It’s hard to beat Chicago as a source for hardboiled storytelling, and two of its best newspaper reporters, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, would draw on their rough and tumble newsroom experiences to create one of Broadway’s most-beloved plays.
March 28, 1931 cover by Ruth Cairns.
Although they were Chicago boys, The New Yorker crowd viewed Hecht and MacArthur as adopted (or perhaps naturalized) Manhattanites. So when John Mosher wrote his glowing review of the film adaption of The Front Page, he was writing about the work of a pair well known to the Algonquin Round Table set.
WE ❤ NY…Chicagoans Ben Hecht, left, and Charles MacArthur were familiar faces with the Algonquin Round Table crowd. (Chicago Tribune/Amazon)NEWSIES…Editor Walter Burns (Adolphe Menjou) sizes up his reporter Hildy Johnson (Pat O’Brien) and Hildy’s fiance Peggy Grant (Mary Brian) in The Front Page. (IMDB)
MacArthur (1895-1956) was especially close to the Algonquin group, having shared an apartment with Robert Benchley and a bed with Dorothy Parker in the early 1920s. In 1928 MacArthur would marry one of Broadway’s most beloved stars, Helen Hayes.
For his part, Hecht (1893-1964) contributed short fiction pieces to The New Yorker during its lean first years, 1925-1928. After the success of The Front Page, Hecht would go on to become one of Hollywood’s greatest screenwriters.
Here’s Mosher’s review:
Playwright and essayist James Harvey observes that The Front Page was “Hecht and MacArthur’s Chicago…(and) that counts most deeply in the imagination of Hollywood. And their play, the first of the great newspaper comedies, did more to define the tone and style, the look and the sound of Hollywood comedy than any other work of its time.”
DESK JOB…Hildy Johnson (Pat O’Brien) and Molly Malloy (Mae Clarke) hide escaped murderer Earl Williams (George E. Stone) in a rolltop desk in 1931’s The Front Page. (Everett)TRIUMPHANT TRIUMVIRATE… Following up on the success of his famously over-budget war film Hell’s Angels (1930), Howard Hughes (left) had another hit on his hands as co-producer of The Front Page; at the Fourth Academy Awards the film was nominated for Best Picture, Lewis Milestone (center) for Best Director, and Adolphe Menjou (right) for Best Actor. (Wikipedia/IMDB)
A footnote: Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur were close throughout their careers, and remain so even in death: they are buried near each other on a hilltop in Oak Hills Cemetery, Nyack, NY.
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From Our Advertisers
In the late 1920s and early 1930s several illustrators drew inspiration from the style Carl “Eric” Erickson made famous with his elegant series of ads for Camel cigarettes…I’m not sure if this ad (part of a series promoting “The New Chevrolet Six”) is by Erickson or an imitator, but it seems the artists were likely inspired by the actress Greta Garbo and her signature beret…
…and for comparison, an Erickson Camel ad from the March 21, 1931 issue…
…and our inspiration, Greta Garbo circa 1930…
…those Chevy buyers might have considered investing in Velmo mohair upholstery to boost the resale value of their auto…
…among other technological wonders of the age — furniture crafted from aluminum, soon to become ubiquitous in workplaces across the country…
…and then there was the electric refrigerator, still new to a lot of households in 1931 as icemen began to hang up their tongs and head for the sunset…
…if you were a modern man or woman of means, you could ditch the auto altogether and get yourself a Pitcairn autogiro…
…in the 1920s and 30s the autogiro was considered by many to be the transportation of the future, a flying machine as easy to operate as driving a car…
HEY DAD, CAN I HAVE THE KEYS TO THE AUTOGIRO?…Above, a Pitcairn PCA-2. In the 1920s and 30s, many future-forward designers imagined the autogiro as the flying car of tomorrow. (Wikipedia)
…for those who preferred to be passenger rather than pilot, they could relax in the comfort of an airplane cabin and enjoy some…hmmm…beef broth! From what I understand, passenger flight was not this cosy in 1931…this was long before pressurized cabins, when you had to mostly fly in the weather, and not above it, and you probably had to fight to keep from upchucking that Torex all over the lovely flight attendant…
…while we are on the subject of flight, we turn to our cartoons, beginning with Garrett Price…
…meanwhile, William Steig explored the trials of young love…
…a rare two-pager from Ralph Barton…
…Leonard Dove adopted an alias for a cartoon that seems inspired by a recent trip to Persia…
…Otto Soglow illustrated one man’s dilemma at a bus stop…
…Gardner Rea found offense in an unlikely setting…
…Barbara Shermund defined pathetic in this sugar daddy’s boast…
…while on the other end of the spectrum, I. Klein illustrated the burdens of life as a Milquetoast…
…and we sign off with Mary Petty, and one woman’s terms of endearment…
The story of Fred Nixon-Nirdlinger isn’t exactly dinner table conversation these days, but in the spring of 1931 his death at the hands of his beauty queen wife had much of America abuzz.
March 21, 1930 cover by Helen Hokinson.
Charlotte Nash, Miss St. Louis of 1923, would have passed into obscurity like so many other beauty contestants if she hadn’t married a wealthy theater owner 30 years her senior, and then divorced and remarried him, and then shot him in the head on the French Riviera.
But first, the reason I am writing about this lurid episode: here’s E.B. White in the March 21, 1931 “Notes and Comment”…
Forty-seven-year-old Fred Nixon-Nirdlinger, wealthy owner of a Philadelphia theater chain, was serving as a judge at the 1923 Miss America competition in Atlantic City when the 17-year-old “Miss St. Louis,” Charlotte Nash, caught his eye and his fancy. By February 1924 they were married…
FANCY STRIKER…Seventeen-year-old Charlotte Nash strikes a pose at the 1923 Miss America pageant in Atlantic City; belated 1924 marriage announcement in the Philadelphia Inquirer; announcement in the New York Daily News. (New York Daily News/Philadelphia Inquirer)
…Fred was furious that Charlotte did not win the title in Atlantic City. He vowed to make her a movie star and sent her off to finishing school to work on her manners and elocution…
CRADLE TO GRAVE…Fred Nixon-Nirdlinger sent his young bride to finishing school for “a touch of polishing here and there.” Little did he know that one day she would finish him too…permanently. (findagrave.com/Pittsburgh Press)
…Unfortunately, Fred forgot to tell his young bride that he already had a wife —news that came to light on a trans-Atlantic voyage to Paris, where Fred and Charlotte had planned to honeymoon. Already pregnant with his child, Charlotte nevertheless divorced Fred, but remarried him some months later after the baby was born (and after considerable wooing and groveling by the theater magnate). Fred rejoined Charlotte in France, but the second honeymoon didn’t last long either. On the evening of March 11, 1931, the intensely jealous Fred accused his young wife of trafficking with “gigilos.” After Charlotte denied the charge, Fred seized her by the neck and threatened to choke her to death.
“At some point Fred went into the kitchen for more whisky. Charlotte used the opportunity to flee to the bedroom, where she slipped a loaded pistol under her pillow. Fred’s last words to her were, “I will kill you rather than let you have an Italian lover.” Charlotte beat him to it, and as she lay on the bed she retrieved her pistol and fired. The first bullet entered just under Fred Nixon-Nirdlinger’s left eye and lodged at the base of his skull. A second bullet hit him in the chest. Two other shots went wild. Fred crumpled in a pool of blood.”
