintuplets, expressed a desire to see Sally Rand perform her bubble dance during his visit to Gotham. “Talk” also looked in on the some of the technical aspects of the burlesque dancer’s signature act:
DON’T BURST MY BUBBLE…Dr. Allan Dafoe of Dionne Quintuplet fame looked forward to taking in the sights of New York, including Sally Rand’s famed bubble dance. (Image from the 1936 book The Country Doctor/Sally Rand via stuffnobodycaresabout.com)
* * *
Leading Ladies
Film Critic John Mosher noted the continued rise of two leading female stars, twenty-seven-year-old Katharine Hepburn and six-year-old Shirley Temple. Mosher recalled Hepburn’s recent performance in Little Women, and proclaimed that she “succeeds again” in The Little Minister.
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS...Katharine Hepburn and John Beal in The Little Minister. Hepburn portrayed Babbie, a member of the nobility who disguises herself as a gypsy to protect villagers from a tyrannical lord. In the process she falls in love with the good Rev. Gavin Dishart (Beal). (IMDB)
Although Mosher admitted he was a “disagreeable adult” who doesn’t enjoy seeing children on the screen “more than necessary,” he acknowledged Shirley Temple’s talents as well as those of child actor Jane Withers in Bright Eyes.
BRIGHT EYES, BRIGHT STARS…Jane Withers, Shirley Temple, and Terry in Bright Eyes. (IMDB)
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That Youthful Feeling
Given that William Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet were mere teenagers (the ages 13 and 16 were given to Juliet and Romeo, respectively), many productions featured actors more than twice that age. That was the case in 1933 when the play was revived by actress Katharine Cornell and her director husband Guthrie McClintic, who took the play on a seven-month nationwide tour before it was revised and opened on Broadway in December 1934. Critics dubbed the 41-year-old Cornell “the greatest Juliet of her time,” and it seems Robert Benchley heartily agreed in this excerpt from his stage review:
AGE IS JUST A NUMBER…The 41-year-old Katharine Cornell and 42-year-old Basil Rathbone in a promotional photo for Romeo and Juliet. Cornell was the first performer to receive the Drama League’s Distinguished Performance Award, which became the oldest and most exclusive theatrical honor in North America. (Vandamm photo, Museum of the City of New York)
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The New Yorkiest Place
In 1930 gossip columnist Walter Winchell called the new Stork Club “New York’s New Yorkiest place on W. 58th,” and when it relocated to 3 East 53rd Street in 1934 it further defined itself as the ultimate New York night club. In her “Tables for Two” column, Lois Long found the new location much to her liking. An excerpt:
THE STORK DELIVERS…The Stork Club truly became the New Yorkiest nightclub when it relocated to 3 East 53rd Street in 1934. Clockwise, from top left: the club entrance in the 1930s; Cary Grant was one of the many celebrities who favored the nightclub, circa 1935; a 1930’s club menu; Lita Grey, the former teen bride of actor Charlie Chaplin, was a featured singer at the club during Lois Long’s visit. (Gibbes Museum of Art/Pinterest/vintagemenuart.com/IMDB)
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So Long?
Clarence Day, best known for his Life with Father stories, also contributed a number of cartoons to the magazine, accompanied by satirical poems and humorous shorts. Day would die at the tender age of 61—after a bout with pneumonia—in December 1935, about a year after this cartoon was published in The New Yorker. I assume he was signing off from the magazine in order to arrange publication of his Life with Father book, which was published shortly after his death.
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From Our Advertisers
Sunny California beckoned those who had the means and leisure to head to warmer climes during the New York winter…
…for those who stayed behind, they could wrap themselves in a chic winter coat such as this one sported by Camel endorser Mrs. Langdon Post (Janet Kirby)…
…another colorful ad with a not-so-colorful message from World Peaceways, a 1930s anti-war organization that characterized soldiers (and future soldiers, seen here) as pawns in the corrupt games of the rich and powerful…
…the distributors of French champagne rang in the New Year by suggesting that Doyen was worth your very last cent…
…we kick off our cartoons by welcoming the New Year with George Price…
…Robert Day contributed a spot drawing that offered a new twist to ice hockey…
…I should know this artist, but it escapes me for the moment…nevertheless, a great illustration to stretch across the bottom of an opening page…
…a closeup of the signature…
…another from George Price, still up in the air in the final issue of 1934…
…Garner Rea introduced us to the life of the party…
…”Miss Otis Regrets” is a 1934 Cole Porter song about the lynching of a society woman after she murders her unfaithful lover. Porter wrote the song as a parody of a sad cowboy song he heard on the radio. The song was further workshopped for fun at “smart set” cocktail parties…on to our next cartoon, and a moment of keen insight from James Thurber…
…Garrett Price went on the town with some students of anatomy…
…and we say Happy New Year with the help of Helen Hokinson…
A New Yorker State of Mind 