Before screenwriter Niven Busch Jr. headed to Hollywood in 1931, he cut his teeth as writer for The New Yorker, contributing a series of profiles (later compiled in Twenty-one Americans) as well as an intermittent series from May 1927 to Feb. 1930 on New York’s Prohibition-era speakeasies.
February 18, 1928 cover by Theodore G. Haupt.
Always careful to shield the identity of speakeasy owners and patrons, Busch described the often less-than-glamorous digs of New York’s illegal watering holes. In a speakeasy called “The No Trump,” two Irish brothers took turns mixing drinks “on a kitchen table in a cubbyhole” while Busch sat in a darkened bar and listened in on a conversation coming from the adjoining “bridge room”…
This illustration by Reginald Marsh accompanied Niven Busch’s article.
LAST CALL…Images taken by photographer Margaret Bourke-White for Life magazine during the last days of Prohibition. (Time.com)WHO GOES THERE?…The familiar slot in the door came in handy for speakeasy owners wishing to screen clients before allowing entry into their illegal lairs. (Chicago Tribune)BETTER SWILL…The Marlborough House, an East Side speakeasy for socialites during Prohibition, 1933. Photo by Margaret Bourke-White for Fortune. (Time.com)
Busch also described his visit to the “Circus Speakeasy,” operated by a man who “travelled for 21 years with the Ringling Circus”…
A young Niven Busch Jr., circa 1930. (enetpress.com)Busch and the third of his five wives, the actress Teresa Wright, in the 1940s. (danielmartineckhart.com)
In his later years as a producer and screenwriter in Hollywood, Busch would script movies ranging from The Man With Two Faces (1934) starring Edward G. Robinson, to The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), with Lana Turner.
All Aboard
One of the prominent voices of the unsigned “Talk of the Town,” E.B. White was also a regular contributor of short pieces in The New Yorker, such as the following which described a mistaken encounter on an overnight train:
* * *
Another way to calm the jitters
If you couldn’t legally (or illegally) buy Johnny Walker Scotch whisky in 1928, you had to settle for their brand of “vacuumed-cleaned, extremely mild” cigarettes, which were apparently sold as late as the 1950s…
And to get a taste of what was showing at the local cinemas, I’ve included this page-and-third spread of movie and theatre ads from the back pages. Note the film Sunrise featured prominently at the top left-hand corner.
Starring George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor, and Margaret Livingston, this 1927 silent romantic drama, directed by F.W. Murnau, used the new Fox Movietone sound-on-film system, making it one of the first feature films with a synchronized musical score and sound effects soundtrack. Sunrise (full title: The Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans) won the Academy Award in the category “Unique and Artistic Picture” at the 1st Academy Awards in 1929, and Gaynor won the first Academy Award for “Best Actress in a Leading Role.” Sunrise is considered one of the greatest films of the silent era and even today is widely considered a masterpiece.
AWARD-WINNING SMILES…George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor in 1927’s acclaimed The Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. (The Red List)
* * *
And finally, more hijinks from the moneyed classes, courtesy of Peter Arno:
A decidedly new sound reverberated in the ears of New Yorkers who attended a Feb. 1928 performance of the New York Philharmonic that featured guest artist Leon Theremin, a Russian inventor who played music by moving his hands through the air, or more accurately, a magnetic field.
February 4, 1928 cover by Gardner Rea.
Theremin’s eponymous instrument had neither keys nor strings, but rather two metal antennas attached to an electronic oscillator. Music was produced by moving one’s hands between the antennas, which sensed the relative position of the players hands—one antenna controlled for pitch while the other adjusted the instrument’s volume. The sound produced is best described as “otherworldly.” James Thurber, writing for the “Talk of the Town” (in a piece titled “Music Makers”), found Theremin’s performance intriguing, but of even greater interest was the great Russian pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff—who was in attendance—and his reaction to the strange instrument:
HMMMM…At left, Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1921, as photographed by Kubey Rembrandt. At right, Leon Theremin plays his eponymous instrument at a demonstration concert in Paris on December 8, 1927. (Wikimedia)
The New Yorker’s voyeuristic account of Rachmaninoff continued, with the great man now becoming more engaged in the performance…
The Theremin would grow in popularity, however more as a novelty than a serious instrument:
ON THE AIR…Alexandra Stepanoff playing the Theremin on NBC Radio in 1930. A Russian immigrant to the U.S., the former concert singer was Theremin’s first student in the United States. (Wikimedia)VIRTUOSO…The Russian-born Clara (Reisenberg) Rockmore holds a unique place in music history as the virtuoso performer of the Theremin. Leon Theremin built a custom version of his instrument for Rockmore, which added greater range and sensitivity. Rockmore would sometimes perform concerts with her sister, accomplished pianist Nadia Reisenberg. Photo circa 1930. (PHOTO BY RENATO TOPPO, COURTESY OF THE NADIA REISENBERG – CLARA ROCKMORE FOUNDATION)
Theremin would be granted a U.S. patent for the instrument in 1928, which was marketed and distributed in the U.S. by RCA during the 1930’s in either DIY kit form or as a finished instrument:
(120years.net)
Interest in the instrument as a novelty continued into the 40’s and 50’s in the DIY market…
(120years.net)
Robert Moog, pioneer of modern electronic music and inventor of the Moog synthesizer, made and sold a transistorized version of the Theremin in the 1950s.