Charlotte was soon in a French jail, now a bigger star than she had ever been, or ever would be…
FINALLY GETTING SOME NOTICES…Left, detail of a March 18, 1931 New York Times account of the slaying; right, a more lurid take on the story by the July 18, 1931 edition of the Hamilton (Ohio) Evening Journal. Below, another colorful account from the San Francisco Examiner. (newspaper.com/New York Times)
During the subsequent trial, Charlotte’s defense attorneys argued that the shooting was a clear case of self-defense, and the jury agreed, acquitting the former beauty queen in just nine minutes. When she returned to the United States with her two young children, it appeared she would be entitled to a big chunk of Fred’s fortune…
…but in the end the will left her nearly penniless, so she earned what she could by telling her sensational story to the media, including this multi-installment feature she penned for the St. Louis Star and Times:
IT’S A LONG STORY…The 14th and 16th installments of Charlotte Nash’s story of her brush with fame and infamy in the St. Louis Star and Times. (newspaper.com)
Laura James notes that Charlotte might have been better off remaining in France: “The verdict was largely attributed (by the American newspapers at least) to French attitudes toward beautiful women and marriage in general (the jury included eight bachelors). But she returned to St. Louis; learned that her husband’s will left her nearly penniless; and tried to find acting jobs in Hollywood only to be snubbed Lizzie Borden-style, as Hollywood would have none of her. In the end she would declare, ‘Sometimes I’m sorry that I was ever considered beautiful. It brought me more trouble than joy.”‘
But the story doesn’t end there. Charlotte Nash Nixon-Nirdlinger (1905-2009) dropped out of public view, but would live on into the 21st century, dying at age 103 or 104 in her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, where she rests today.
RIP CHARLOTTE. (findagrave.com)
* * *
Turkey Trot
Dorothy Parker began to detect a pattern as she continued subbing for her friend Robert Benchley’s theater review column. All of the plays she had reviewed to date were found to be uniformly terrible; she found comfort, however, in fellow critics who also viewed Broadway’s spring lineup as a flock of “little turkeys”…
BIRDS OF A FEATHER…Dorothy Parker found Broadway’s spring lineup to be uniformly terrible, and audiences mostly agreed. Clockwise, from top left, The Admirable Crichton ran for two months and 56 performances at the New Amsterdam Theatre; Grey Shadow closed after 39 performances at the New Yorker Theatre; Napi, directed and lead-acted by the diminutive Ernest Truex (pictured) lasted just 21 shows at the Longacre; The House Beautiful bested them all by staying open for 108 performances at the Apollo. A curious side note: Mary Philips, pictured on the Apollo cover, was Humphrey Bogart’s second wife. The marriage lasted ten years — 1928 to 1938. (Playbill)
Of the plays Parker reviewed, she called The Admirable Crichton “piteously dated;” of Grey Shadow, she wrote that it would be as indelicate for her to discuss the play as it would be to “go into details of my appendectomy;” Parker deemed Napi “as grubby and unpleasant a little comedy as you could want to stay away from;” and she did not find The House Beautiful all that beautiful…”The House Beautiful is, for me, the play lousy.”
Parker ended the column with her usual plea to Benchley:
* * *
Moses Parts the Swamp
In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White noted the destruction of trees and swampland in Van Cortlandt Park. In 1931 Robert Moses was president of the Long Island Park Commission but held political sway over so much more. What White was witnessing were preparations for the construction of the Henry Hudson Parkway and Mosholu Parkway that would split Van Cortlandt into six separate pieces. White was right about the disappearing birds: the last remaining freshwater marsh in the state, Tibbetts Brook, was dredged to accommodate construction.
HE PAVED PARADISE…Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York attends a Jones Beach luncheon on July 26, 1931, as a guest of Robert Moses (far left), who was president of the Long Island Park Commission. (AP Photo)A PARK DIVIDED…The Mosholu Parkway cuts a wide swath through Van Cortlandt Park, 1936. (Museum of the City of New York)
* * *
Those Daring Young Men
Ever since Charles Lindbergh made his historic transatlantic flight in 1927, Americans were captivated by the derring-do of pilots who competed for various “firsts.” In the case of Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon Jr., the goal was to to fly around the world and break the record of 20 days and 4 hours set by Germany’s Graf Zeppelin in 1929. In his “Reporter at Large” column, Morris Markey noted the many weeks of preparation by the two pilots…
A BIT OF FUN…July 1931 newspaper illustration of Clyde Pangborn, left, and Hugh Herndon Jr., with a map of the route they followed on their attempt to set a new round-the-world flight record. (AP)
Markey noted that the two pilots claimed they were setting out on their dangerous mission “for the fun of it”…
While Pangborn and Herndon were still making flight plans at their Hotel Roosevelt headquarters, Wiley Post and Harold Gatty took to the air and claimed the record of 8 days and 15 hours. Pangborn and Herndon decided to make a go of it anyway, leaving New York on July 28, 1931, in their red Bellanca named the Miss Veedol, but poor weather in Siberia caused them to abandon their quest.
There was, however, a $25,000 prize being offered by the Tokyo newspaper Asahi Shimbun to the first pilots to cross the Pacific non-stop, so Pangborn and Herndon regrouped and successfully flew the Miss Veedol across the Pacific Ocean — in 41 hours and 13 minutes. It wasn’t exactly a smooth flight; three hours after takeoff the device used to jettison the landing gear failed, prompting Pangborn to climb out onto the wing barefoot at 14,000 feet to remove the landing gear props. After several other near-mishaps — including nearly smashing into a mountain — the duo completed their historic flight with a controlled crash landing near Wenatchee, Washington.
NO WHEELS, NO PROBLEM…More than 41 hours after departing Japan, Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon Jr. performed a controlled crash landing near Wenatchee, Washington, completing the first-ever nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean. (Wired.com)STILL IN ONE PIECE…Hugh Herndon Jr., left, and Clyde Pangborn after crash-landing at Wenatchee, Wash., following their 1931 flight across the Pacific from Misawa, Japan. (Spirit of Wenatchee).
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From Our Advertisers
Herndon and Pangborn made plans for their round-the-world flight while staying at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown…I’ve stayed there myself and enjoyed its nubby charms…as for the underground passageway to the Grand Central, it’s still there, but no longer open to the public…
…the makers of Kleenex originally marketed their tissues for makeup removal…by the 1930s, however, they saw a much bigger opportunity…
…if the Roosevelt Hotel wasn’t posh enough for you, the new Waldorf-Astoria might have been your cup of tea…
…and if you could stay at the Waldorf, you might be able to afford a Packard, which in the 1930s was a near-rival to Rolls Royce…
…I toss this one in from Goodyear because it is probably the only time an image of the Taj Mahal was used to sell tires…
…we have another lovely Carl “Eric” Erickson illustration for Camel…
…and at first glance I thought this was another two-page ad for Chesterfield cigarettes, but it appears the candy manufacturers also wanted to tie their products to exciting lifestyles…in this case, you were urged to eat candy for some quick energy…here it is implied that Schrafft’s candy will give you the energy you need for sailboating and…er…other activities…
…for comparison, Chesterfield ad from 1930…
…on to our cartoons…Otto Soglow continued the adventures of the Little King…
…Perry Barlow showed us that war is hell…
…some ringside niceties courtesy E. McNerney…
…Mary Petty reminded us that posh folks weren’t exactly known for their intellect…
…Alan Dunn examined the challenges of buying an older house…
…Helen Hokinson gave us a politically precocious young lad…
…and two glimpses into high society by Barbara Shermund…
…including their scintillating conversations about such things as ice makers…
During the early years of the Depression and before censorship guidelines were imposed by the Hays Code, Hollywood cranked out a slew of “Pre-Code” films filled with sex and violence, including 1931’s Little Caesar, the first “talkie” gangster film that defined the genre for decades to come.
