Perhaps it was the end of Prohibition, or the implementation of the New Deal, but throughout the pages of the final New Yorker of 1933 you could sense a lightening of spirit.
Dec. 30, 1933 cover by Rea Irvin.
By most accounts 1933 was one of the Depression’s worst years, and that is likely why E.B. White chose to remember “only a few scattered moments,” mixing the silly with the salient.
Of the silly, there was the time when the Barnum & Bailey circus dwarf Lya Graf sat on J.P. Morgan’s lap while he was waiting to testify before the Senate Banking Committee…
HE DIDN’T BANK ON THIS…J.P. Morgan was paid a visit by Barnum & Bailey circus dwarf Lya Graf, prior to his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on June 1, 1933. (New York Magazine)
White also noted the passing of Texas Guinan. Known as “Queen of the Nightclubs,” she was a fixture on the Manhattan speakeasy scene throughout the Roaring Twenties and a reliable source of nightlife headlines. White also recalled George Bernard Shaw’s controversial speech at the crowded Metropolitan Opera House, during which he referred to American financiers as “lunatics” and called the U.S. Constitution a “charter of anarchism.”
YEAR IN A NUTSHELL…Clockwise, from top left: The year 1933 saw the passing of the “Queen of the Nightclubs” Texas Guinan—more than 10,000 showed up for her funeral in November; also that month Thomas G.W. Settle and C.L Fordney ascended to the stratosphere in the Century of Progress balloon; The New York Times (April 12, 1933) published the full text of George Bernard Shaw’s Met speech; Esquire published its first issue in the fall, featuring Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos as well as New Yorker cartoonists Constantin Alajalov, William Steig and E. Simms Campbell; according to Vogue, 1933’s breasts were “high and pointed.” (bounddv.medium.com/history.navy.mil/The New York Times/Pinterest)
White also had more to say about the streamlining trend in automobiles, led by Chrysler’s new “Airflow.” White preferred the older, boxier models, with plenty of head and hat room.
In 1922 White set off across America in the car of his dreams, a Model T, which had plenty of headroom and, as he later wrote, transformed his view of the land, a vision “shaped, more than by any other instrument, by a Model T Ford…a slow-motion roadster of miraculous design—strong, tremulous, and tireless”…
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG…Clockwise, from top left: E.B. White and wife Katharine Sergeant take a spin in a Model T in the mid 1930s; despite White’s remonstrations regarding headroom, the makers of the Chrysler Airflow advertised their streamlined car’s interior as practically cavernous. (Goodreads/Pinterest)
* * *
Crying in His Beer
A couple of issues back we saw Lois Long bid a sad farewell to the cosy and secluded atmosphere of the speakeasy…Ogden Nash turned to verse to offer his own lament, feeling naked and exposed in dining rooms “full of 500 assorted debutantes and dowagers”…
FEELING EXPOSED…Ogden Nash (1902–1971) missed the sacrilegious rite of the speakeasy and lamented the “humdrumness” of legal drinking. (vpoeticous.com)
* * *
Wondering About Alice
Combine horrific character designs with a young adult playing a child and you have the recipe for 1933’s star-studded Alice in Wonderland, a film the Nerdist’sKyle Anderson calls “a fascinating, unintentionally disturbing take on a classic.” Almost ninety years earlier the New Yorker’sJohn Mosher found it disturbing in other ways, save for W.C. Field’s portrayal of Humpty Dumpty.
Writing for The Roarbots, Jamie Green notes that Charlotte Henry was 19 when she played Alice: “This version of Alice doesn’t feel like a sweet look at the twists and turns of adolescence; it feels more like a commentary on repressed desire and self-identity.” The film was a flop at the box office.
CHANNELLING HER YOUTH…Clockwise, from top left: 19-year-old Charlotte Henry as Alice in 1933’s Alice in Wonderland; W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty; Roscoe Karns as Tweedledee and Jack Oakie as Tweedledum; Alice has a chat with Gryphon (William Austin) and Mock Turtle (Cary Grant). Except for Henry, most of the cast was unrecognizable in their macabre makeup and costumes. (IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
We start with a selection of three one-column ads, featuring, from left, the latest back-to-school look for the collegiate male (apparently attending Columbia); the dustless, noiseless, smokeless, AIR-CONDITIONED railway wonder called the Orange Blossom Special; the automobile arm of the REO Motor Car Company trying to pack everything it could into this narrow little ad (REO would stop producing cars in 1936 in order to focus solely on trucks)…
…the distillers of Holloway’s London Dry Gin warned newly liberated American drinkers about the consequences of imbibing cheap gin…
…the folks at R.J. Reynolds found another member of the gentry to push their Camels onto aspiring young women…
…on to our cartoons, the Dec. 30 issue featured a James Thurber double-header, beginning with this “Talk of the Town” spot illustration…
…a rare one-panel Little King from Otto Soglow…
…ringing in the New Year with Syd Hoff…
…and George Price…
…and we close with Gilbert Bundy, seeking from fresh air…
“We had the horse and buggy. We had the automobile. Now we have the first real motor car in history.” — Walter P. Chrysler. (Image: Blair Bunting via hagerty.com)
Classic motorcar collector and aficionado Jay Leno has more than 180 vehicles in his collection, but a pride and joy is a 1934 Chrysler Airflow Imperial CX—one of the only three surviving CXs today.
Dec. 16, 1933 cover by Rea Irvin.
The 1934 Chrysler Airflow was a car of the future that came too early. The Airflow’s advances in engineering—including invention of the modern unibody—still inform car design today. But the streamlined look of the car was probably too advanced for those depressed times, and despite lots of media attention it flopped with consumers. E.B. White was among those who weren’t ready to jump on the Airflow bandwagon, and even poked fun at colleague Alexander Woollcott for posing in the backseat of an Airflow for a Chrysler advertisement:
The Woollcott ad in question, which appeared in the previous issue (Dec. 9):
Of the major car companies in the 1930s, Chrysler was perhaps the most revolutionary in terms of technological and design advances. The first car to be wind tunnel-tested, the Airflow’s lightweight, unibody design moved the engine over the front axle and positioned the passengers between the front and rear wheels for a much roomier, smoother ride. Chrysler claimed the unibody also made the car stronger and safer, as this newsreel attests:
Air truly flowed through the car; even the windshield could be cranked open for greater air circulation.
AND THEN THERE WERE THREE…Jay Leno’s Chrysler Airflow Imperial CX, one of only three CX’s known to exist today. Other versions of the Airflow included a model sold under the DeSoto brand name. You can see this car in action on Jay Leno’s Garage.(Blair Bunting)AIR SUPPLY…Clockwise, from top left: The Chrysler Airflow featured a windshield that could be cranked open; advertising card for the Airflow; Indy veteran Harry Hartz set seventy-two speed and distance records at the Bonneville Salt Flats in an Airflow, driving 97.5 mph over the flying mile; the roomy interior featured a nearly horizontal steering column, which freed up space in the driver’s footwell. Although normal today, it was revolutionary in 1934, when most cars had steering columns sprouting from the floor. (Blair Bunting/macsmotorcitygarage.com)
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No Fair, Doug
Few Hollywood marriages could ever match the legendary status accorded to that of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, darlings of the silent screen who who exchanged vows in 1918. When the couple separated in 1933, even E.B. White couldn’t resist a bit of Tinseltown gossip.