The Theremin would become best known to mass culture through its use in producing “eerie” sound effects in 1940s and 50s films, including Bernard Herrmann’s use of the instrument for the soundtrack to the 1951 sci-fi thriller, The Day The Earth Stood Still. And nearly everyone on the planet has heard the Theremin-inspired sound of the Beach Boy’s song Good Vibrations, created by an electro-Theremin that was developed in the late 1950s to mimic the sound of the original Theremin.
As for Leon Theremin himself, he would also gain notoriety as the inventor of The Thing, a listening device most famously used by the Soviets to bug the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The device was hidden behind a wood carving of the U.S. Great Seal, which in 1945 was presented by Soviet schoolchildren to the U.S. ambassador, who subsequently hung it in his office.
GOTCHA…American Ambassador to the UN Henry Cabot Lodge displays The Thing before the UN Security Council in 1960. At right, the device which was hidden behind the seal. The Americans discovered the bug in 1952, but didn’t reveal its existence until 1960 in the wake of the U-2 spy plane incident. The Soviet Union had convened the meeting of the United Nations Security Council to accuse the Americans of spying with the U2; in response Cabot displayed The Thing as proof spying between the two countries was a mutual endeavor. (crytomuseum.com/Wikimedia)
The reasons why Theremin developed The Thing for the KGB are a mystery. When he suddenly disappeared from New York in 1938 it was rumored that he had been kidnapped and possibly executed by the KGB. What we do know is that Soviet spooks put him to work in a secret laboratory in the Gulag camp system, where he developed The Thing.
In 1991, filmmaker Steven Martin brought Leon Theremin back to New York to film a documentary about his life. Theremin gave one last performance in 1993, and died that year at age 97.
Wild Kingdom
The New Yorker’s review of the hit film Simba revealed a very different approach to the natural world 89 years ago, when the wilds of Africa were exploited purely for adventure and thrills rather than for any real understanding of natural systems and the animals and humans that inhabited them. Martin and Osa Johnson were celebrated for their filmed exploits in the wilds, including Simba; they touted their movie—shot in Kenya—as being made under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History, although much of the film was staged or edited in ways to maximize the thrills.
The New Yorker found the film to be “darn good fun”…
Despite its flaws, the film does offer us a glimpse of Africa when wildlife hadn’t been hunted to near extinction, although the Johnsons didn’t hesitate to gun down animals left and right in the course of their movie-making.
According to a 2011 review from Wild Film History, “in stark contrast to the conservation-themed wildlife films of today, the Johnsons approached their subjects armed with both camera and rifle, with the production including provoked behavior, staged confrontations and animals shot to death on film. Relying heavily on cutting in kills from professional marksmen, numerous hunting scenes culminate in a heart-stopping sequence where, with the use of clever editing, the adventurous Mrs Johnson appears to bring down a charging rhinoceros with one well-aimed shot.
A FUN-LOVING NATURE…Osa Johnson saddles up a hapless zebra. (Daily Mail)
* * *
From the Advertising Department
There were three automobile ads in the Feb. 4 issue, all from long-gone companies—Pierce-Arrow, Hudson-Essex, and Nash, which featured this endorsement by the brother-sister dancing duo Fred and Adele Astaire:
This ad for Dynamique showcased the art deco stylings of its furniture line…
And finally, a Peter Arno cartoon of an upper class faux pas…
As I’ve previously noted, reading back issues of periodicals often gives one a feeling of omniscience; as I thumb through week after week of late 1920s New Yorkers, I realize that for all their cleverness and worldly wisdom, even that magazine’s writers and editors could not see with any clarity into the future. But neither can any of us…one wonders what readers 89 years hence will surmise from today’s magazines, that is, if our civilization lasts that long.
January 28, 1928 cover by Theodore G. Haupt.
Howard Brubaker (in his column “Of All Things”) might have spotted something brewing on the horizon, even if it wouldn’t become perfectly clear until Dec. 7, 1941. Here is a clip from his Jan. 28, 1928 column in The New Yorker:
Two other major events in U.S. history, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that would follow, were less than two years away. But this was the Roaring Twenties, and some thought the fun would never end…except perhaps Equitable Trust, which placed this advertisement in the Jan. 28 issue:
Apparently the folks at Equitable Trust weren’t assured of their own financial freedom—after the Crash they would be acquired by Chase National Bank, making Chase the largest bank in the world at that time.
Despite the overheated economy of the 1920s, there still were plenty of poor and unemployed people in the city. One man, Urbain Ledoux (known as Mr. Zero in order to hide his identity), often arranged protests and demonstrations to bring attention to the poor and unemployed, and opened a number of bread lines and soup kitchens to feed the hungry, including the “Tub,” depicted in this two-page illustration by Constantin Alajalov along the bottom of the “Talk” section of the Jan. 28 issue (click image to enlarge).