Jan. 17, 1931 cover by Peter Arno.
It also propelled the career of Edward G. Robinson (1893-1973), who portrayed “Little Caesar” Rico Bandello—it was a breakout role for the actor, leading to a 50-year career of playing tough guys among other roles. Although the film today is considered a classic and well-regarded by critics, The New Yorker’sJohn Mosher was not entirely bowled over; he did, however, see the talent potential of the 33-year-old Robinson:
OUCH…Clockwise, from top left, Rico Bandello (Edward G. Robinson) catches some lead from a rival gangster in Little Caesar; Rico has little patience for his partner Joe (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) and his love interest Olga (Glenda Farrell); Rico and his boys doing a little banking business; Rico up to no good with his sidekick Otero (George E. Stone). (Britannica/moviestillsdb.com/MoMA/IMDB)
Mervyn LeRoy’sLittle Caesar would kick off a series of Warner Brothers gangster films that would help launch the careers of other actors including James Cagney (The Public Enemy, Angels With Dirty Faces) and Humphrey Bogart (The Petrified Forest). Here’s Warner’s trailer for Little Caesar:
* * *
You Dirty Rat
The Jan. 17 “Talk of the Town” looked in on the growing rat infestation at Riker’s Island, a swampy little island that expanded more than four times its original size thanks to the mountains of garbage dumped there in the early 20th century. Much of it was coal ash, which caused the spontaneous fires referred to in the following “Talk” article. Of course the garbage also attracted legions of rats, which officials tried to counter by releasing vicious dogs and pigs on the island. It only seems fitting that such a place would become home to one of America’s most hellish prisons:
RAT TRAP…Clockwise, from top, aerial view of the Riker’s Island Penitentiary, which opened in 1932. Mountains of garbage, some 130 feet high, are visible in the background. The garbage heaps were prone to spontaneous combustion. In 1934 a prison warden described his nighttime view as a “whole hillside lit up with little fires. … It was beautiful”; view of a cellblock; adding to the mountain of garbage in 1937. (correction history.org)
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Sign of the Times
No doubt some of the folks who ended up at Riker’s were desperate souls who were reduced to begging on the streets of Manhattan. Morris Markey, in his “A Reporter at Large” column, looked in on some of the city’s “Vagabonds,” noting that the Depression had added some new faces among the panhandlers, faces “torn by an unaccustomed pain.” An excerpt:
HARD TIMES…An unemployed man seeks work in the 1930s. (Wayne State University)
* * *
Grim for the Reaper
The Depression, it seems, was even hard on the nation’s undertakers, according to E.B. White in “Notes and Comment”…
NEED A LIFT?…A hearse and undertaker in 1930. Business was surprisingly slow in hard times. (my101years.com)
* * *
Work is Fun When You Don’t Need It
Lois Long filed another installment in her “Doldrums” series, in which she commented on the desires of the city’s debutantes to find some purpose in life…
PUTTING THEIR BEST FEET FORWARD…Debutantes pose in Washington, D.C., circa 1930. (Pinterest)
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Pablo Who?
New York’s Valentine Gallery was offering a showing of works by Pablo Picasso, who was famous enough to create as he wished, but not quite ready for canonical consideration…
I’LL DO AS I PLEASE…Pablo Picasso in 1931, in a portrait by Cecil Beaton. (oscarenfotos.com)
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Order Restored
After its Marion Talley debacle, the Metropolitan Opera stage welcomed French soprano Lily Pons (1898-1976) to its stage. “The Talk of Town” noted that although Pons’ debut was far less hyped than Talley’s, her reception by New York audiences was far more enthusiastic. While Talley’s career would sputter and fade, Pons would enjoy a long association with the Metropolitan Opera, where she performed nearly 300 times between 1931 and 1960.
A BREATH OF FRESH AIR…One of the most popular prima donnas of her time, French soprano Lily Pons would grace the Metropolitan Opera stage for 30 years. From right, a 1931 portrait of Pons by Cecil Beaton; on the cover of Time, Oct. 17, 1932. (CondeNast/Time)
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From Our Advertisers
Best & Company looked out for the welfare of New York’s young women by offering a selection of wool “Vassarettes” to stave off the “Grippe” weather…
…with the annual Motor Boat Show at the Grand National Palace, several ads called readers’ attention to expensive toys fewer and fewer could afford to own…
…the makers of Sterling boat motors shelled out the big bucks for this full-color, back-page ad…overall, the number of boat ads were down from previous years…
…Rea Irvin continued to pick up some extra income with an ongoing series of cartoons promoting Murad cigarettes…
…on to Irvin’s fellow cartoonists, we have Peter Arno’s look at the new economy…
…likewise Denys Wortman…
…and Perry Barlow…
…while Alan Dunn checked in on the challenges of those who still had means…
…Barbara Shermund was still the life of the party…
…and William Steig was beginning to establish himself in the stable of cartoon regulars (and offer a preview of his famed “Small Fry”)…
…and finally, a new perspective on the Chrysler Building, from Gardner Rea…
Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr knew how to pack a Broadway theater, and from 1907 to 1932 he staged a number of revues and plays (most notably Showboat) that featured lavish costumes and a bevy of chorus girls.
Dec. 6, 1930 cover by Rea Irvin, depicting a peephole view of a speakeasy during the holidays.
When his latest show, Smiles, hit the stage of the Ziegfeld Theatre on Nov. 18, 1930, it was greeted by an audience that had endured the first year of the Great Depression. Ziegfeld’s entertainments, on the other hand, were more associated with the high times of the Roaring Twenties. So even the popular brother-sister dance team from Omaha — Fred and Adele Astaire — seemed a bit old hat.
GO WITH THE FLO…Broadway impresario Florenz “Flo” Ziegfeld Jr with his Follies cast, 1931. (Wall Street Journal)
Or so it seemed to Robert Benchley, who observed in “The Wayward Press” that most of his readers could draw pictures of the Astaires from memory. But what really irked Benchley was the way William Randolph Hearst manipulated his mighty newspaper empire to promote Ziegfeld’s Smiles in a way that made the show appear to be the biggest hit of the year.
Ziegfeld Theatre was built with Hearst’s financial backing, so the media mogul was determined that the show would be a success, commanding his editors and writers to lavish praise on the tepid production, which would close in less than two months as a box office failure.
SAY CHEESE…Program for Smiles featuring Fred Astaire, Marilyn Miller and Adele Astaire. At right, publicity photo for Smiles featuring Fred and Marilyn. (Playbill/Pinterest)
For the Astaires, they were nearing the end of their 27-year collaboration — Adele would retire from the stage in 1932 to marry Lord Charles Cavendish, and in 1934 Fred would pair up with Ginger Rogers for the first of nine films they would make together for RKO. Marilyn Miller, one of the most popular Broadway stars of the 1920s and early 1930s, would also seek her fortune in films, but would only make three. Alcoholism and persistent sinus infections would cut her life short in 1936 — she would die at age 37 from complications following nasal surgery.
BRIEF CAREER…Marilyn Miller in 1931’s Her Majesty, Love, one of just three films she would make before her death in 1936. (IMDB)
Benchley revealed how some of Hearst’s reporters responded to the edict from their boss:
TWEAKING HIS NOSE…Walter Winchell, left, registered his protest against his boss, William Randolph Hearst, by laying it on thick in his column. (IMDB/BBC)THE FOLLY OF FOLLIES…Robert Benchley (left) cried foul regarding Hearst’s attempt to prop up a lousy show; Ogden Nash (right) found humor in the “immorality” of Ziegfeld’s productions. (Wikipedia/Notable Biographies)
On a related note, Ogden Nash also zeroed in on Ziegfeld’s latest show, turning the tables on religious zealots who found the Follies immoral. An excerpt:
And finally, one more theater-related item: a drawing by Al Frueh highlighting the melodrama On The Spot, which ran from Oct. 29, 1930 through March 1931 at the Forrest Theatre.