FAIRY TALE FIZZLE…The very public nature of the Mary Pickford–Douglas Fairbanks marriage put a big strain on their matrimonial bonds. When both saw their careers fade at the end of the silent era, Fairbanks found escape in overseas travel, and in a romance with Sylvia, Lady Ashley (pictured above, center). Pickford and Fairbanks would divorce in 1936, and that same year Fairbanks and Lady Ashley would marry—just three years later Fairbanks would die from a heart attack, at age 56. Pickford would marry actor-musician Charles “Buddy” Rogers in 1937—they would remain married until her death in 1979. (Huffington Post/npg.org.uk)
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Drinking Problem
“The Talk of the Town” reported on the challenges facing both restaurants and patrons who were becoming reacquainted with legal drinking:
* * *
Before Mr. Rogers
The “Profile” took a childish turn with this account of Don Carney (1896–1954) penned by Margaret Case Harriman. Carney is best remembered as the host of Uncle Don, a hugely popular WOR children’s radio program produced between 1928 and 1947. Excerpts:
MERCH…Don Carney’s popularity in the 1930s is evidenced in the output of merchandise including sheet music (1935), a 1940 activity book, and a 1936 “Strange Adventures” story book. (phantom.fan/ebay)
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From Our Advertisers
Speaking of fine cars, the folks at Packard pointed out one similarity between their automobile and the product manufactured by Rolls-Royce…owning a Packard in the 1930s was indeed considered prestigious, and like Rolls-Royce it competed in the international luxury car market…
…Bergdorf Goodman placed this helpful ad listing various gift ideas in descending order of price…and extravagance…
…and it wouldn’t be Christmas without the perennial Whitman’s Santa Claus touting his sweet wares…
…and New Yorkers were getting ready to celebrate a New Year without Prohibition, and pop some “good news” with Cook’s American “champagne”…
…an “old friend,” Johnnie Walker, strode into the advertising pages of the New Yorker for the very first time…
…while another purveyor of Scotch whiskey, Teacher’s, raised a glass to the return of legal liquor in the colonies…
…the makers of Hennessy brandy celebrated the fact that “we can be ourselves once more”…
…the end of Prohibition saw the rapid expansion of the chain of Longchamps restaurants in New York City…in the 1930s the company hired top modernist decorators and architects (Winold Reiss and Ely Jacques Kahn, among others) to create some of New York’s most glamorous interiors…
LONGCHAMPS LONG GONE…Winold Reiss’s Louis XV mural behind the Chanin Building’s Longchamps bar, 1935. Hugely popular in mid-century New York, Longchamps all but vanished by 1970. Read more about one of New York’s most stylish restaurants at two wonderful sites, Driving For Deco and Restaurant-ing Through History. (winoldreiss.org)
…Schenley was a giant in the spirits industry…headquartered in the Empire State Building, it also had a giant impact in the United States…to assure consumers that quality hadn’t suffered over the thirteen long years of Prohibition, Schenley ran this two-page ad stating: on through the years—famous names, famous brands, secrets, formulae, warehouses, yes—and stocks of precious old liquor have been accumulated and guarded by Schenley for you when the day arrives…
…here are some of the brands listed by Schenley in the side column:
Old Quaker was one of Schenley’s popular whiskey brands in the 1930s.
…and we sober up for our cartoonists, beginning with Mary Petty…
…mixed company was always a recipe for trouble in James Thurber’s world…
…and we close with George Price, and an unexpected visitor…
It’s hard to believe in this day and age that a theoretical physicist could enjoy rock star status, but then Albert Einstein wasn’t your everyday theoretical physicist.
Dec. 2, 1933 cover by Helen Hokinson.
A two-part profile of Einstein (1879–1955) by Alva Johnston (with terrific caricature by Al Frueh) examined the life and “idol” status of a man who would define the idea of genius in the 20th century. Although Einstein desired to live an almost reclusive existence at Princeton University, Johnston noted that he had become “fairly reconciled to the occupation of popular idol.”
Einstein was at Princeton thanks to the rise of Adolf Hitler, who came to power in Germany in early 1933 while Einstein was visiting the United States. Returning to Europe that March, Einstein knew he could not return to his home country (indeed, the Gestapo had raided his Berlin apartment and eventually seized all of his property), so when Einstein landed in Antwerp, Belgium on March 28, 1933, he immediately went to the German consulate and surrendered his passport, formally renouncing his German citizenship.
I’M OUTTA HERE…Albert Einstein with a Zionist delegation from France, Belgium, and England upon leaving the SS Belgenland in Antwerp, Belgium, 1933. (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
After some time in Europe and Great Britain, in October 1933 Einstein accepted an offer made earlier by from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey to serve as a resident scholar. When he arrived with his wife, Elsa, he said he would seclude himself at the Institute and focus on his teaching and research.
(NY Times, Oct. 18, 1933)EINSTEIN WASN’T FIDDLIN’ AROUND when he played his cherished violin—he once said that if he hadn’t been a scientist, he would have been a musician. This photo was taken at Einstein’s Princeton home in November 1933—he and fellow members of a string quartet were practicing for a December concert at the Waldorf-Astoria to raise money for German-Jewish refugees. From left to right, sitting: Arthur (Ossip) Giskin, Toscha Seidel, Albert Einstein, and Bernard Ocko; standing: Estelle Manheim (Seidel’s wife), Elsa Einstein and unidentified man. (Leo Baeck Institute)
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Stop and Go
E.B. White devoted his “Notes and Comment” to Manhattan’s traffic situation, which he found manageable as long as tourists stayed out of the way…
White also noted the perils of Park Avenue, especially the taxi drivers (distracted by those newfangled radios) darting between the islands…
Park Avenue in the 1930s. (geographicguide.com)
…and then there was Fifth Avenue, notorious for traffic jams, made worse on weekends by the tourist traffic…
Fifth Avenue in 1932. (New York State Archives)
…later in “The Talk of the Town” White continued his thoughts on New York taxis, namely the introduction of coin-operated radios installed for use by passengers…
* * *
Fly Newark
Albert L. Furth took us off the mean streets and into the air when he filed this account about the Newark Metropolitan Airport for “A Reporter at Large.” Furth seemed put off by the cachet of European airports and their many amenities, given that the Newark airport—although admittedly utilitarian—was the busiest in the world. An excerpt:
FREQUENT FLIER…Albert Furth noted that Newark Municipal Airport logged a landing or departure every thirteen-and-a-half minutes. Above, passengers boarding a Boston-bound American Airlines Condor at Newark Airport in 1930. In those simpler times, passengers just walked to the runway and climbed on board. The airport had opened two years earlier on 68 acres of reclaimed swampland along the Passaic River. It was the first major commercial airport in the New York metro area and the first anywhere with a paved runway. (njmonthly.com)
* * *
Goodnight, Speakeasy
Lois Long was an 17-year-old Vassar student when Prohibition went into effect in 1919, so when she started her career in New York in 1922 the only nightlife she knew revolved around speakeasies. Although she held Prohibition officers in disdain, she also believed that the repeal of the 18th Amendment would lower the quality of New York nightlife—the food, the “adroit service,” and the “genial din” of the speakeasy. Excerpts:
FROM LOUCHE TO LEGAL…Lois Long was saying a sad goodbye to her beloved speakeasies; perhaps the Algonquin Hotel (here, circa 1930) would offer some cheer. (Pinterest)
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From Our Advertisers
Abercrombie & Fitch (then an outfitter for the elite outdoorsman) was offering holiday shoppers everything from multi-tool knives to cocktail shakers…
…while the folks at Clerevu telescopes found a growing market for folks who used their product for anything but stargazing…
…with Repeal just days away, the Pleasant Valley Wine Company of New York hoped folks would pop a few of their corks before the good stuff arrived from France…
…the British were coming to the rescue via the Berry Brothers, who were overseeing the importation of liquor from their offices at Rockefeller Center’s British Empire Building…
…let’s look at an assortment of one-column ads…the center strip features an ad promoting Angna Enters’ appearance for “one evening only” at The Town Hall (123 West 43rd Street)…Enters (1897–1989) was an American dancer, mime, painter and writer who likely performed her piece Moyen Age…
FEEL THAT STRETCH…Angna Enters performing Moyen Age, circa early 1930s. (NYPL)
…we begin our cartoons with Gardner Rea, and a dedicated bell ringer…
…Otto Soglow showed us a softer side of The Little King…
…Peter Arno revealed the human side of the posh set…
…and we close the Dec. 2 issue with this classic from James Thurber…
…on to Dec. 9, 1933, and a cover by an artist we haven’t seen in awhile, Ilonka Karasz…
Dec. 9, 1933 cover by Ilonka Karasz.