* * *
Not All Gloom and Doom
Hindsight also reveals the trajectory of the 20th century’s great accomplishments. Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight in 1927, for example, fueled the imaginations of those who would usher in the jet age and space travel. Just 31 years after Lindbergh’s flight, the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) would begin operation of its first transatlantic passenger jet service. And only 42 years would separate Lindbergh’s flight from Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk.
JUST 31 YEARS would separate Lindbergh’s flight from the first transatlantic jet service. At left, the DeHavilland Comet 4 (1958), and at right, Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis (1927). (warthunder.com/howstuffworks.com)
Like the rest of America, The New Yorker was an enthusiastic follower of developments in aviation after Lindbergh (the “aerial ambassador” referred to below). The January 28 “Talk of the Town” led with this item about pilots soaring to ever greater heights.
Consider that a mere 41 years separated this…
YETI, SET, GO!…A pilot in high altitude flying gear next to a Wright Apache biplane, January 1, 1928. In September 1926 the Apache set the world altitude record for seaplanes (38,500 ft) and in April 1930 it set the land-plane altitude record of 43,166 ft. (NASA)
…from this…
LEAVE THE FUR COAT AT HOME…The second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, prepares to step onto the lunar surface, July 20, 1969. (Neil Armstrong/NASA)
* * *
While Back on Earth…
Big events in America always seem to involve the appearance of showgirls, whether it is the introduction of a new car or some techno gadget. As this “Talk” item indicates, much was the same 89 years ago…
* * *
Silent Giant
German film actor Emil Jannings was lauded for his performances on the screen in both Germany and America in films, and he was particularly adept at portraying of the pathos of middle-aged men. The New Yorker disliked most of Hollywood’s output (and usually praised the much-artier German films), so when Jannings landed on these shores he was lauded by the magazine, which dedicated a profile (written by Elsie McCormick) to him in the Jan. 28 issue, accompanied by a Hugo Gellert illustration. Some excerpts:
LIFE IS HARD…Evelyn Brent and Emil Jannings star in The Last Command. In the first Academy Awards, Jannings would win best actor for two films, The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. (silentfilm.org)
At the first Academy Awards in 1929, Jannings would win a Best Actor Oscar for two of his 1928 films, The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. An interesting side note from writer Susan Orlean: In her 2011 book, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and The Legend, Jannings was not actually the winner of the first best actor vote, but the runner-up. The famous dog actor Rin Tin Tin actually won the vote. The Academy, worried about not being taken seriously, gave the award to the human instead.
Janning’s thick German accent would bring his Hollywood career to an end with sound pictures. He would return to Germany, and during the Third Reich he would star in several films that promoted the Nazis. According to Wikipedia, the shooting of his last film, Wo ist Herr Belling? was aborted when Allied troops entered Germany in Spring 1945. Jannings reportedly carried his Oscar statuette with him as proof of his former association with Hollywood.
From the Advertising Department
This advertisement from the Jan. 28 issue caught my eye because Bergdorf Goodman is one of the few stores in Manhattan still operating at its original site:
Bergdorf Goodman today. (Photo courtesy LPC)
And here we have perhaps the iMac of its day, standing apart from the competition with its colorful, bold new look…
And finally, this early cartoon from longtime New Yorker cartoonist Perry Barlow having some fun at the expense of New York’s working class…
American inventor Thomas Edison was a hero to the young Henry Ford, who grew up to become something of a tinkerer himself with his pioneering development of the assembly line and mass production techniques. Over a matter of decades in the late 19th and early 20th century these two men would play outsized roles in transforming the American landscape and our way of life.
January 21, 1928 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
Ford would first meet Edison in August 1896, at a convention of the Association of Edison Illuminating Companies held at the Oriental Hotel in Brooklyn—it was just two months after the 33-year-old Ford had finished work on his first car—a “quadricycle”—consisting of a simple frame, an ethanol-powered engine and four bicycle wheels. In contrast, by 1896 the 49-year-old Edison was a worldwide celebrity, having already invented the phonograph (1877), the incandescent lamp (1879), public electricity (1883) and motion pictures (1888).
WHAT NEXT, A CAR STEREO?…Thomas Edison (left) with his second phonograph, photographed by Mathew Brady in Washington, D.C., April 1878. At right, Henry Ford sits in his first automobile, the Ford Quadricycle, in 1896. (Wikimedia Commons)
By 1907 the two had forged a close friendship that would endure the rest of their lives. So it was no surprise that these two giants of the machine age would show up together at the New York Auto Show at Madison Square Garden and take a gander at the latest technical marvels, including Ford’s new “Model A.” The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” was on hand as witness:
NEAT-O…Thomas Edison and Henry Ford at the 1928 New York Auto Show. (Associated Press)IT SOLD LIKE HOTCAKES…Henry Ford and son Edsel introducing the 1928 Ford Model A at the Ford Industrial Exposition in New York City, January 1928. (thehenryford.org)
* * *
E.B. Drives the ‘A’
In the same issue (Jan. 21, 1928) E.B. White told readers how to drive the new Model A—in his roundabout way. Some excerpts:
No doubt White was feeling a bit wistful with the arrival of the Model A, which supplanted its predecessor, the ubiquitous Model T. White even penned a farewell to the old automobile under a pseudonym that conflated White’s name with Richard Lee Strout’s, whose original submission to The New Yorker inspired White’s book (illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein).