BETTER THAN ZIEGFELD, THIS…At right, Crane Wilbur and Anna May Wong in the melodrama On The Spot, which opened Oct. 29, 1930 at the Forrest Theatre. (New Yorker/Pinterest)
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In the Dec. 6, 1930 “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White shared his observations on a new type of chair that doubled as a dog house…
…and he wasn’t making it up, because the chair he described was featured in this ad from the same issue…
* * *
Drunk History
In the fall of 1930 Scribner’s magazine published a series of three articles titled “If Booth Had Missed Lincoln,” If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg,” and “If Napoleon Had Escaped to America.” The New Yorker’sJames Thurber claimed to be the author of a fourth article, “If Grant Had Been Drinking At Appomattox.” An excerpt:
REVISIONIST…James Thurber circa 1930. (thurberhouse.org)
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From Our Advertisers
The rolling pin was often deployed as a prop — especially in the comics — to illustrate marital discord; the makers of Hoffman ginger ale used the common trope to sell their fizzy drink…
…for reference, Maggie gives it to Jiggs in this comic book cover from 1953…
(Good Girl Comics)
…the issue was stuffed with ads for Christmas shoppers, ranging from colorful plastic tumblers…
…to “unforgettable” appliances…
…to a variety of accessories at Wanamaker’s…
…Macy’s offered this pajama and robe combination for (insufferable) little boys who “strive for sartorial effect”…
…while Burdine’s of Miami urged snowbirds to purchase multiple wardrobes to remain fashionable throughout the winter season…
…and in stark contrast, this ad appealed for donations to help the jobless…
One of the most expensive movies of 1930 was a sci-fi musical comedy titled Just Imagine, a silly mash-up of great sets, terrible acting, and a vision of the future fifty years hence that was way off the mark.
Nov. 29, 1930 cover by Victor Bobritsky.
Not that the film ever set out to be an accurate prediction of the future. Nevertheless, it is instructive (or, at the least, amusing) to look back on “yesterday’s tomorrows” to understand the American mind in the first year of the Great Depression.
COME FLY WITH ME…Clandestine lovers LN-18 (Maureen O’Sullivan) and J-21 (John Garrick) share a romantic moment high above the streets of 1980 New York City. (scifist.net)
Just Imagine borrowed some of its look from Fritz Lang’sMetropolis (1927), a dystopian vision of the future that reflected the contentious years of Germany’s Weimar Republic. Just Imagine similarly reflected its time and place — the early years of the Depression — Hollywood responding not with gloom and doom but rather with uplifting fare — comedies, musicals, and escapist fantasies (Flash Gordon came along in 1936). The producers of Just Imagine rolled all of it into one film, and The New Yorker’sJohn Mosher tried to make sense of the mess:
EYE IN THE SKY…In Just Imagine, technology is advanced enough to have a traffic cop floating in the sky, but he still must rely on his arms and mechanical signals to keep the skyways in order. (YouTube clip)
The floating traffic cop is just one example of the film’s attention to set design. The New York skyline, featured in the opening scene, was constructed in a giant hangar at enormous cost…
(IMDB)
In one of the films weirder twists, vaudeville comedian El Brendel is brought back to life with an electric beam…
SMOKED HAM…Vaudeville comedian El Brendel is zapped back to life to provide the world of 1980 with comic relief. Some of the electrical equipment assembled by set designer Kenneth Strickfaden would be seen again in 1931’s Frankenstein. (scifist.net)
…and Brendel (below, center), proceeds to get drunk on booze pills and spew a series of really bad jokes throughout the duration of the film…
WE SHOULD HAVE LEFT HIM DEAD…Frank Albertson, El Brendel and John Garrick in Just Imagine. (scifist.net)MARS ATTACKS…The film also took audiences to the surface of Mars via a phallus-shaped spaceship that would later be used in Flash Gordon serials. Clockwise, top left, the spaceship blasts off surrounded by a crowd of men in fedoras; aboard the spaceship; landing site on Mars; J-21 (John Garrick) encounters the Martian Queen (Joyzelle Joyner). (YouTube/scifist.net)
The movie flopped at the box office, but producers were able to recoup some of the costs by farming out clips of the futuristic sets, and some of the props, to other sci-fi films of the 1930s including the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials.
* * *
Toys For Tots
By mid-November The New Yorker’s “On and Off the Avenue” column had lengthened to include ideas for Christmas shoppers. The Nov. 29 issue offered these ideas for children’s toys from Macy’s…
XMAS IS COMING…Patsy Ann dolls in smart berets, and dollhouses in various styles (a 1930 Tudor dollhouse at right) could be had at Macy’s Herald Square flagship store. (Pinterest)
GRRRR…First introduced in 1922, the revival of “Radio Rex” proved popular to the kiddies in 1930. It was the “high tech” toy of its day, the first to respond to voice commands. Rex the dog would spring out of his doghouse at the sound of the word “Rex,” thanks to a sound-sensitive electromagnet. (ctinventor.wordpress.com)
* * *
A Century-old-Problem
Traffic woes have been around almost as long as there have been cars. In an excerpt from “A Reporter at Large,” Morris Markey explained the challenges facing the city’s police department:
IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME…Traffic clogs Fifth Avenue near 42nd Street in 1930. (digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov)
* * *
Speaking of cars, this ad in The New Yorker announced the opening of the annual Automobile Salon at the Commodore Hotel…
…and the magazine was on hand to describe its various wonders. Some excerpts:
POETRY IN MOTION…Top, the Walter Dorwin Teague-designed Marmon 16-cylinder wowed crowds at the Salon, even if few could afford it. The Great Depression limited the production of the luxury Marmon, and less than 400 were produced. The company abandoned the car business altogether in 1933. Below, the sporty Ford Model L Roadster, designed by Raymond Dietrich. (supercars.net/Sotheby’s)
* * *
Maestro Politician
TheNew Yorker profiled pianist, composer and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941). Paderewski served as Poland’s prime minister in 1919, negotiated on behalf of his country at the Treaty of Versailles, and had a 60-year career as a virtuoso pianist. A brief excerpt:
* * *
Not For the Moneychangers
Architecture critic George S. Chappell checked in on the progress of three prominent Manhattan cathedrals in his “Sky Line” column:
LANDMARKS ALL…From left, Riverside Church, the still yet-to-be completed St. John the Divine, and St. Bartholomew’s. (MCNY/masonrymagazine.com/dtjoyce.com)
* * *
The theater review section included this illustration of a new play, Roar China, that opened Oct. 27, 1930 at the Beck Theatre.