…and we open with this comment by E.B. White, who along with critic Lewis Mumford had once voiced displeasure over the massive Rockefeller Center project. However, while viewing the floodlit tower by night, he decided that he would have to eat his words, observing how “the whole thing swims up tremendously into the blue roxyspheres of the sky”…
MEA CULPA…E.B. White gained a new perspective on Rockefeller Center, pictured here in December 1933. (Wikipedia)
…we continue with White, who also offered his thoughts on something heretofore unthinkable—a proposal to start putting beer in cans…
…it would happen about a year later…on Jan. 24, 1935, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company, in partnership with the American Can Company, delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale to drinkers in Richmond, Virginia…
(seletyn.com)
…and despite White’s doubts, apparently ninety-one percent of the first drinkers of the product approved of the canned beer, although when Krueger’s launched their ad blitz they had to include instructions (and a new tool) to open the darn things…
(seletyn.com)
* * *
Dreamscapes
Critic Lewis Mumford offered his thoughts on a recent exhibit by a young surrealist named Salvador Dali…
MIDDLEBROW SURREALIST…The Triangular Hour by Salvador Dali, 1933. (wikiart.org)
…and we move along to moving pictures, where John Mosher was showing some appreciation for Joan Crawford (1906–1977) in the pre-Code film Dancing Lady…
SHE HAD IT ALL…Audiences and critics alike were wowed by Joan Crawford’s performance in Dancing Lady, which featured a star-studded and eclectic cast. Clockwise from top left, Clark Gable plays a Broadway director who becomes Crawford’s love interest; Crawford displays her dancing talent in a Broadway rehearsal; Dancing Lady featured an early film appearance by The Three Stooges, pictured here with Gable and the Stooges’ leader at the time, Ted Healy; Crawford with Stooge Larry Fine—in the original film, Fine completes his jigsaw puzzle only to discover (to his disgust) that it’s a picture of Adolf Hitler. The Hitler scene was removed by the Production Code; its enforcers claimed it insulted a foreign head of state. (IMDB)
In addition to Crawford, the star-studded cast included Clark Gable, Fred Astaire (in his film debut), Franchot Tone (who was married to Crawford from 1935-39 and made seven movies with her), The Three Stooges, Nelson Eddy, and Robert Benchley, who played a reporter in the film.
Dancing Lady was the film debut of Astaire, making Crawford the first on-screen dance partner of the famed hoofer…
(IMDB)
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More From Our Advertisers
We begin with this full-page advertisement from Heinz, which went to great lengths and expense to make their ad appear to part of The New Yorker’s editorial content, even featuring a Perry Barlow cartoon of a boy making a mess with their product…
…another New Yorker contributor who occasionally went over to the advertising side was Alexander Woollcott, here shilling for Chrysler…
…Kayser, purveyor of women’s hosiery and underthings, was going for some humorous holiday cheer, but the effect is a bit unsettling…
…liquor-related ads began to proliferate with the end of the Prohibition…this one from Martini & Rossi…
…Continental Distilling was hoping to grab its share of gin sales with its Dixie Belle American gin…
…from the same folks who brought us Fleishmann’s yeast (and kept The New Yorker afloat in its early lean years) came this American dry gin…
…Ruppert’s Beer was back with another full-page color ad by Hans Flato…
…on to our cartoons, and Santa again, this time besieged by an aggressive tot as rendered by Helen Hokinson…
…Carl Rose found an unlikely customer at a newsstand…
…here is the last of four cartoons Walter Schmidt published in the New Yorker between 1931 and 1933…
…Peter Arno left his glamorous world of nightclubs and high society parties to look in on life at a boarding house…
…and we close with the delightful Barbara Shermund…
British actor Claude Rains made his American film debut in a 1933 movie where the actor’s face isn’t revealed until the final scene.
Nov. 25, 1933 cover by Gardner Rea.
Although praised by critics in 1933 and today, The New Yorker’sJohn Mosher had but a paragraph to offer on the The Invisible Man, calling it a “bright little oddity” and an “absurd and diverting film.” Mosher also reviewed the Arctic adventure Eskimo, a film he found to be less than convincing about life on the frozen tundra.
FROM A TEST TUBE, BABY…Dr. Jack Griffin (Claude Rains) develops a secret formula that renders him invisible, much to the distress of his former fiancée Flora Cranley (Gloria Stuart). Some of you may recall Stuart from 1997’s Titanic, in which she portrayed the 100-year-old Rose. In real life Stuart had a career spanning nearly eighty years. And wouldn’t you know, she died in 2010 at age 100. (IMDB)NOW YOU SEE HIM…Special effects in 1933 were no mean feat. To create the effect of invisibility, Rains was covered head to foot with black velvet tights and wore whatever clothes he required for the scene. The invisibility scenes were then shot against a black set, the negative areas later manually masked to create the effect of invisibility. (IMDB)
…on to our other film, Eskimo…Mosher had doubts about the authenticity of the Eskimo family portrayed in the movie, suggesting (rather unkindly) that the lead actress, Lotus Long, looked like a client of the noted beautician Elizabeth Arden. The film was well-received by critics, but did poorly at the box office. However, it did receive the first-ever Oscar for Best Film Editing.
ICEBREAKER…Although MGM publicists portrayed Eskimo as a steamy love story set against a backdrop of adventure in the wild, the film was ahead of its time in some ways, including the use of Inuit dialogue, which was translated in English intertitles. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, who also directed 1932’s Tarzan the Ape Man, the cast included (top photo, from left), Ray Mala and Lulu Long Wing (older sister of famed Hollywood actress Anna May Wong) with unidentified child actors. Bottom right, Mala with actress Lotus Long. (IMDB)
* * *
Numbers Racket
Little known today, the sliding number puzzle “Imp” was hugely popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Plastic versions were produced following World War II—I recall one of them being quietly deployed from my mother’s purse during church, to keep me occupied during lengthy sermons.
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Hammered and Sickled
“The Talk of the Town” commented on a Union Square riot in which American communists attacked a group of Ukrainians protesting the Soviet-imposed mass starvation in their country. Following is an excerpt from a longer piece that also noted the arrival of New York police, who “charged into the Square, riding their horses into the crowd and taking a crack at a head here and there.”