FAREWELL TIN LIZZIE…E.B. and Katharine White driving his beloved Model T.
In Farewell to Model T White recalled his days after graduating from college, when in 1922 he set off across America with his typewriter and his Model T. White wrote that “(his) own vision of the land—my own discovery of it—was shaped, more than by any other instrument, by a Model T Ford…a slow-motion roadster of miraculous design—strong, tremulous, and tireless, from sea to shining sea.”
The Eternal Debate
In his “Reporter at Large” column, Morris Markey commented on the execution of former lovers and convicted murderers Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray, noting that once again the debate over the death penalty had been stirred, but as usual there was no resolution in sight. Little could Markey know that we would still be holding the debate 89 years later, with no resolution in sight.
END OF THE LINE…Mugshots of Ruth Snyder and Henry Judd Gray taken at Sing Sing Prison following their conviction for the murder of Snyder’s husband. They were executed Jan. 12, 1928. (Lloyd Sealy Library, CUNY)
* * *
Ahoy there
The New York Boat Show was back in town at the Grand Central Palace, enticing both the rich and the not-so-rich to answer the call of the sea. Correspondent Nicholas Trott observed:
An advertisement in the same issue touted Elco’s “floating home”…
But if you aspired to something larger than a modest cruiser, the Boat Show also featured an 85-foot yacht…
But for the rest of the grasping orders, Chris-Craft offered the Cadet, an affordable 22′ runabout sold on an installment plan. Another ad from the issue asking those of modest means to answer “the call of freedom!”
For an affordable boat, the Chris-Craft was really quite beautiful—its mahogany construction puts today’s fiberglass tubs to shame…
PRETTY SWEET…A 1928 Chris-Craft Cadet. (Click to enlarge)
* * *
Odds & Ends
The boat show was one indication that spring was already in the air. The various ads for clothing in the Jan. 21 issue had also thrown off the woolens, such as this one from Dobbs on Fifth Avenue, which featured a woman with all the lines of a skyscraper.
And to achieve those lines, another advertisement advised young women to visit Marjorie Dork…
…who seemed to do quite well for herself in the early days of fitness training…
THOROUGHLY MODERN MARJORIE…New York beauty specialist Marjorie Dork, with her Packard, in New York’s Central Park, 1927. Original photo by John Adams Davis, New York. (Detroit Public Library)
And then there was a back page ad that said to hell with healthy living…
The actress featured in the advertisement, Lenore Ulric, was considered one of the American theater’s top stars. Born in 1892 as Lenore Ulrich in New Ulm, Minnesota, she got her start on stage when she was still a teen, a protégé of the famed David Belasco. Though she primarily became a stage actress, she also made the occasional film appearance, portraying fiery, hot-blooded women of the femme fatale variety.
Portrait of Lenore Ulric by New York’s Vandamm Studio. (broadway.cas.sc.edu)
* * *
And we close with this post with a peek into the into upper class social scene, courtesy of Barbara Shermund…
We close out November 1927 by looking at a hugely popular comic strip—Mutt & Jeff—that made cartoonist Bud Fisher both famous and wealthy.
Nov. 19 and Nov. 26, 1927 covers by Rea Irvin.
The editors of the Nov. 26, 1927 issue of The New Yorker thought Fisher interesting enough to feature in a lengthy “Profile,” written by Kelly Coombs. A brief excerpt:
According to John Adcock’s terrific Yesterday’s Papers blog, by 1916 Bud Fisher was the highest paid cartoonist on earth. The New Yorker suggested his annual income was $300,000 (roughly equivalent to more than $4 million today). In addition to the strips, created by Fisher and a team of ghost illustrators/writers, Mutt & Jeff were featured in vaudeville engagements, theatrical shows, animated cartoons, comic books and toys.
DIE LAUGHING…Mutt & Jeff themed toys included this joke kit from Mysto Manufacturing. I don’t quite get the joke featured on the cover, depicting Jeff’s casually twisted approach to murdering poor Mutt. (Copyright MEL BIRNKRANT via melbirnkrant.com—a truly amazing collection)IT’S A LIVING…Harry Conway (Bud) Fisher, drawing a likeness of the character “Jeff” at a Chicago Daily News event in 1915. (Chicago History Museum)
Fisher began his career as a sports cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle and started his strip about “two mismatched tinhorns” in 1907. It went into syndication the following year. Mutt and Jeff, originally titled A. Mutt, is regarded as the first American newspaper cartoon published as a strip of panels, making it the first “comic strip.”