The staging of Roar China included this reconstruction of the bow of the H.M.S. Europa on the Beck Theatre stage…
(messynessychic.com)
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From Our Advertisers
The holiday season was in the air, and retailers were taking various approaches to entice Depression-era shoppers to consider their wares. The ads have a more conservative bent, when compared to late 1920s, and in the case of Wanamaker’s and B. Altman’s, an appeal to simpler times…
…Macy’s, on the other hand, looked to sell rather expensive lighters “to arouse the youthful enthusiasm among veteran smokers”…
…despite the Depression, New Yorker subscriptions continued to steadily increase — the magazine had nearly 45,000 subscribers in 1930, and by the end of the decade the number would approach 100,000 — below, a house ad designed to entice new subscribers…
…our cartoons include this holiday spot illustration by Barbara Shermund…
…and another by Shermund of her parlor room crowd…
…Otto Soglow amused us with a couple of tots…
…Gardner Rea imagined a confrontation between a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon and Italy’s Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini…
…the balloon Rea illustrated was “The Captain” from the popular Katzenjammer Kids comic strip. Along with his “family,” the Captain appeared in the parade in 1929 and 1930 (and possibly 1931). They were the first licensed character balloons in the parade’s history…
(The New York Times)
…back to cartoons, book shopping with William Crawford Galbraith…
For this installment we look at two issues, Nov. 15 and 22, both featuring covers by Theodore Haupt that celebrated two autumn rituals: football and Thanksgiving.
Let’s begin with the Nov. 22 issue, which climbed to the highest place in Manhattan — no, not the Chrysler Building, but the nearby Empire State Building — with E.B. White admiring the commanding view:
Before the Empire State Building could go up, the old Waldorf-Astoria hotel had to come down. As White observed, the old hotel was built so soundly that it was too costly to deconstruct and salvage. Most of it ended up on the bottom of the ocean.
DOWN IN DAVY JONES’ LOCKER lie the remains of the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, which stood for just 36 years before it was razed to make room for the Empire State Building. At right, one of the hotel’s lobbies, and the Grand Ballroom. (nyc-architecture.com/Pinterest)A LOT OF HOT AIR…Top images: The fabled “mooring mast,” described by E.B. White in his New Yorker brief, as imagined in composite images (old-time Photoshop). In reality, the morning mast never worked; bottom right, a cutaway view of the mast featured in Popular Mechanics; bottom left, New York Times photo from March 22, 1931, announcing the completion of the Empire State Building, just 17 months after the Waldorf-Astoria began coming down. (Keith de Lellis Gallery, rarehistoricalphotos.com/Google Books/The New York Times)SURVEYING THEIR KINGDOM…Most visitors to the Empire State Building can only go as high as the 86th floor observation deck. However, if you are a VIP like Serena Williams or Taylor Swift, you can get your picture snapped on the 103rd. (Associated Press/Empire State Building/Evan Bindelglass, CBSNewYork)
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Sore Winner
Sinclair Lewis famously declined the Pulitzer Prize for his 1925 novel Arrowsmith, upset that his 1920 novel Main Street had not previously won the prize. But when the Swedish Academy came calling with a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930, he happily accepted. According to “The Talk of the Town,” this award also seemed a bit tardy, since Lewis’s small town booster archetype, George F. Babbitt, did not fit the dour days of the Great Depression. But it turned out that the 1922 novel Babbitt was ultimately what swayed the Nobel jury:
BOOST FROM A BOOSTER…George F. Babbitt helped make Sinclair Lewis famous, and landed him a Nobel. (NYT, NOVEMBER 6, 1930)
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Not So Sweet
Those of a certain age might remember Helen Hayes as a sweet old lady who appeared on a number of TV shows in the 1970s and 80s, or as the mother in real life of James MacArthur, Disney teen star and later the portrayer of Danny “Book ’em Danno” Williams on the original Hawaii 5-0 TV series. Hayes was married to playwright Charles MacArthur, and “The Talk of the Town” takes it from there…
CREATIVE TYPES…The engaged couple Charles MacArthur and Helen Hayes posed for photographer Edward Steichen for this Jan. 1, 1929 image featured in Vanity Fair magazine. (Condé Nast)
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Ain’t It Grand
Grand Hotel opened at the National Theatre on Nov. 13, 1930 to strong reviews, including the one below by Robert Benchley that he filed for The New Yorker. The play, adapted from the 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel by Austrian writer Vicki Baum, would prove to be a smash on Broadway and again on the silver screen in a star-studded 1932 film featuring Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, and Joan Crawford.
THE STARS ALIGN…Left, promotional photograph of the original Broadway production of Grand Hotel. At right, Eugenie Leontovich portrayed fading Russian ballerina Grusinskaya in the play. The role would go to Greta Garbo in the 1932 film adaptation. (Theatre Magazine, February 1931/Wikipedia)
…and while we are on the subject of Broadway, the theater review section also featured this Al Frueh illustration promoting a noted production of Twelfth Night at the Maxine Elliott…
Program for the production featuring Jane Cowl. (Playbill)
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There were also big doings at the Met, where Spanish lyric soprano Lucrezia Bori (1887-1960) wowed audiences with her portrayal of Violetta in La Traviata.
SHE HAD SOME PIPES…right, lyric soprano Lucrezia Bori on the cover of the June 30, 1930 edition of Time magazine. At right, promotional photo of Bori circa 1930. (Time/Wikipedia)
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Bounty of Blessings
Humorist W. E. Farbstein gave readers plenty to be thankful for in this tribute to the Thanksgiving holiday…
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From Our Advertisers
Occasionally advertisements acknowledged the reality of the Great Depression, including this one from The Saturday Evening Post that offered encouraging words to prospective readers…
…County Fair, a Greenwich Village country-themed nightclub, offered the diversion of Moffatt and Bowman to take audiences’ minds off of hard times…
…and for all the supposed sophistication of New Yorker readers, there were still plenty of back page ads offering nostrums laced with superstition…
…some of the more colorful, spritely ads from the era were offered up by the producers of Texaco Motor Oil…
…our cartoons are by Gardner Rea…
…Barbara Shermund…
…William Crawford Galbraith…
…and Perry Barlow…
…and for another reminder of reality in the city, this sketch that ran along the bottom of “The Talk of the Town,” by Reginald Marsh…
…and now we step back to the Nov. 15 issue, where E.B. White offered a less somber take on the Great Depression…
…White also noted a change on the faces of storefront mannequins…
YIN AND YANG…The worldly pose of a Roaring Twenties mannequin, and a more wholesome look for the leaner times in the 1930s. (Pinterest)
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Playing Telephone
Long, long before cell phones, telephones were heavy stationary devices that required a certain amount of planning before installation, as E.B. White explains:
On to our Nov. 15 ads, we have this announcement for The Third New Yorker Album…with illustration by Otto Soglow…
…here is what the album looked like…
…and a couple of inside pages…
(Etsy)
…one of the contributors to the album was Rea Irvin, founding illustrator for The New Yorker, here doing some business with Murad cigarettes…also another Flit insecticide ad by Dr. Seuss…
…Christmas ads began appearing in the magazine, including this one for Hanson scales…pity the poor chap (and his wife) who actually thought this might be a suitable present for Christmas, or any occasion for that matter…
…and with Prohibition still in force, advertisers found other uses to promote their products…
…on to our cartoons, Leonard Dove illustrated a couple who didn’t get away with the ruse…
… Alan Dunn depicted what was considered typical office behavior in the 1930s…
...Peter Arno visited the Harvard Club…
…Alice Harvey also explored the college scene…
…some parlor games with Barbara Shermund…
……Bruce Bairnsfather, and some existentialist chat at tea time…
…and we close with Isadore Klein, and the world of corporate competition…
…and a Happy Thanksgiving, from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade 89 years ago, Nov. 27, 1930…
After completing a major in French in just three years, 19-year-old Libby Holman became the youngest woman to graduate from the University of Cincinnati in 1923. But it was her unique style of torch-singing—a trademark throaty mumble—that would launch a career on Broadway and a life of seemingly endless scandal.
Nov. 8, 1930 cover by Sue Williams.
