Above: A group of eight East African elephants greet visitors to the American Museum of Natural History's Akeley Hall of African Mammals, which opened in 1936. The elephants are surrounded by twenty-eight habitat dioramas. (amnh.org)
One can instantly call up a photo on an iPad of every known animal on the planet, so why are people still fascinated by dead, stuffed animals displayed in glass cases?
May 2, 1936 cover by William Cotton.
To be accurate, most animals on display at natural history museums are not “stuffed;” they are an art form or sorts, anatomical sculptures covered with skins, posed in meticulous re-creations of their natural environments.
Ninety years after it opened to the public, the American Museum of Natural History’s Akeley Hall of African Mammals—named for the father of modern taxidermy Carl Akeley— still dazzles museum-goers with incredibly detailed dioramas (twenty-eight in all) that depict a range of African ecosystems. Writing for “A Reporter at Large” (titled “Africa Brought to Town”), Morris Markey marveled at the lifelike displays of flora and fauna, “every twig and grain of sand the very essence of Africa…”
DEATH AND LIFE(LIKE)…Clockwise, from top left, procession of elephants in the American Museum of Natural History’s Akeley Hall; the downside of dioramas—elephants slain in 1911 that now comprise “The Rear Guard” (elephants in back) of AMNH’s procession of elephants; Carl Akeley models a taxidermied elephant circa 1921; Akeley reclining on a bull elephant he killed in 1910 on an AMNH expedition. (uconn.edu/public domain/amnh.org)GETTING IT RIGHT…Clockwise from top left: Carl Akeley with his camera, circa 1920s—Akeley contributed hundreds of specimens and images of wildlife and plants to various American museums throughout the course of his career; James L. Clark, William R. Leigh and Richard Radatz relax during a 1926 African expedition to document the flora and fauna (through photos, sketches and paintings) for reference in creating true-to-life dioramas; unidentified expedition worker prepares plaster to make casts of collections (tree bark, leaves, rocks etc.). (amnh.org/uconn.org)MARRIAGE OF SCIENCE AND ART…Clockwise from top left: William R. Leigh landscape study; expedition artists made paintings en plein air as well as from specimens brought back to their tents (below). At bottom left is Carl Akeley’s second wife, Mary Lee Jobe Akeley (1886–1966), a well-known explorer and naturalist. It was her first expedition to Africa and Carl’s last—he would die of dysentery before the expedition concluded—so Mary took charge of the expedition, and was later named Carl’s successor as adviser to the American Museum of Natural History. (Leigh landscape courtesy Gerald Peters Gallery via jamesperrywilson.wordpress.com/still images taken from a short film of AMNH’s 1926 African Hall expedition, courtesy University of Connecticut)
Markey visited with museum director Roy Chapman, who likened the dioramas to “glimpses of Africa as they might be seen from a train window…” Since this was 1936, no one seemed too concerned about the ethical implications of hunting and killing animals for museum displays. It should be noted that most animals we see in major natural history museums today were killed during early 20th-century expeditions such as Akeley’s; animals used in new displays are often obtained from zoos or sanctuaries after dying of natural causes.
OUT OF AFRICA…Still image of giraffes taken from a short film of AMNH’s 1926 African Hall expedition; the AMNH’s “Water Hole” diorama; “Greater Koodoo” diorama; Clarence Rosenkranz working on the “Giant Sable” diorama. (amnh.org/uconn.org)
There is an undeniable appeal to these artificial environments. Although our digital age offers all sorts of them, there are still kids who like to build dioramas in shoeboxes. And for those of us who grew up in 1960s and 70s, there was the thrill of opening a new three-pack of View-Master reels, each slide revealing a three-dimensional, self-contained world.
And so it is with museum dioramas. They offer a moment of wonder and calm to viewers. As the noisy world collapses around them, these displays—however artificial—might inspire in some a greater appreciation of these creatures and their fragile environments.
One can imagine film critic John Mosher rubbing his eyes as he pondered the reasons why Hollywood insists on making overly long movies (also lamented by critics today). He also reviewed four new films, with little enthusiasm.
LONG IN THE TOOTH?…Clockwise from top left: Critic John Mosher seemed to imply that seven-year-old Shirley Temple (seen here with Buddy Ebsen in Captain January) was getting too old to play the precocious little healer; Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Gordon Harker in The Amateur Gentleman; Janet Gaynor and Robert Taylor made cute in I Married a Doctor; movie poster for Lorenzino de ’Medici, which Mosher felt was best suited to Italian audiences. (letterboxd.com)
* * *
Getting Things Done
Journalist Hickman Powell filed the first part of a two-part profile of New York’s 45th Governor, Herbert Lehman (1878–1963). The first Jewish governor of New York, Lehman was a prominent liberal leader and a major philanthropist, known for implementing a “Little New Deal” that established a minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and public housing.