There was obviously a time when American readers thought Mutt & Jeff hilarious, but I don’t quite get its appeal. In this strip from 1926, Jeff gets a pie in the face. The giant question mark was frequently employed by Fisher, as were the dotted eye lines and explanatory arrows like the one in the last panel. No, Jeff didn’t get his brains blown out by Mutt. It is only a pie! Hah!
Click on image to enlarge
Another visual cliché from comics of yore was the angry wife wielding a rolling pin. Apparently Jeff refers to Mutt’s wife as an “Old Buzzard” and assumes she is already in bed (sorry about the poor quality of the reproduction). Jeff subsequently gets whacked with the rolling pin, and Mutt takes it on the bean with a flatiron. That is quite a feat, throwing a grown man through a window while simultaneously hitting him on the head with a flatiron…
Click on image to enlarge (Both strips courtesy University of Michigan)
The duo were also featured inmore than 300 animated “half-reelers” produced between 1913 and 1926, including Mutt and Jeff: On Strike from 1920. The short film (which can be viewed here) even includes rare footage of Bud Fisher himself, since the story–sort of a film within a film–involves the penniless Mutt and Jeff going on strike after they see a movie featuring Fisher’s lavish home.
STRIKEBREAKER…Still images from the silent half-reeler, Mutt and Jeff: On Strike. Bud Fisher is shown at home discussing terms over the phone with his striking characters. They lose. (www.filmpreservation.org)
Coombs concluded the profile with these observations concerning Fisher’s personal habits:
Fisher employed a number of assistants on the strip, including George Herriman (Krazy Kat) and a high-school boy named Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are). When Fisher appeared to lose interest in the strip in the 1930s, assistant Al Smith took over and drew the strip for nearly fifty years (but Smith didn’t sign his own name on the strip until after Fisher’s death in 1954).
In Yesterday’s Papers, Adcock notes that Fisher “was the unlikeliest person you could think of to draw Mutt and Jeff…along with most of his contemporary cartoonist-journalists pals, (he) enjoyed fights, chorus girls, gambling, and saloons. Fisher liked to shoot up hotel rooms with his pistols, one of which was a gift from Pancho Villa, indoors when he was drunk.”
Heads in the Clouds
Thanks to the race to fly across the Atlantic, toy models of Charles Lindbergh’sSpirit of St. Louis and other planes were in high demand for the Christmas season, according to this item in the Nov. 26, 1927, “Talk of the Town:”
BUILT TO LAST…A Metalcraft model kit (box, upper image, contents below) from the late 1920s. It was all metal in the days before plastic model kits. (eBay)
* * *
At a Loss For Words
Jumping back to the Nov. 19, 1927 issue, we go from the low art of Bud Fisher to the high art of John Marin featured in “The Art Galleries” section. Art critic Murdock Pemberton wrote:
SAVAGE WORK…John Marin,White Horses – Sea Movement off Deer Isle, Maine, 1926. (Whitney Museum of American Art)
But perhaps “high art” is not an accurate description of Marin’s paintings, since Marin himself wasn’t into “highfalutin words” to describe his work…
HAUNTING BEAUTY…John Marin, Echo Lake Franconia Range White Mountain Country, 1927 (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.)
* * *
In the previous week’s issue (Nov. 12) the Marmon 8 was advertised as an ideal car for women. Not to be outdone, the folks at Buick shot back with this colorful ad in the Nov. 19 issue:
The Nov. 19 issue also featured this strange advertisement from the famed Wanamaker department store. Strange mainly because of the illustration, which features a fashionable woman departing a fanciful aircraft studded with mullioned windows(!) and a stairway that stretches to improbable depths…oh, and in case the reader might miss the snob appeal associated with French furs, the words Paris, Parisian or French are featured ten times…
And finally, the ubiquitous New Yorker cartoon featuring the humorous mismatch of rich old sugar daddy and ditzy young mistress, courtesy of Julian de Miskey…
The Oct. 15, 1927 issue featured the premiere of the film The Jazz Singer. Although The New Yorker found the story a bit dull, it also recognized that the film’s use of sound marked a significant turning point in the short history of cinema.
October 15, 1927 cover by Theodore G. Haupt.
The Jazz Singer was not the first film to employ sound, but as the New Yorker review pointed out, it was the first to effectively use synchronized sound (the industry standard Vitaphone technique) in a way that improved the motion picture.