After performing in the The Greenwich Village Follies, Holman (1904–1971) landed her first big role in 1925 in the Rodgers and Hart production of Garrick Gaieties. But it was a signature song, “Moanin’ Low,” from Clifton Webb’sThe Little Show that would make her a star. When Three’s a Crowd (by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz) opened at the Selwyn Theater on October 15, 1930, Holman was well-known to audiences not only for her voice but also for her unconventional lifestyle.
Three’s a Crowd proved to be a hit for Holman, and it gave her another hit song, “Body and Soul,” which was banned from the radio for “obscenity” but nevertheless became one of the year’s most popular songs. So popular, in fact, that it was recorded by Holman as well as by fellow torch singer Helen Morgan and Ziegfeld star Ruth Etting. This was the age of the Great American Songbook, when the song itself, and not necessarily its performer, reigned supreme. So when sheet music was distributed from a popular stage show, any number of entertainers would record it.
NAME THAT TUNE…From top to bottom, Helen Morgan, Ruth Etting and Libby Holman all recorded versions of “Body and Soul,” but Holman would make it one of her signature numbers. (YouTube/ruthetting.com/Wikipedia)
…for the hoofers, there were also a couple of dance versions of “Body and Soul” created by bandleaders Ozzie Nelson and Leo Reisman…
GOOD BEAT, EASY TO DANCE TO…Bandleaders Ozzie Nelson and Leo Reisman recorded dance versions of “Body and Soul.” (YouTube)
Openly bisexual, Holman partied hard and swore like a sailor, and during her life she would lose one husband in a suspected murder (Holman herself was briefly a suspect) and another to suicide. She would take her own life in 1971. You can read more about Holman’s colorful, tragic life in the Jewish Women’s Archive.
We temporarily skip to the next issue of The New Yorker (Nov. 15, 1930), which featured Holman in a “Talk of the Town” brief, and some insight into her unique singing style. An excerpt:
The same issue also featured this drawing of the “Three’s a Crowd” cast by Al Frueh in the theater review section:
and finally, a publicity photo of the cast from 1930-31:
A FUN CROWD…Clifton Webb, Libby Holman and Fred Allen in Three’s a Crowd. At right, undated publicity photo of Holman. (performerstuff.com)
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Horsin’ Around
The National Horse Show was a major event on New York’s social calendar, first held at the original Madison Square Garden in 1883 before moving to the second Madison Square Garden in 1890 and again to the third Madison Square Garden in 1926. This account in the Nov. 8, 1930 New Yorker noted how the horse show’s patrician air contrasted with the rodeo held at MSG the previous week.
NOT FOR GOAT-ROPERS, THIS…The coaching parade on display at the 1927 National Horse Show in Madison Square Garden. (National Sporting Library & Museum)SOON WE’LL BE FIGHTING EACH OTHER…The National Horse Show began including a military competition in 1925. This photo from the Nov. 6, 1930 New York Times featured some international guests at the 1930 show. (NY TIMES)
Along with the above photo, the Times included this partial lists of guests to the Horse Show Luncheon, a who’s who of New York society. Indeed, the National Horse Show’s 1887 directory provided the basis for the first New York Social Register.
DRESSING UP FOR THE HORSES…Champion horsewoman Mary Elizabeth Whitney (left) with actors Loretta Young and William Powell at the National Horse Show in Madison Square Garden, Nov. 5, 1937. Standing behind Mary Elizabeth is her husband, Jock Whitney, a noted ambassador, art collector, philanthropist and investor. (Christian Anderson Collection)HIGH STEPPIN’…After a brief stint in Florida, the National Horse Show moved to Kentucky in 2011. Perhaps a tad less formal, it nevertheless remains an important society event. Above, noted horsewoman Misdee Wrigley Miller rides World Grand Champion Grande Gil at the 2012 National Horse Show. (Doug Shiflet)
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A Lesson in Poetry
In a casual for the Nov. 8 issue, E.B. White instructed readers on how to “Tell a Major Poet From a Minor Poet.” An excerpt.
And in his “Notes and Comment,” White suggested that criticism of the press was a major no-no for a sitting U.S. President:
Christmas shopping suggestions began to trickle into Lois Long’s section on fashion, house and home, including this bit of advice that reminds us just how distant 1930 is from our own time:
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Film critic John Mosher took in the latest offering from silent film star Harold Lloyd, who was making his second foray into the talkies with his portrayal of a hapless shoe salesman in Feet First…
TEETH FIRST…Theater card for 1930’s Feet First featuring Barbara Kent and Harold Lloyd. (IMDB)GETTING A LEG UP…Top, Harold Lloyd practices the art of shoe salesmanship with a pair of dummy legs in Feet First; below, Lloyd once again finds himself in a precarious situation high above a city street. (IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
The National Horse Show was on the minds of several advertisers in The New Yorker, including these fashion merchants targeting the patrician set…
…speaking of the well-heeled, with winter approaching travel agencies enticed those with means to take a steamer through the Panama Canal to California, or for the more adventurous, a three-continent tour package…
…and of course Hawaii beckoned snowbirds, who could make their way across the Lower 48 by train and then hop a boat to the islands…
…the makers of Chesterfield cigarettes were on board with the travel theme…
…while the folks at Marlboro stuck with their dopey handwriting and jingle contests to push their smokes…
…as the luxury market grew ever tighter in the Depression, the sellers of finer things sought to distinguish their wares from competitors. L.P. Hollander kicked off a series of wordy ads regarding the provenance of their hats, gloves and other accessories (in short, they ain’t cheap copies)…
…no doubt the folks at L.P. Hollander were looking down their noses at the likes of Russeks, which offered copies of Lucien Lelong gowns. Apparently old Lucien was okay with this, as this “Radiogram” purportedly attests…
…Lucien pops again in another ad, this one for his perfume line…
…and for reference, here’s a photo of Monsieur Lelong, circa 1940…
(comm396-s16.ascjclass.org)
…on to our cartoonists, the Nov. 8 issue featured these great spot illustrations by Constantin Alajalov, the first, running along the bottom of “The Talk of the Town,” referenced the horse show at Madison Square Garden…
…Alice Harvey listened in on a radio soap…
…William Crawford Galbraith found some admirers of art…
…Barbara Shermund continued to share her sharp observations of parlor hijinks…
…Garrett Price illustrated the challenges of modern design…
…and we end with Peter Arno, and a stomach-turning moment…
The Irish American gangster Jack “Legs” Diamond was often referred to as the “clay pigeon of the underworld” due to surviving several attempts on his life.
Nov. 1, 1930 cover by Rea Irvin.