SEE NO EVIL…American Communists attack a group of Ukrainians protesting the Soviet-caused Holodomor famine in 1933, which killed at least four million Ukrainians. (Public domain)
* * *
Party Girl
Elsa Maxwell (1883–1963) was an Iowa girl who grew up to become a gossip columnist and a hostess of high society parties—throughout the 1920s she was known for throwing lavish affairs for Europe’s wealthy and entitled. A 1963 Time magazine obituary noted that Maxwell developed a gift for staging games and diversions for the rich, making a living devising treasure-hunt parties, including a 1927 Paris scavenger hunt that created disturbances all over the city. Excerpts from a profile by Janet Flanner:
GETTING AN EARFUL…Elsa Maxwell hobnobbing with actress Constance Bennett and producer Darryl Zanuck in 1939. (Pinterest)
* * *
Masked Man
Novelist Sherwood Anderson offered his impressions of the late Ring Lardner in a piece titled “Meeting Ring Lardner.” Anderson wrote that although Lardner “seemed surrounded by a little halo of something like worship wherever he went,” he had no satisfaction in his achievements. Anderson recounted Lardner’s encounter with a shy banker, when for a moment Lardner dropped the “mask” that he often wore to shield himself from humanity. Excerpts:
SPHINX…Sherwood Anderson (right) wrote of Ring Lardner: “You wanted him not to be hurt, perhaps to have some freedom he did not have.” (AP/hilobrow.com)
* * *
Phooey on Huey
When Louisiana Senator and former Governor Huey Long published his autobiography, Every Man a King, the reaction from the press was resoundingly negative; in the Saturday Review,Allan Nevins wrote that Long “is unbalanced, vulgar, in many ways ignorant, and quite reckless.” The New Yorker’sClifton Fadiman went further, calling him the “Goebbels of Louisiana” and compared the senator to Adolf Hitler. Excerpts:
IT’S ALL ABOUT ME, REALLY…Huey Long’s 1933 autobiography, Every Man a King, was excoriated by the press, which largely viewed the senator as a fascistic demagogue. Long was assassinated in 1935. (Wikipedia)
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From Our Advertisers
Christmas was coming, and parents with the means could consider buying a “Skippy” brand racer for their little tykes. The cartoon character at the top of the ad—Skippy—was the star of one of the most popular American comic strips of its day…
…written and drawn by Percy Crosby (1891–1964) from 1923 to 1945, the Skippy comic was a big influence on later cartoonists including Charles Schulz (Peanuts) and Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes)…note the football gag below later made famous by Schulz’s Lucy and Charlie Brown…
…on to some of our one-column ads…Raleigh cigarettes were promoted to the growing women’s market, while Dunhill touted a “cocktail pipe” that allowed women to get in on the fun of pipe smoking…and with Disney’s Three Little Pigs penetrating every nook and cranny of America, the makers of Stahl-Meyer sausages decided to join in the fun…
…I include this razor ad mainly for the bold typography…advertisers were in a transitional phase, experimenting with new forms and more white space, but still holding on text-heavy pitches…
…in the case of Goodyear, if you wanted to inspire confidence in your product, you propped an old codger in a rocking chair and offered some homespun wisdom…
…here is a closer look at the old-timer’s advice…
…another tobacco ad, this one displaying the glorious blooms of a tobacco plant…how could something so lovely be bad for you?…
…a small back page ad announced a big-time book for James Thurber, including a satirical blurb from Ernest Hemingway…
…and that makes a nice segue to our cartoons, with Thurber again…
…Otto Soglow demonstrated the unexpected effectiveness of hair tonic…
…Perry Barlow gave us a look at the posh and precocious set…
…and we close with George Price, and 1933’s version of Black Friday…
Much like Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s, Jean Harlow occupied a brief period in Hollywood history, but her star shone long after her untimely death.
Oct. 28, 1933 cover by Rea Irvin.
Adam Victor’s The Marilyn Encyclopedia draws all sorts of weird parallels between the actresses: both raised by strict Christian Scientists, both married three times, both left school at sixteen to marry their first husbands, both acted opposite Clark Gable in the last film each ever made. Most importantly, Monroe idolized Harlow, so it was no coincidence that she sported her own version of “platinum blonde” hair.
ART IMITATES LIFE…In 1958 Marilyn Monroe posed as Jean Harlow for photographer Richard Avedon in a Life magazine feature. (Flickr)
The term “Bombshell” was affixed to the 22-year-old Harlow after the 1933 film’s release, and was later used to describe Monroe and other sex symbols of the 1950s and early 60s.
Harlow’s character in Bombshell, Lola Burns, satirized the stardom years of the silent era sex symbol Clara Bow, who was director Victor Fleming’s fiancée in 1926. Although critical reviews were mostly positive, New Yorker critic John Mosher found the film “mossy with verbiage.”
TAKE A BOW, CLARA…Bombshell satirized the stardom years of silent era sex symbol Clara Bow, who was director Victor Fleming’s fiancée in 1926 (photo at left is of the couple on the set of 1926’s Mantrap); in BombshellJean Harlow portrayed a sex symbol who, like Bow, wanted to live a normal life. In real life, Bow made her last film in 1933 and retired to a ranch at age 28. (IMDB)
A STAR IS BORED…In Bombshell, movie star Lola Burns (Jean Harlow) dislikes her sexy vamp image and wants to live a normal life, but her studio publicist E. J. “Space” Hanlon (Lee Tracy) insists on feeding the press endless provocative stories about her. Clockwise, from top left: Lee Tracy and Louise Beavers in a scene with Harlow; Harlow and Una Merkel, who portrayed Lola’s assistant, Mac; Harlow in a scene with Mary Forbes, C. Aubrey Smith, and Franchot Tone; Harlow in a scene with Ruth Warren and Frank Morgan—the latter portrayed Lola’s pretentious, drunken father. (IMDB)
Harlow would die at age 26 on June 7, 1937. Her heavy drinking didn’t help, but neither did the misdiagnosis she received as her kidneys were rapidly failing. While filming Saratoga with Clark Gable, Harlow was stricken with what she believed was the flu, and her persistent stomach pain was misdiagnosed as a swollen gallbladder. Just two days before her death another doctor finally diagnosed her kidney disease, but in 1937 nothing could be done—kidney dialysis would not be available for another decade, and transplants would not be an option until the mid-1950s.
* * *
Second City Sanctimony
The New Yorker rarely missed an opportunity to take a dig at the square-toed ways of the Second City and its flagship newspaper, the Tribune. In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White (who enjoyed gin martinis) found the newspaper’s sanctimonious stance tedious:
The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, aka “A Century of Progress,” received scant attention from The New Yorker, unless it provided opportunities for parody. Musicologist Sigmund Spaeth (1885-1965), well-known in the 1930s and 40s for his NBC radio programs, offered this take on the Windy City’s exposition:
WONDERS NEVER CEASE…In addition to its more high-minded attractions, the Chicago World’s Fair also featured such sideshow attractions as Ripley’s Odditorium, which featured “The Fireproof Man” among other novelties. (pdxhistory.com)
* * *
Big, Bad Earworm
It seems quaint that nearly 90 years ago one of the most popular songs in America was “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” To Frank Sullivan, there was no escaping “that lilting tune”…
SIMPLER TIMES…”Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” was a huge hit during the second half of 1933. One of the most well-known Disney songs, it was covered by numerous artists and musical groups.
Sullivan concluded that a trip to Vladivostok might be the only way to escape the catchy melody…
Briefly jumping to the Nov. 4 issue, “The Talk of Town” took a closer look at the song and the 1933 Disney Silly Symphonies cartoon in which it was featured—Three Little Pigs. Written by Frank Churchill and Ann Ronell, the song launched a market for future Disney tunes, with Irving Berlin securing the sheet music rights over Mickey Mouse and the Silly Symphonies.
WE’RE IN THE MONEY…The 1933 Disney Silly Symphonies cartoon Three Little Pigs helped to launch the Disney juggernaut nearly 90 years ago.
* * *
Polymath
Le Corbusier, aka Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (1887–1965), was known as a pioneer of modern architecture and design in the early and mid-20th century, but as this review by Lewis Mumford suggested, he was also a talented modernist painter.