The film featured only two minutes worth of sound dialogue, so most of the spoken lines were still presented on intertitle cards commonly used in silent films. But it was Al Jolson’s recorded voice, belting out popular tunes including “Toot, Toot, Tootsie,” that really wowed audiences. At the end of the film Jolson himself appeared on stage before an audience “clapping and bellowing with joy”…
IT SINGS! IT TALKS!!!…Al Jolson as Jack Robin and Eugenie Besserer as his mother, Sara Rabinowitz, in The Jazz Singer. One attendee at the premiere recalled that when Jolson and Besserer began their dialogue scene, “the audience became hysterical.” (wired.com)
It is interesting that as early as 1927, and even with the relatively crude sound of Vitaphone, The New Yorker was already predicting the advent of a new kind of star (and the decline of the stage actor)…
BLACK TIE EVENT…A Vitaphone projection setup at a 1926 demonstration. Western Electric engineer E. B. Craft, left, is holding a soundtrack disc, which was essentially a phonograph record. The turntable, on a thick tripod base, is at lower center. (Wikipedia)
As for the movie itself, well, there was Jolson, beloved by many. Perhaps it’s the sound quality, or the 89 years of changing tastes, but I cannot for life of me understand what audiences (or The New Yorker) saw that was so appealing about the hammy Jolson as a performer.
THAT WAS THEN…Al Jolson as Jack Robin in The Jazz Singer. Although performing in blackface is considered racist today, Jolson’s use of blackface was integral to the film in that it was tied to Jack’s own Jewish heritage and his struggle for identity. Of course that doesn’t make it any less offensive. (YouTube clip)
* * * * *
Absent-minded Ambassador
The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” offered some curious observations about the new ambassador to Mexico, Dwight Morrow.
SON-IN-LAW…Aviator Charles Lindbergh would marry Dwight Morrow’s daughter, Anne, in 1929. in this photo from 1931 are, from left, Charles Lindbergh, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Elisabeth Morrow, and Dwight Morrow. (kaiology.wordpress.com)
Morrow has been widely hailed as a brilliant ambassador with a keen intellect. The New Yorker, however, offered some additional perspective on the man:
Flight of Fancy
In the wake of Charles Lindbergh’s famous flight, The New Yorker (and the rest of the country) continued its fascination with air travel, which at this point was confined to military and commercial pilots, stunt flyers and the well-to-do.
EXTRA LEGROOM…The Fokker F.VII pictured above is likely the same plane or very similar to the one owned by Texas oilman William Denning. The interior depicted below is also similar to what is described in The New Yorker. (aviation-history.com)
* * * * *
RIP Isadora Duncan
The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent, Janet Flanner, wrote about the funeral of famed modern dancer Isadora Duncan in her column, “Letter from Paris.” Duncan was killed in a freak accident on the night of Sept. 14, 1927, when her silk scarf, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels of the car in which she was riding, breaking her neck.
Isadora Duncan with her husband, poet Sergei Esenin, in 1922. (Wikimedia)
Other items of note from the Oct. 15 issue, E.B. White contributed this ditty…
…and Corey Ford, who gave the fictional Eustace Tilley his persona, wrote of Tilley’s feat crossing Broadway in a parody of adventure stories popular at the time. An excerpt:
And finally, Peter Arno explored childhood angst among the smart set (note reference to “Uncle Thurber”)…
“The Very Golden Apple” was the title of an essay by E. A. Tosbell in the Sept. 3, 1927 issue that examined the transformation of the Miss America pageant–just seven years old–into a big money concern.
September 3, 1927 cover by Theodore G. Haupt.
Tosbell opened with the lament that Miss Los Angeles, Adrienne Dore, should have won the 1925 contest save for a lapse in table manners…
PASS THE SALT, PLEASE…Adrienne Dore, left, was runner-up to fellow Californian Fay Lanphier, who was crowned Miss America in 1925. Dore would go on to a modest movie career through the mid 1930s. (Allure/travsd.wordpress.com)ALL-AMERICAN LINE-UP…Contestants from a hodge podge of states, cities and towns vied for the Miss America crown in 1925. (Wikipedia) Click to Enlarge
Tosbell offered us a taste of what contestants could expect upon their arrival in Atlantic City…
Norma Smallwood from Tulsa, Oklahoma was crowned Miss America 1926, the first Native American to capture the title. Smallwood was highly criticized in the press for her business savvy as she went on to earn $100,000 through personal appearance fees and product endorsements. Tosbell noted:
THERE SHE GOES…Norma Smallwood of Tulsa, Oklahoma was crowned Miss America 1926 by “King Neptune” as Miss America 1925 Fay Lanphier (right) held her scepter. (missamerica.org)
In 1927 Smallwood would again draw criticism when she requested $600 from the pageant for her appearance in crowning the new winner, Lois Delander. Delander was a high school student who won her local contest in Joliet, Illinois by reciting Bible verses. Unlike her predecessors, Delander turned down lucrative offers in show business and returned home to continue her school studies.
IT’S NICE, BUT…Lois Delander of Joliet, Illinois was a most unassuming Miss America of 1927. (Time.com)
In the case of a 1922 Miss America contestant, Georgia Hale, you didn’t have to win the pageant to make it to the Big Time. Hale was chosen by Charlie Chaplin to be his “leading lady” in 1925’s The Gold Rush, and in the following year she would play Myrtle Wilson in the first filmed version of The Great Gatsby. A savvy businesswoman, Hale would become wealthy through real estate investments in Southern California.