In his “Reporter at Large” column, Morris Markey checked up on the fleet-footed bootlegger, adored by the public for his various brushes with the law and escapes from sure death. In his opening paragraph, Markey referred to one of the attempts on Diamond’s life: On October 12, 1930, he survived being shot five times at Manhattan’s Hotel Monticello:
Markey’s column attempted to remove some of the glamour from Diamond’s flamboyant life, a life that would be cut short about a year later in an Albany rooming house…
OUT WITH THE BOYS…Legs Diamond leaves the federal court in New York with his attorney and a couple of cronies on Aug. 8, 1931, after being convicted of owning an unlicensed still and conspiring to violate Prohibition laws. (digitalcommonwealth.org)BEDFELLOWS…Legs Diamond had a number of mistresses, but the best known was Marion “Kiki” Roberts, who was with Diamond shortly before he was slain. (The Mob Museum/Pinterest)DEADLY TRIO…Clockwise, from top left, Legs Diamond is comforted by his wife, Alice Kenny Diamond, after being shot three times at a roadhouse near Cairo, NY, on April 27, 1931. His enemies finally succeeded in killing him on Dec. 18, 1931, shooting him three times in the back of the head in an Albany rooming house. Alice would be shot and killed less than two years later, possibly by Diamond’s enemies to keep her quiet. And sadly, The New Yorker’s “Reporter at Large” columnist Morris Markey would also meet a violent end, dying of a gunshot wound to the head in 1950. Whether it was by his hand or another’s, it was never determined. (Albany Archives/NY Times)
An afternote: Enemies would finally catch up to Legs Diamond and kill him on Dec. 18, 1931. Diamond’s wife, Alice Kenny Diamond, would be shot and killed less than two years later. Diamond’s mistress and former Ziegfeld Follies performer Marion “Kiki” Roberts would return to the stage and cash in on her notoriety. In 1937 it was reported she was the big draw in a touring “Crazy Quilt” burlesque revue. And according to the writer William Kennedy, who wrote about Diamond in his 1975 novel Legs, the last record of Kiki Roberts was in Boston in the 1940s, where “she was still appearing as ‘Jack (Legs) Diamond’s Lovely Light o’ Love.’ ”
Here is newsreel footage of Diamond’s mistress Marion “Kiki” Roberts, shortly after the gangster’s death. In this brief interview with a Boston reporter (and with her mother at her side) Roberts advises girls to “live good clean lives and obey their parents wishes.” Note how it appears she is reading from cue cards.
* * *
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
A precursor to the helicopter, the autogyro was considered by many to be the next logical step in aircraft development, and especially in the development of smaller craft that could serve as safe, affordable transportation options for commuters. TheNew Yorker’sE.B. White, an aviation enthusiast, demonstrated to readers the wonders of this aircraft:
EASY AS PIE…A Cierva Autogiro C30 takes flight circa 1933. (findmypast.co.uk)
* * *
Baker’s Big Show
Nineteen-year-old American-born French entertainer Josephine Baker became an instant symbol of Jazz Age Paris when she starred in La Revue Nègre in October 1925. Her erotic dance routines wowed Paris audiences, and she quickly moved on to the famed Folies Bergère. In 1930 she opened a new show at the Casino de Paris that also featured her pet cheetah, Chiquita. The New Yorker’sJanet Flanner was there to take it all in:
HEAR THE THUNDER…Nineteen-year-old Josephine Baker took Paris by storm when she appeared in La Revue Nègre at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in October 1925. (harleminmontmartre.paris/artphotolimited.com)HEAR ME ROAR…The New Yorker’sJanet Flanner was wowed by Josephine Baker’s newest show at the Casino de Paris that also featured her pet cheetah, Chiquita. (pictorem.com/vam.ac.uk/artphotolimited.com)
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Grim Reminder
Despite the deepening Depression across the country, few mentions of it were made in the pages of TheNew Yorker.Howard Brubaker, in his “Of All Things” column, offered this not-so-gentle reminder:
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From Our Advertisers
We feature Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, a Swiss-born American socialite shilling for Pond’s cold cream. At the time of this ad she was the mother of six-year-old Gloria Vanderbilt (who would become a famous fashion designer and artist and the mother of CNN’s Anderson Cooper)…
POOR LITTLE RICH GIRLS…Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt and her husband, Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt with daughter Gloria, circa 1924-25. Reginald died in 1925, and a famous custody battle over little Gloria (who recently died at age 95) would take place in 1934. At right, portrait of Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt by Dorothy Wilding, 1933. (Perkins Library, Duke University)
…the makers of Ybry lipstick apparently did not have the budget to garner a patrician endorsement, so they settled for this illustration by New Yorker cartoonist Barney Tobey…
…and we have another lovely color ad from R.J. Reynolds, once again linking cigarettes to athletic prowess…
…on to our cartoons, we mark election season with Carl Rose…
…Barbara Shermund explored the generation gap…
…Peter Arno gathered his sugar daddies for a game of chess…
…Kemp Starrett introduced us to an unlikely life of the party…
…Alan Dunn examined the influences of popular cinema…
…Mary Petty gave us an Ivy League perspective of the Great Depression…
…and Arno again, with a cartoon that was featured along with The New Yorker’s “Wayward Press” column…
Since I am posting this on the night before All Hallow’s Eve, let’s take a quick look back 89 years at Halloween 1930 through the pages of the Oct. 25, 1930 issue of The New Yorker…
…which featured a short story (excerpted below) by Sally Benson, who would write a series of shorts for The New Yorker in 1941-42 that were later published in her book, Meet Me in St. Louis. Note how Prohibition laws seemed to pose no obstacle to the Bixbys’ party plans:
Benson’s Meet Me in St. Louis would be adapted into a popular 1944 film starring Judy Garland. One of the film’s highlights featured the Halloween hijinks of Tootie and Agnes Smith (Margaret O’Brien and Joan Carroll).
BOO!…Margaret O’Brien and Joan Carroll go trick-or-treating in 1944’s Meet Me in St. Louis. (Comet Over Hollywood)
…Halloween revels were also popular with the college kids…
(Vintage Everyday)
…and of course Hollywood got in on the act, each studio issuing pinup-style images of major female stars to newspapers and magazines …
Clockwise, from top left, Bessie Love (ca. 1920s), a still from a 1933 Betty Boop cartoon, Anita Page, Joan Crawford, Clara Bow, and Myrna Loy. (Vintage Everyday/YouTube)
…the pages of the Oct. 25 issue contained other references to the holiday, including these Julian de Miskey spot drawings…
…and there were also ads offering both parties and party treats to those seeking some Halloween fun…
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Not Exactly Whale Watching
On to our issues, the Oct. 15, 1930 edition featured a strange account (in “The Talk of the Town”) of a man who travelled the country with an embalmed whale carcass, which apparently drew large crowds wherever it was displayed.
Oct. 15, 1930 cover by Peter Arno. As I noted in my previous post, it seemed everyone was lighting up in the 1930s.
The account is disgusting on a number of levels (the last line: “People simply love whales”). During my research I learned that these “whale tours” continued into the 1970s.
SAVE THE WHALES…in this case, by pumping the animal with gallons of formaldehyde.
For further reading, author Lydia Pyne offers some history on this strange phenomenon at Not Even Past.
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From Our Advertisers
The owners of the new Barbizon-Plaza Hotel at 106 Central Park South tried their best to lure the smart set (especially artists and musicians) to this “habitat” designed especially for them. Unfortunately, artists and musicians were as broke as everyone else, and the property was foreclosed on in 1933…
…and we have another appeal to the smart set, this one from the publishers of Vogue magazine (now a sister publication to the New Yorker, as both are now owned by Condé Nast)…
…and one more appeal to fashionable sorts, this time perfume in a bottle shaped like an art deco skyscraper…
…here is what one version of the bottle looked like in 1928, similar to ad above. According to the blog Cleopatra’s Boudoir, the We Moderns perfume was sold from 1928 to 1936 in bottles made in Czechoslovakia. The bottle below was made from glass, enamel (label), and the early plastic Bakelite (cover and base)…
(Perfume Bottles Auction)
…on to our color ads, I like this one because RCA induced the inventor of wireless radio, Guglielmo Marconi, to endorse their “Radiola”…
…and we have a beautiful illustration by Ellis Wilson for Dodge Boats…
…on to our cartoons, we begin with Denys Wortman…
…here’s the art of Rea Irvin on a full page…
…Helen Hokinson kept up the tradition of New Yorkers looking down on those backward Bostonians…
…Alan Dunn, illustrating the sunlamp fad of the 20s and 30s…
…and Jack Markow, checking on the progress of the Empire State Building…
On to the Oct. 25 issue, and the Broadway opening of the comedy Girl Crazy…
Oct. 25, 1930 cover by Rea Irvin.