WAYS OF SEEING…Le Corbusier’s early paintings followed the ideas of something he called “purism”—at left is an example from 1920, Still Life. Later on his work become more abstract, including Menace, at right, from 1938. The horse head in the painting seems to reference Pablo Picasso’s 1937 painting, Guernica. (Wikipedia/Art Basel)
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Dear Papa
Following the high praise Ernest Hemingway received in 1926 for The Sun Also Rises, Dorothy Parker feared for the novelist’s next book: “You know how it is—as soon as they all start acclaiming a writer, that writer is just about to slip downward.” Seven years later Parker’s colleague Clifton Fadiman detected some slippage, finding Hemingway’s latest output a bit stale. Rather than pen a negative review, Fadiman shared his concerns by way of an open letter:
PHONING IT IN…Clifton Fadiman (right) found Ernest Hemingway’sWinner Take Nothing to be “stuck fast in yesterday.” (AP/Wikipedia/Pinterest)
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From Our Advertisers
Until the 1920s all car bodies were framed in wood, preferably ash, but by the end of the 1930s all-steel car bodies became the standard…Packard made the switch beginning around 1938…
…ah, the good old days when you could smoke in the “rarefied atmosphere” of an airplane, the pilot so close by you could tap him on the shoulder…
…Brooklyn’s Hittleman-Goldenrod Brewery opened in late 1933 promising beer in the finest English tradition…sadly, it closed in 1937…
…the Waldorf-Astoria announced the re-opening of its Empire Room with entertainment by Xavier Cugat and his tango orchestra, featuring the dancer Margo…this was just the sort of “juvenile” entertainment Lois Long detested (see my previous post)…
…according to this ad, “His Lordship” drank a pot of decaf Sanka at midnight “and never winked an eye all night”…it doesn’t mention that he probably also wet the bed…
…on to our cartoons, we begin with Peter Arno and the woes of the monied classes…
…on to Helen Hokinson, and the charms of the precocious…
…Gardner Rea gave us a toff absorbed in historical fiction…
…Alain (aka Daniel Brustlein) offered up a flautist who found beauty in his routine life…
…and we close with Perry Barlow, and motherhood among the smart set…
Proposed by the 72nd Congress on February 20, 1933, the 21st Amendment to end national prohibition needed ratification from at least thirty-six states—by the end of October twenty-nine had ratified the amendment, and with passage seeming imminent…
Oct. 21, 1933 cover by Harry Brown.
…Manhattan’s venerable grocer turned national wine and spirits distributor Park & Tilford began shipping tens of thousands of cases of “potables” to New York, according to “The Talk of the Town.” Excerpt:
ON THE OFF WAGON…Parched, jubilant Americans ride on carts loaded with liquor prepared for distribution at the end of Prohibition. (Still from Universal News)
Edward Angly, who at the time was a journalist at the Herald-Tribune, tempered the celebratory mood in “A Reporter at Large” by considering the supply and demand issues (and higher prices) consumers would likely face upon ratification.
In early 1934 the Washington Post reported cocktail prices ranged from twenty-five cents (roughly $5.50 today) to forty cents. Whisky by the drink was selling from fifteen cents for blends to twenty-five cents for bonded varieties. One of the “higher priced” stores quoted a price of $3.80 for a quart of Four Roses (roughly eighty bucks today) while you could grab a quart of Crab Orchard straight Bourbon whisky for $1.40.
Until supplies could satisfy demand, distillers were encouraged to perform a “modern loaves-and-fishes miracle” and rectify their small stocks by cutting them with colored and flavored straight alcohol.
YOU CAN COME OUT NOW…With the end of Prohibition, bootleggers considered other career options. (floridamemory.com)
Who else would feel the pinch? In addition to the thousands of speakeasies that would close shop, legions of bootleggers would have to go legit or find another line of vice to keep themselves fed and occupied.
…before I close out this lead story, I came across this obituary for Edward Angly in the Dec. 8, 1951 edition of The New York Times. Note that this clip also features the funeral notice for New Yorker founding editor Harold Ross.
* * *
Name Your Fears
Irish writer and critic Ernest Boyd was for a time connected to the consular service and probably had a pretty good sense of what was to come in Europe. Turning to verse he pondered the origin of the Hitler curse.
* * *
Fat and Happy
Premiered to record-breaking crowds at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, The Private Life of Henry VIII was a smash hit in both the UK and the US and established Charles Laughton as a box office star. Although the film played fast and loose with the historical record, it was a critical success for director/producer Alexander Korda. The New Yorker’s John Mosher was among those praising the British film.
SINKING HIS TEETH INTO A ROLE…Charles Laughton’s portrayal of Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII is credited with creating the popular image of the king as a fat, lecherous glutton. Top photo features Wendy Barrie as Jane Seymour (wife #3); below, Binnie Barnes as Katherine Howard (wife #5). (moma.org/tcm.com)
HAIL TO THE KING…Opening night in London for The Private Life of Henry VIII, Oct. 24, 1933. From left are Elsa Lanchester, who portrayed wife #4 Anne of Cleves; Merle Oberon (who portrayed wife #2 Anne Boleyn), producer/director Alexander Korda, and Charles Laughton. (Science & Society Picture Library / National Portrait Gallery, London)
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Kid’s Stuff
In her latest “Tables for Two” column, Lois Long bemoaned the state of ballroom dancing, which seemed to be appealing more to juvenile tastes.
SUITABLE FOR ADULT AUDIENCES…Lois Long recalled the cool allure of dancers Leonora Hughes (at left, with dance partner Maurice Mouvet in 1924) and Irene Castle (in a 1929 photo). Both photographs by Edward Steichen for Vanity Fair. (Conde Nast)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
Let it pour indeed, as advertisers anticipated the end of Prohibition…
…Brooklyn-based Piel’s joined other brewers in targeting women as a new growth market, and as in previous New Yorker ads also appealed to those who fancied themselves among the smart set…
…looking for signs of optimism after four years of economic depression? Look no further than luxury shoemaker Nettleton…
…while Nettleton held steady on its prices, the makers of Steinway pianos posted this gentle reminder about rising material costs, but what can you expect if you are purchasing “The Instrument of the Immortals”…
…the Architect’s Emergency Committee continued its campaign to promote the hiring of unemployed architects…in this ad the committee went back to the profession’s ancient origins, Marcus Vitruvius’Virtues of an Architect…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with more adventures of The Little King, courtesy Otto Soglow…
…William Crawford Galbraith was still stuck on his theme of seductive women either paired with sugar daddies or clueless suitors…
…speaking of clueless, James Thurber gave us this party pooper…
…Gardner Rea checked the economic temperature of the upper crust…
…and we close with William Steig, and an enterprising paperboy…
As in her other films, Mae West’s character in I’m No Angel was sexually independent and unapologetically so. (Kino Lorber)
We first encountered Mae West back in 1926 when The New Yorker commented on her risqué Broadway play, Sex. Although the play was the biggest ticket in town, it eventually attracted a police raid that landed West in jail on morals charges. Sentenced to ten days for “corrupting the morals of youth,” she could have paid a fine, but for West a short stint on Welfare Island was worth its weight in publicity gold.
Oct. 14, 1933 cover by Rea Irvin.
Fast forward seven years, and West is one of the nation’s biggest box office attractions and starring in her third film, I’m No Angel. Depression-era audiences responded enthusiastically to West’s portrayals of a woman from the wrong side of the tracks who in the end gains both fortune and social acceptance. Although puritanical forces continued to be outraged by West’s antics, New Yorker film critic John Mosher found her act to be “a safe parody on indecency.”