SHE STRUCK GOLD…Georgia Hale and Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, 1925. (Wikimedia Commons)
* * *
The September 3 “Talk of the Town” offered some insights into the dressing habits (and tardiness) of New York’s dandified mayor, Jimmy Walker, who was preparing for an overseas journey. Excerpts:
GOTHAM’S CLOTHES HORSE…New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker during a visit to Boston in the late 1920s. (c. Leslie Jones, digitalcommonwealth.org)
The New Yorker continued its commentary on the changing city skyline as urban residences continued their skyward climb, including the oddly named Oliver Cromwell apartment hotel:
An advertisement in the same issue touted the Cromwell’s serene, park-like setting:
There were numerous advertisements like these in The New Yorker. Another promoted the Beverly’s sky-high “wind-swept terraces…”
The Beverly today (now the Benjamin Hotel). The 30-story building was designed by Emery Roth with Sylvan Bien and built in 1926-27. Commissioned by Moses Ginsberg to host middle-income visitors to New York City, it was recently submitted for landmark designation as an important fixture in Grand Central Terminal’s “Hotel Alley.” (Historic Districts Council)
* * *
On to the Sept. 10, 1927 issue, and a couple of cartoons that aptly represented the spirit of Roaring Twenties…
Sept. 10, 1927 cover by Theodore G. Haupt.
…Johan Bull offered a glimpse of the new rich in the realm of culture…
…while Carl Rose captured the spirit of investors during the waning days of the red hot 1920s stock market…
The First Academy Award for Best Picture went to Wings, a romantic action-war picture directed by William Wellman and featuring Paramount’s biggest star at the time, the “It Girl” Clara Bow and a young Gary Cooper in a role that would launch his Hollywood career.
August 20, 1927 cover by Helen Hokinson.
The film was shot on location at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas, on a budget of $2 million (about $27 million today). About 300 pilots were involved in filming realistic (and dangerous) air-combat sequences using both mounted and hand-held cameras.
LOFTY AMBITIONS…Charles “Buddy” Rogers and Clara Bow in Wings, 1927. (BBC)
NO CGI HERE…Director William Wellman, during production of Wings, 1927. (Paramount Pictures via New York Times)INSURANCE RISK…Stunt pilot Dick Grace specialized in crashing planes for films, and was one of the few stunt pilots who died of old age. (ladailymirror)
* * *
We leave the skies for the trenches in another World War I film–Barbed Wire–that was entertaining New Yorkers in 1927…
LOOKS MORE INTERESTING OUT THERE…Pola Negri watches the Germans in Barbed Wire, 1927. (Wikipedia)
The Duncan Sisters were back, this time on the silver screen in an adaptation of their Broadway hit play, Topsy and Eva. One of the sisters performed in blackface, which was acceptable to white audiences of the time (including New Yorker critics). You can read more about this duo in my recent blog entry, Fifteen Minutes is Quite Enough.
Advertisement for the film, Topsy and Eva, 1927. (nilsasther.blogspot.com)
Meanwhile, Paris correspondent Janet Flanner was noting some modern influences in the city thanks to the influence of the German Bauhaus…
Rue Mallet Stevens was designed by Paris-based architect, designer and production designer Robert Mallet-Stevens, who founded the Union of Modern Artists (UAM) in 1929. (theredlist.com).
* * *
From the “they couldn’t see it coming” department, this item in “The Talk of the Town” caught my eye. We have since learned that carbon emissions are indeed taking a toll on human life…
…and a couple of cartoons from this issue, this one courtesy of Barbara Shermund…
…and this from an unidentified cartoonist (Dussey?) that gives us a glimpse of the world to come thanks to merger of technology and tedious, proud parents…
* * *
And to end on a “Wings” theme, the following week’s issue…
August 27, 1927 cover by Theodore G. Haupt.
…offered this advertisment from L. Bamberger & Co. that gave us a tongue-in-cheek glance at the future of aviation…
After months of reporting on polo, golf, tennis and yacht races, The New Yorker finally mentioned baseball–sort of–reviewing a movie featuring Babe Ruth and penning a brief piece about Lou Gehrig in “The Talk of the Town.”
August 6, 1927 cover by Ilonka Karasz.
But the magazine still made no mention of the incredible season that was shaping up for the legendary 1927 New York Yankees, or the feats of its feared “Murderer’s Row” lineup. Although widely considered to be the best baseball team in the history of major league baseball, The New Yorker up to this point had given more ink to the game of ping pong. But we’ll take what we can get, namely Babe Ruth’s acting performance in Babe Comes Home…
BETTER STICK TO BASEBALL…Lobby card for the 1927 film, Babe Comes Home, featuring Anna Q. Nilsson and The Bambino himself. (posterscancollections.com)
…and over in “The Talk of the Town” section the editors looked at another Yankee slugger, Lou Gehrig, who besides his hitting ability was Ruth’s opposite…
MOM & APPLE PIE…Lou Gehrig and his mother, Christina, in 1927. (baseballfever.com)
* * *
With the hullabaloo over Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight, more Americans were becoming interested in flying as an actual travel option, although in August 1927 New York City had only one established passenger line:
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS…On April 15, 1927, Colonial Air Transport (a predecessor of American Airlines) began passenger service between Boston and New York City. (Boston Globe)SORRY, NO WI-FI…National Air Transport, a predecessor of United Airlines and a prime mail carrier, brought the Travelair 5000 to their minimal fleet in 1927 to add passenger revenue to its Midwestern and Western hops that linked Chicago, Omaha, Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, Reno and San Francisco. (traveler.com)
* * *
The August 6 issue also featured this strange little review in “Talk” about the popularity (or fad) of attending Chinese theater. Note how the writer described it as an exotic curiosity, as though the Chinese actors were as unknowable as Martians. I suppose it didn’t occur to the writer that you could actually speak to these performers, and have them explain the meanings of the various rituals.