…which featured Ginger Rogers and Ethel Merman introducing the many hits from George Gershwin’s score including “I Got Rhythm” and ‘Embraceable You.” The plot was simple: a young New York playboy is banished by his family to a dude ranch in Arizona to keep him out of trouble…where of course he finds trouble. The orchestra for the Broadway performance included such talents as Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden, and Gene Krupa.
THEY SEEM SANE ENOUGH…Above, poster for the Broadway musical Girl Crazy. Below, Ginger Rogers poses with fellow stage actors. (gershwin.com)
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More from Our Advertisers
Ads from the Oct. 25 issue included this recurring one from the promoters of the Empire State Building, marking progress through various historical vignettes…
…the ad accurately depicted the building’s progress, measured against these images below…
…and we have more radio ads…no endorsement from Marconi here, but the makers of Fada claimed their receiver was far less annoying than their rivals…
…while Atwater Kent touted the convenience of its new “Quick-Vision Dial”…
…as I’ve previously noted, backgammon was all the rage in 1930, so much so that this clothier even advertised a special frock for the game…
…and what would the 1930s be without smoking tied to athletic prowess…
…and remembering friends and family in California in 2019 as they battle wildfires across that great state…
…on to our cartoons, Garrett Price introduced us to a man with a peculiar taste in pet canaries…
…Barbara Shermund illustrated the startling views afforded by rail travel…
…and Peter Arno leaves us in a moment of religious ecstasy…
Cecil B. DeMille was known for his epic films (e.g. The Ten Commandments, 1923 and 1956) and cinematic showmanship, but in 1930 he puzzled his audiences with a very weird pre-Code musical, Madam Satan.
Oct. 11, 1930 cover by Theodore Haupt.
The film centered on a wealthy couple, Angela and Bob Brooks (played by Kay Johnson and Reginald Denny). Bob is unfaithful to his wife (a common pre-Code theme), and she attempts to lure him back by disguising herself as a mysterious devil woman at a masquerade ball held aboard a dirigible. Quite a plot indeed. Here’s what The New Yorker’sJohn Mosher had to say about it.
(IMDB)
PAJAMA GAMES…Lillian Roth, Roland Young, and Kay Johnson in Madam Satan. At right, Reginald Denny falls for the charms of his wife (Kay Johnson), disguised as a devil woman at a masked ball held aboard a giant dirigible. (IMDB/cecilbdemille.com)AIRHEADS…Via a giant mooring mast, partygoers board a dirigible for the masquerade ball in Madam Satan. Curiously, developers of the Empire State Building (which was under construction) envisioned a similar use for the mast that would top out their tower. In reality, winds that whipped around high towers would have prevented this type of boarding. (twitter.com)SOMEONE CALL THE FAA…At right, the lavish masquerade ball aboard a giant dirigible in Madam Satan. At right, the dirigible is damaged by lightning in a scene that foreshadowed the Hindenberg disaster of 1937. (cecilbdemille.com/precode.com)SEEMS PLAUSIBLE…In a silly ending to a silly film, partygoers float on parachutes away from the damaged dirigible. (twitter.com)
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Let Them Eat Cake
Somerset Maugham regarded his comic novel, Cakes and Ale, to be his favorite. The book took aim at snobs as well as at the legacy of one overrated, late-Victorian writer—a character many believe was based on the recently departed Thomas Hardy (Maugham denied the inspiration). The New Yorker had this to say about Cakes and Ale:
THROW HARDY INTO THE DUSTBIN…Somerset Maugham as photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1934. (Wikipedia)
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He Meant What He Said
Howard Brubaker, in his “Of All Things” column, found humor in the words of a rising figure in German politics, you know who…
* * *
Throw Him a Softball
The famed French artist Henri Matisse paid a visit to New York City, and according to this account in “The Talk of Town,” seemed to be seeking some peace of mind…
AN OPPOSITE VIEW…Henri Matisse struck a thoughtful pose atop a Manhattan apartment at 10 Mitchell Place in 1930. The Queensboro Bridge can be glimpsed in the background. (ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com)
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Still Barred From the Bar
We are still about three years away from the official repeal of the 18th Amendment, but as we know the partying continued in houses and speakeasies across the great city. E.B. White, in his “Notes and Comment,” wistfully recalled the days when good booze was legal:
White did find some cheer in the pro-wet platforms of the two major parties…
A GIMLET IN EVERY POT…The major political parties in 1932’s U.S. presidential race were represented by incumbent Herbert Hoover (Republican) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic). Both favored repeal of the 18th Amendment. Pictured at the center, a New Yorker cocktail, the object of E.B. White’s longing. (Wikipedia)
And while we are on the subject, we have this Wallace Morgan illustration of a lively speakeasy with the ironic caption, “The Saloon Must Go!” — referencing an old Anti-Saloon League Slogan.
You didn’t have to go to a speakeasy if you wanted a glass of wine. During Prohibition American winemakers found a lucrative loophole by selling perfectly legal concentrated grape juice (called “wine bricks”) to home brewers and bootleggers alike.
According to an article in the Smithsonian, winemakers marked the wine bricks with warnings that they were “for non-alcoholic consumption only.” However, the package would also bear a note explaining how to dissolve the brick in a gallon of water, and yet another “warning” instructing the buyer not to leave the jug in a cool cupboard for 21 days, lest it turn into wine.
Here’s an ad in the Oct. 11, 1930 New Yorker that not-so-subtly offered a selection of varietals…
Here’s what a wine brick looked like:
A wine brick from San Francisco’s Vino Sano company. The label reads: “Each Brick dissolve in one gallon of water. To prevent fermentation, add 1-10% Benzoate of Soda.” Yeah right. (vinepair.com)
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From Our Advertisers
No doubt Prohibition caused more than a few people to take up smoking. Women adopted the habit in droves during the Roaring Twenties, and by the Depression it seemed everyone was lighting up. Advertisers explored various ways to market cigarettes, and long before the Marlboro Man made the scene, that brand pushed its product through a series of dopey handwriting and essay contests,,,
…the makers of Luckies used a combination of sex and bogus health claims to sell their products…
…cigarettes were not confined to ads by tobacco companies; here they are accessories to fine furs…
…even The New Yorker’s spot illustrations (this by Frank McIntosh) featured smokers…
…as did cartoons, such as this one by Barbara Shermund in the Oct. 4 issue…
…and we have one more ad, this one from Chrysler, which acknowledged the new world of the Great Depression, but only through use of careful euphemisms (The New Yorker editorial side practiced much of the same)…
…on to our cartoons, beginning with an exploration of city vs. country life, by Alice Harvey…
…a depiction of what commuter flying was actually like in 1930, thanks to Leonard Dove…
…a glimpse at modern parenting, with Helen Hokinson…
…humor in a gentleman’s drawing room, courtesy Peter Arno…
…and 89 years later, a hilarious update on the subject by Edward Steed in the Sept. 9, 2019 issue…
…and finally, the joys of urban life brought to us by Alan Dunn…
Playwright and essayist James Harvey observes that The Front Page was “Hecht and MacArthur’s Chicago…(and) that counts most deeply in the imagination of Hollywood. And their play, the first of the great newspaper comedies, did more to define the tone and style, the look and the sound of Hollywood comedy than any other work of its time.”
A New Yorker State of Mind 