SHIMMY TO SUCCESS…Clockwise, from top left: At the beginning of I’m No Angel, Tira (Mae West) shimmies and sings in a circus sideshow; studio poster for the film— In the early 1930s, West’s films were key in saving Paramount Pictures from bankruptcy; a wealthy sideshow customer (William B. Davidson) arranges a private rendezvous; Tira has her day in court despite attempts by her ex-boyfriend, Slick Wiley (Ralf Harolde), to discredit her. (IMDB)
SHE GETS HER MAN…Cary Grant starred opposite Mae West for the second and final time in I’m No Angel. Eleven years junior to West, Grant portrayed Tira’s fiancé, Jack Clayton. (TCM)
And finally, a much-talked about scene from the movie featured West putting her head (rather sensually) into the mouth of a lion. In reality it appears to be a camera trick: West was actually placing her head to the side of the lion’s mouth. Still, a gutsy move by West. As for the lion, it was no picnic either.
* * *
Comic Relief
Eugene O’Neill surprised critics and audiences alike when he premiered Ah, Wilderness! at Broadway’s Guild Theatre on October 2, 1933. Among the critics was Wolcott Gibbs, who concluded that O’Neill should stick to his usual themes of disillusion and despair. An excerpt:
PASS THE CORN, PLEASE…Around the table in the original 1933 Broadway production of Ah, Wilderness! are (from left) George M. Cohan (Nat Miller), Eda Heinemann (Lily), Elisha Cook, Jr. (Richard), Gene Lockhart (Sid), Marjorie Marquis (Mrs. Nat Miller), Walter Vonnegut, Jr. (Tommy) and Adelaide Bean (Mildred). (Photograph by Vandamm for Stage magazine, November 1933)
ERRORS OF COMEDY…Wolcott Gibbs (left) found Eugene O’Neill’s attempt at comedy to be nothing more than a recycling of corny old saws. However, Ah, Wilderness! proved successful in its first Broadway production and in the touring company that followed. It remains to this day a staple of community repertory. (The New Yorker/Playbill/Encyclopedia Britannica)
* * *
Hell in a Handbasket
If Eugene O’Neill couldn’t offer up some woe, then leave it to E.B. White of all people to supply reason for despair. In his 1982 review of a collection of White’s poems and sketches, Timothy Foote observed that White occasionally assumed the guise of Pessimist, “a desperate fellow who served as a one-man distant-early-warning system…”
For the Oct. 14 issue White bemoaned the loss of the American elm (of the 77 million elms in North America in 1930, more than 75 percent were lost to Dutch elm disease by 1989), the dangers of pesticide use, and other maladies. Excerpts:
APPLE OF HIS EYE…E.B. White had reason to be concerned about the widespread practice of spraying lead arsenic on fruit trees. This 1930 photograph shows an Oregon orchardist and his child spraying apple trees with the stuff. (oregonhistoryproject.org)
White’s New Yorker colleague John O’Hara raised some concerns of his own, namely the likelihood of another world war in this prescient piece titled “Dynamite is Like a Mill Pond.” Excerpts:
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE…John O’Hara pondered the likelihood of another world war and an unlikely bedfellow: Soviet Russia. Photo circa 1938. (AP via loa.org)
* * *
Pooh-Poohing Mr. Milne
In his review of A.A. Milne’s latest novel, The Red House Mystery, Clifton Fadiman seemed to recall Dorothy Parker’s own revulsion to Milne’s juvenile style (“Tonstant Weader Fwowed Up” Parker once wrote of The House at Pooh Corner). Excerpts:
* * *
From Our Advertisers
The makers of Camels took to the water to prove how their cigarettes supported “healthy nerves,” whether in the deep sea or on the high dive…
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…here’s another great example of class appropriation, a white-tie dinner featuring a couple of toffs eating canned soup…
…and we give our eyes a break with a bit of elegance from Lord & Taylor, featuring the art of modern living…
…on to our cartoons, we begin with James Thurber…
…curious to know Thurber’s favorite songs?—then check out this Thurber Thursday post from Michael Maslin’sInkspill...
…we continue with William Steig’s look at a “Lady With Mirror”…
…and discover the calm after a storm in this domestic scene by Kemp Starrett…
…visit the Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago, with George Price…
…for reference, Price’s cartoon depicted the Federal Building at the Century of Progress…
…and is often the case with this blog, we give Peter Arno the last word…
ABOVE: Broadway's As Thousands Cheer (1933) featured evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson (Helen Broderick) trying to persuade Mahatma Gandhi (Clifton Webb) to end his hunger strike and join her act. (NYPL)
Broadway gave Depression audiences a lift with As Thousands Cheer, a revue featuring satirical sketches that skewered the lives and affairs of the rich and famous and served as a precursor to sketch shows like Saturday Night Live.
Oct. 7, 1933 cover by Peter Arno.
With a book by Moss Hart and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, the revue was a big hit, playing for nearly a year on Broadway in its initial run.
TOON TIME…Marilyn Miller led a chorus of cartoon characters in a sketch titled “The Funnies” in As Thousands Cheer; leading the revue were Miller, Clifton Webb and Helen Broderick, here featured on the cover of the Playbill. The production would be Marilyn Miller’s last—one of Broadway’s biggest stars known for playing sunny characters, her personal life was filled with illness and tragedy, and she would go to an early death in 1936. (playbill.com)
Wolcott Gibbs took his turn as Broadway reviewer, and pronounced As Thousands Cheer “the funniest thing in town.”
Not everything was roses in As Thousands Cheer: In a poignant star turn, Ethel Waters sang—at Irving Berlin’s request—his famous tune “Supper Time,” a Black woman’s lament for her lynched husband. The revue was the first Broadway show to give an African-American star (Waters) equal billing with whites, however she was segregated from her co-stars and did not appear in any sketches with them. Her co-stars even refused to bow with her at the curtain call until Berlin intervened. According to the James Kaplan biography Irving Berlin, “The show had a successful tryout at Philadelphia’s Forrest Theatre in early September, although opening night was marred by an ugly incident all too in tune with the times: the stars Clifton Webb, Marilyn Miller, and Helen Broderick refused to take a bow with Ethel Waters. To his everlasting credit, Berlin told the three that of course he would respect their feelings—only in that case there needn’t be any bows at all.
“They took their bows with Waters at the next show.”
NEWSMAKERS…Each sketch in As Thousands Cheer was preceded with a newspaper headline. Clockwise, from top left, in the sketch headlined JOAN CRAWFORD TO DIVORCE DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, JR, Marilyn Miller and Clifton Webb portrayed the stars arguing over publicity rights to their divorce; Webb as 94-year-old John D. Rockefeller; the headline FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT INAUGURATED TOMORROW featured Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Hoover on their last day in the White House, portrayed by Leslie Adams and Helen Broderick; Ethel Waters singing Irving Berlin’s “Supper Time.” (New York Public Library)
* * *
A Final Byline
E.B. White opened his column with a tribute to Ring Lardner, who died at age 48 of a heart attack and other complications. In the months before his death Lardner had contributed a number of comical “Over the Waves” radio reviews.
JOURNALIST AT HEART…Ring Lardner (1885-1933) worked for several newspapers before settling at the Chicago Tribune in 1913—it became the home newspaper for his syndicated column, In the Wake of the News. (Chicago Tribune)
Lardner’s first contribution to The New Yorker came shortly after the magazine’s founding. “The Constant Jay” was published in the April 18, 1925 issue: Readers appreciated his subtle wit, including this oft-quoted gem:
“The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong—but that’s the way to bet.”
Lardner also liked to poke fun at himself and his aw-shucks view of things. Here are the opening and closing paragraphs of his final New Yorker contribution, “Odd’s Bodkins:”
* * *
Macy Modernism
As Lewis Mumford observed in his “Skyline” column, Macy’s was the first department store to embrace a modern approach to interior design, but as Marilyn Friedman notes in her book, Making America Modern: Interior Design in the 1930s, Macy’s modernism was a bit toned down to blend into more traditional settings. A case in point was Macy’s 1933 Forward House exhibition, which Mumford described as “a brilliant piece of modern showmanship.”