OFF-BROADWAY…Actor Ma Shi-tsang posing with a riding crop in a 1920s publicity photo. Chinese theater actors performed in U.S. cities with large Chinese populations, including San Francisco and New York. (cdlib.org)
And to close, a couple of cartoons from the issue by Barbara Shermund that illustrated two very different aspects of New York society:
In 1927 silent film star Charlie Chaplin was working on his latest film, The Circus, when his second wife, Lita Grey, filed for divorce, accusing her husband of infidelity, abuse, and of harbouring “perverted sexual desires.” Life imitated art, and Charlie’s own life became a circus.
July 23, 1927 cover by Stanley W. Reynolds.
TheNew Yorker’s Ralph Barton, who contributed countless illustrations for the magazine (and was a close friend of Chaplin’s), wrote about Chaplin’s latest travails in a column titled “Picking on Charlie Chaplin.”
LIFE ON THE HIGH WIRE…Charlie Chaplin in The Circus (1928). (MoMA)
The “2” Barton mentioned were teenaged actress Lita Grey and her mother, Lillian Parker.
In 1924 the 35-year-old Chaplin married the 16-year-old Grey in a discreet ceremony in Mexico — because Grey was pregnant, Chaplin could have been charged with statutory rape under California law (it was Chaplin’s second marriage, and his second to a teenaged actress). Chaplin and Grey had two sons from their brief union–Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr., was born in 1925, followed by Sydney Earl Chaplin in 1926.
The divorce made headline news as Chaplin was reported to be in a state of nervous breakdown. Filming for The Circus was suspended for ten months while he dealt with the mess:
Chaplin’s lawyers agreed to a cash settlement of $600,000—the largest awarded by American courts at that time (Roughly equivalent to more than $8 million today). Groups formed across America calling for his films to be banned (no doubt the same groups that had earlier protested his marriage to a pregnant, teenaged minor). Barton mused that the protests might cause Chaplin to abandon America for the more permissive atmosphere in Europe:
HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU…Charlie Chaplin first became acquainted with the 12-year-old Lillita McMurray (later Lita Grey) during the filming of The Kid (1921).PRATFALL…Charlie Chaplin and Lita Grey during their brief, tumultuous marriage. (The Artifice)
The Circus was released in January 1928 to positive reviews, and during the first-ever Academy Awards Chaplin received a special trophy, “For versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus. Despite the film’s success, he rarely spoke of it again. For Charlie, it was a time best forgotten.
* * *
And now, an advertisement from the July 23 issue urging readers to buy the 1920s equivalent of “Smart Water” endorsed by the Sun King himself…
…and a cartoon by Reginald Marsh, portraying a distinctly American view of the grandeur of Niagara Falls…
* * *
On to July 30, 1927 issue, in which The New Yorker once again takes a poke at our 30th President…
July 30, 1927. (Cover is unsigned, but I suspect it is by John Held Jr.)
…and his latest adventures in the wilds of South Dakota’s Black Hills:
BIG CHIEF…President Calvin Coolidge donned a headdress while being named an honorary Sioux chief (“Leading Eagle”) in Deadwood, South Dakota. His advisers cautioned that the headdress would make him look funny, but he apparently replied, “Well it’s good for people to laugh, isn’t it?” (AP)
Safely back in the environs of the big city, The New Yorker continued to take stock of summer sports such as tennis, polo, and the yacht races at Larchmont (but still no mention of the legendary ’27 Yankees). This illustration of the races (unsigned, but I guess it is Reginald Marsh) graced a double-spread below “The Talk of the Town”…
(click to enlarge)
…and if you were attending the races, or wanted to look stylish on your yacht (or if you just wanted to dress this way to appear that you owned one), you could check out the selections at B. Altman’s…
…looking smart was everywhere in the issue, from multiple ads for fall furs, to this come-on from Buick, which suggests that even though it is no Cadillac, and certainly not a Rolls, its smartness will prevail “on any boulevard”…
The Buick ad is somewhat revolutionary for an early automobile ad in that it doesn’t actually show the product advertised.
As for those not among the smart set, and not enjoying the races at Larchmont, there were other summer diversions, as rendered here by J.H. Fyfe:
A New Yorker State of Mind 