EASY ON THE EYES…”Living room in the Suburban House of Forward House” at R.H. Macy & Co., New York, 1933, from The Upholsterer and Interior Decorator, October 15, 1933. (artdeco.org)
* * *
Fishing for Commies
Geoffrey Hellman profiled New York House Rep. Hamilton Fish Jr (1888–1991), a staunch anti-communist perhaps best known for establishing the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. I feature this brief excerpt mainly for the great caricature by Abe Birnbaum.
MINDING THE HOME FRONT…Hamilton Fish, Jr making a speech in Los Angeles, 1935. Fish served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1920 to 1945 and during that time was a prominent opponent of intervention into foreign affairs. (UCLA Special Collections)
* * *
All Wet
Eleven years before Esther Williams made her first aqua-musical, Ruby Keeler took the dive under Busby Berkeley’s direction in Footlight Parade. E.B. White served as film critic for the Oct. 7 issue, and found Footlight to be a feast for the male gaze, as well as mindless entertainment.
TAKING THE PLUNGE…Clockwise, from top left: According to E.B. White, there was no gainsaying “the general aahhhhh” of the semi-nude waterfall scene in Footlight Parade; promotional poster left no doubt as to what audiences might expect from the film; Busby Berkeley displayed his craft in water-based choreography; Ruby Keeler portrayed a dancer turned secretary who is transformed back into a dancer—just add water. (IMDB)
* * *
A Dog’s Life
Doubtless drained from writing The Waves, Virginia Woolf followed up with some historical fiction, namely Flush: A Biography, a book about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel. Clifton Fadiman had this to say about the unusual biography:
VIRGINIA WOOF…Frontispiece for Flush: A Biography. Virginia Woolf used the tale of a dog to explore social themes ranging from feminism to class conflict. (Heritage Auctions)
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From Our Advertisers
When you market a car for only $445 you aren’t going after the luxury market, but hey, drop a ten-truck truck on this baby and you can live to tell about it…
…with legal beer flooding the market brewers were particularly keen to attract female drinkers of all ages…and apparently social classes…
…a couple of ads from the back pages, the first touting the smart-set writing of columnist and foreign correspondent Alice Hughes for the New York American, and the second an advertisement for Chase & Sanborn coffee, which relayed the story of a marriage on the brink due to stale coffee…
…I include this ad for the heroic scale of the ocean liner, particularly as depicted by the people in the background…
…we bounce on to our cartoons with Otto Soglow’s Little King…
…James Thurber continued to explore the unrest among our domestic youth…
…speaking of America’s youth, this gathering (courtesy Gardner Rea) appeared to have trouble finding some…
…Helen Hokinson found fun with flounder…
…Rea Irvin turned the tables on a life-drawing class…
…and we close with Richard Decker, over the moon with a stranded chorine…
…and in a nod to the approaching holiday, imagery from a 1933 Fleischer Studios animated short film, Betty Boop’s Hallowe’en Party…
For its Sept. 23, 1933 issue The New Yorker continued its serialization of James Thurber’s autobiography, My Life and Hard Times…
Sept. 23, 1933 cover by Abner Dean.
Part Seven, titled “College Days,” included Thurber’s reminiscences of an economics class and the challenges one “Professor Bassum” faced in keeping a star football tackle academically eligible:
DEAR OLD ALMA MATER…James Thurber attended The Ohio State University from 1913 to 1918. Clockwise, from top left, the football team during Thurber’s time featured some smart players as well, including All-American quarterback/halfback Gaylor “Pete” Stinchcomb (left) and All-American halfback Chic Harley (right); Thurber’s drawing of the dim-witted tackle Bolenciecwez from My Life and Hard Times; OSU University Hall circa 1910; Thurber drawing of an OSU botany professor who “quivered with frustration” over Thurber’s inability to see through a microscope. (Ohio State/Wikipedia)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We begin with the makers of White Rock, who touted the international appeal of their home-grown product, here enjoyed by an old warrior and his much-younger mistress who were busy keeping the colonies in line in Southeast Asia…
…speaking of colonial exploitation, here’s Frank Buck keeping his nerves steady smoking Camels as he lugs “tons of rhinos, tigers, and gorillas across the Pacific” to live out their lives in cramped, fetid cages…
…hey there New York sophisticates of 1933!…we have just the place for you, where only the BEST PEOPLE are apartment hunting, far from the din of immigrants, the unemployed, and other undesirables…
…if you wanted to hang out with the best people, you could get yourself exact copies of the latest Paris fashions from Saks Fifth Avenue…
…or if you were on a tighter budget, you could check out the wares at Wanamaker’s, who trumpeted their “fashion-firsts” on this ad on page 41 followed by a double-spread on the following pages…
…James Thurber lent his talents to the makers of Fisher car bodies…in the early days of automobile production Fisher made car bodies for a number of GM cars as well as for Packard, Studebaker, Hudson and other manufacturers…in 1926 it was absorbed by GM as an in-house coach-building division…
…on to our cartoons, we take a boat ride with Robert Day…
…discover the perils of historical research with Barbara Shermund…
…Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein offered a new perspective on portrait painting…
…Helen Hokinson found a Red among the blue bloods…
…and a wee conundrum in the hat department…
…Gardner Rea pulled out all stops in this patriotic tableau…
…on to the Sept. 30, 1933 issue…
Sept. 30, 1933 cover by William Cotton.
…in which journalist Robert Wohlforth contributed a profile on poet and writer James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938), a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance most widely known today for the lyrics of the Negro National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” A brief excerpt with illustration by Hugo Gellert:
LIFT EVERY VOICE...James Weldon Johnson, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1932. (Library of Congress)
* * *
Mexican Morass
E.B. White took on the movie review duties and landed himself a doozy—Sergei Eisenstein’sThunder Over Mexico. The famed Soviet filmmaker had come to the U.S. in 1930 to make a film for Paramount, but when the deal fell through American socialist author Upton Sinclair and others invited Eisenstein to make an artistic travelogue exploring the themes of life and death in Mexico. More than thirty hours of film was shot before the project was abandoned and Eisenstein returned to the USSR. The footage was later cut into three films, including Thunder Over Mexico. White was less than pleased with the film’s “butchered” edits.
LIFE AND DEATH IN MEXICO…Avant-garde Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein shot more than 30 hours of film in Mexico without producing a final product. An independent Hollywood producer, Sol Lesser, later produced two short features and a short subject culled from the footage—Thunder Over Mexico, Eisenstein in Mexico, and Death Day; these were released in 1933-34. Clockwise, from top left, poster for the film, the film featured scenes of cinematic beauty as well as brutal violence; Eisenstein visiting Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo; Eisenstein directing a scene from the film. (IMDB/www.otago.ac.nz)
* * *
Dreaming in Color
In this “Talk of the Town” entry, attributed to James Thurber, we learn of various wonders at the National Electrical Exposition at Madison Square Garden, including a “Clavilux Color Organ” designed for home use. Excerpts:
EINE KLEINE LICHT MUSIK…Danish musician Thomas Wilfred (top) constructed his first Clavilux in 1919. Sitting at a large console, Wilfred could control infinite color projections. His first public performance was in New York in 1922 (top right), featuring an abstract light show audiences compared to an aurora borealis. Bottom right, the Clavilux Junior was developed for home use, operated with special glass records, each hand-painted with a distinct composition that would create the projected image. (cdm.link/Yale University Art Gallery)
This YouTube video offers some idea of the effect:
* * *
More From Our Advertisers
Warm, idealized images of American life, in the vein of Norman Rockwell, were popular among advertisers seeking to reassure Depression-era consumers…here we have the avuncular scientist working to ensure that your Packard is not only reliable as transportation, but also a place of solace…
…this same idea was conveyed by the makers of Goodyear tires…
…this ad on page 55 for Guerlain’s Shalimar Powder somewhat recalls the art deco style of Tamara de Lempicka…
…but flip the page and you are brought back to reality with Shefford’s “Snappy Cheese”…
…you needed to lay off the cheese, however, if you wanted to take up a Ry-Krisp diet, endorsed here by Sylvia Ulback, better known at the time as “Sylvia of Hollywood” — in 1933 she was one of the most famous voices on radio…
STRETCH FOR SUCCESS…Norwegian-born Sylvia Ulback (1881–1975) was a Hollywood fitness guru from 1926 until 1932. Known as Sylvia of Hollywood, she abandoned the Tinseltown scene after publishing a “tell all” book about her clients titled Hollywood Undressed (1931). From 1933 to 1936 she appeared on the radio show, Mme. Sylvia, a 15-minute beauty and celebrity broadcast sponsored by Ry-Krisp, and she also published three health and fitness books, including 1939’s Streamline Your Figure. (youmustrememberthispodcast.com)
…on to our cartoons, Alan Dunn discovered a budding Picasso…
…another cryptic cartoon by James Thurber was featured in the “Talk of the Town” section…
…Whitney Darrow Jr gave this dowager an off-stage surprise…
…E. Simms Campbell put a snag in an old yarn…
…and we end with Peter Arno, and an old walrus feeling his oats…
Above: Maurice Passworthy (Kenneth Villiers) and Catherine Cabel (Pearl Argyle) prepare for a trip to the moon in Things to Come. (IMDB)
In his 1933 science fiction novel The Shape of Things to Come,H.G. Wells foresaw how an international economic depression could eventually lead to world war.
Sept. 2, 1933 cover by William Steig.
The book also predicted that such a war would feature whole cities destroyed by aerial bombing and the eventual development of weapons of mass destruction. However, New Yorker book critic Clifton Fadiman found Wells’ other predictions to be fanciful, “scientific-romantic” notions, such as a post-war Utopia (headquartered in Basra, Iraq, of all places) ruled by super-talents that would advance scientific learning in a world without nation-states or religion. And naturally everyone would speak English.
YOU MAY SAY I’M A DREAMER…H.G. Wells envisioned a world of war, pestilence and economic collapse that would eventually give way to an English-speaking Utopia free of nation-states and religion. (Wikipedia)
Three years later Wells would adapt his book to the screen in 1936’s Things to Come, produced by Alexander Korda and starring Raymond Massey as a heroic RAF pilot John Cabal and Ralph Richardson as “The Boss,” a man who stands in the way of Cabal’s utopian dreams.
FUTURE TENSE…Clockwise, from top left, H.G. Wells visits with actors Pearl Argyle and Raymond Massey on the set of Things to Come—Swiss designer René Hubert created the futuristic costumes; in the year 1970 RAF pilot John Cabal (Massey) lands his sleek monoplane in Everytown, England, proclaiming a new civilization run by a band of enlightened mechanics and engineers; city of the future as depicted in Things to Come; poster for the film’s release. (IMDB)
An afternote: A 1979 Canadian science fiction film titled The Shape of Things to Come was supposedly based on Wells’ novel but bore little resemblance to the book. The film is a considered a turkey, lovingly mocked by the same audiences that gave Plan 9 from Outer Space a second life.
WE MEAN YOU NO HARM…Actor Jack Palance—wearing what appears to be the top from a water cooler— headed a cast that included Barry Morse and Carol Lynley in 1979’s The Shape of Things to Come.
* * *
Fine Dining
Director George Cukor turned a hit Ferber-Kaufman Broadway play into a hit movie by the same title when Dinner at Eight premiered in September 1933. While the film received high marks from leading critics, New Yorker film reviewer John Mosher found it a bit routine, if well-crafted:
BLONDE ON BLONDE…Judith Wood (left) portrayed the character Kitty Packard in the 1932 stage production of Dinner at Eight; Jean Harlow took on the role for the 1933 film version. (IMDB)
Mosher, however, continued to admire the acting chops of veteran Marie Dressler…
FUNNY LADIES…Clockwise, from top left: Jean Harlow and Marie Dressler square off in Dinner at Eight; movie poster highlights the “Blonde Bombshell” Harlow along with a star-studded cast; a scene with Harlow, Wallace Beery and Edmund Lowe; to avoid wrinkling her gown between takes, Harlow reviewed her lines in a special stand-up chair. (IMDB/pre-code.com)
* * *
Madame Secretary
Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins was the first woman in the U.S. to serve as a cabinet secretary, but she was a lot more that—she was the driving force behind FDR’s New Deal. Here are excerpts from a two-part profile written by Russell Lord, with illustration by Hugo Gellert.
TRIAL BY FIRE…Frances Perkins watched in horror as young women leapt to their deaths in the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire—146 perished on that day Perkins recalled as the moment the New Deal was born her mind. In the wake of the fire Perkins, an established expert on worker health and safety, was named executive secretary of the NYC Committee on Safety. (trianglememorial.org/francesperkinscenter.org)
Even if some men couldn’t come around to a woman moving through the circles of power, Perkins had many admirers including prominent Tammany Hall leader “Big Tim” Sullivan.
Perkins’ appointment to FDR’s cabinet made the Aug. 14, 1933 cover of TIME magazine. (TIME/thoughtco.com)
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From Our Advertisers
Even the staid executives at Packard were getting into the modern advertising game, where sometimes the product itself was not even pictured…
…our cartoonists include Robert Day…
…George Price…
…and baring it all, Peter Arno…
…on to Sept. 9, and what I believe is Alice Harvey’s first New Yorker cover…
Sept. 9, 1933 cover by Alice Harvey.
…and where “The Talk of the Town” paid a visit to the Half Moon Hotel on Coney Island, a favorite haunt of those magnificent men and women and their flying machines:
SHIFTING SANDS…Opened in 1927 to attract upscale crowds to Coney Island away from the rabble of the Midway, the elegant Half Moon Hotel started strong but teetered on the doorstep of bankruptcy during the Depression; it gained notoriety in 1941 when mob turncoat Abe Reles fell to his death from a sixth floor window while under police protection. The hotel was demolished in 1996. (Pinterest)
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Huey In The News
In his column “Of All Things,” Howard Brubaker offered this brief take on Huey Long’s visit to a Long Island party, where one guest apparently socked the controversial “Kingfish,” giving the former Louisiana governor (and then senator) a shiner.
A CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER?…Controversy followed Huey Long wherever he went. At left is a New York Times account of Long’s alleged black eye incident on Long Island. He would be assassinated two years later at the Louisiana State Capitol; Long circa 1933. (NYT/Wikipedia)
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More From Our Advertisers
As a follow-up from the previous issue’s Packard ad, this two-page spread showed us what those 1200 men were gawking at…check out that 12-cylinder model on the left, which appears to be better than 20 feet long…
…according to this ad, you could thank Camel cigarettes for getting the mail through the gloom of night…
…if you needed a cigarette to steady your nerves, you also needed fresh coffee to avoid being ostracized by your friends…
…summer-stock barn theatres were popular across America in the 1930s…this ad (illustrated by Wallace Morgan) hailed the end of the summer season and the return of “Winter Broadway”…
…on to our cartoons, out in the countryside we also find William Crawford Galbraith, here continuing to ply one of his favorite themes, namely pairing shapely seductresses and showgirls with clueless suitors…
…Helen Hokinson gave us one woman who believed “what happens in the Riviera, stays in the Riviera”…
…and we close with Gardner Rea, and a scout troop on a mission…
A New Yorker State of Mind 