HMMM…William Cotton was a terrific caricaturist, but he seemed to miss the mark with this illustration of Gov. Herbert Lehman for the “Profile.” (Wikipedia)
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From Our Advertisers
The May 2 issue was crammed with ads for women’s summer fashions, which were defined by longer, leaner silhouettes…
…and by the increasing popularity of practical sports and casual clothes…
…the makers of Cadillac motorcars continued to emphasize their lower-priced LaSalle models for Depression-squeezed consumers…
…no fashion models or health claims here, just the allure of cigarette smoke courtesy Liggett and Myers…
…the distillers of Old Taylor wanted you to associate their product with the timeless work of William Shakespeare…after all, who’s going to sue them over image rights?…
…on to our cartoonists…Miguel Covarrubias, whose work was featured in The New Yorker’s first issue and was frequent in those early days, lent his talents to the theatre review section with this rendering from On Your Toes…
…something else I forgot to mention in my last post, On Your Toes also marked George Balanchine’s debut as a Broadway choreographer…
ON HIS TOES…At left, George Balanchine in 1942; at right, Tamara Geva in 1936’s Broadway production of On Your Toes. Geva, an actress, ballet dancer, and choreographer, was Balanchine’s first wife (married 1921-1926). (Wikipedia/instagram)
…we are seeing a lot of Richard Taylor in the 1936 issues, especially in providing spot illustrations such as this one…
…Charles Addams deployed some sarcasm on the domestic front…
…and Addams again, commenting on the fierce rivalry between the privately owned Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) and the municipal subway systems…
…and we have two by Helen Hokinson, having misgivings about a greenhouse variety…
…and finding a personal commitment to a can of soup…
…Garrett Price had this man doing some wishful thinking…
…William Steig used a two-page spread to illustrate a day at the drugstore…
…another drawing from the group, appearing on the left-hand page…
…keeping it in the family, we have one byHenry Anton Steig (William Steig’s brother)…according to Michael Maslin’s indispensable Ink Spill, Henry contributed nineteen drawings to The New Yorker from 1932 to 1936 under the name Henry Anton…this one was his final contribution…
…Whitney Darrow Jr drew up this over-enthusiastic maître d’…
…Barbara Shermund went apartment hunting…
…and we close with Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein, and a room with a view…
Above: Behind the scenes production photo of the space gun used to launch a manned projectile to the moon in Things to Come. (Instagram)
One of the most anticipated films of the 1930s was the British production of Things to Come. Loosely based on the 1933 science fiction novel by H.G. Wells,The Shape of Things to Come, the film was an extraordinarily ambitious and expensive production featuring a huge cast and elaborate sets, both full-scale and in miniature.
April 25, 1936 cover by Rea Irvin.
Critic John Mosher wasn’t quite sure what to make of Things to Come, seizing on the film’s promise to end the common cold.
CLEANING CREW…A businessman in Everytown in the 1940s, John Cabal (Raymond Massey) returns in the 1970s to find his city in ruin and governed by a warlord. As a member of a secret organization called “Wings Over the World” (comprised of the last surviving band of engineers and mechanics), Cabal orders his organization to send giant flying wings over Everytown and saturate the population with a “Gas of Peace.” Not only does the gas make the population tranquil, it also kills the warlord, played by Ralph Richardson (right). (midnightonly.com/instagram.com)
In a review for The Criterion Collection, Geoffrey O’Brien notes that the film’s shocking scenes of war were shown to an audience “in active denial, many of them, of the possibility of such things coming to pass in the near future.”
But an antiseptic city with a population made docile by a “Gas of Peace” didn’t appear to be something one would look forward to either. O’Brien points to Jorge Luis Borges’ remarks regarding Things to Come: “The heaven of Wells and Alexander Korda, like that of so many other eschatologists and set designers, is not much different than their hell, though even less charming.” Borges dismissed the notion that science and technology would be the rallying force against tyranny: “In 1936, the power of almost all tyrants arises from their control of technology.”
WAR AND PEACE…At left, bombers lay waste to Everytown in the 1940s, seemingly forecasting The Blitz of London in 1940-41; at right, decades later, “Wings Over the World” sends giant flying wings (right) over Everytown to saturate the population with a “Gas of Peace.” (Illinois.edu/facebook.com)UTOPIA?…After years of rebuilding, a new, underground Everytown emerges in 2036. The set (left) was designed by director William Cameron Menzies and Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Above, transportation included autogyros; both men and women wore futuristic togas, including John Cabal’s great-granddaughter Catherine Cabal (Pearl Argyle). Note the acrylic furniture, ubiquitous in the future scenes of the film. (midnightonly.com/facebook.com/YouTube)
O’Brien concludes: “There is no way any audience, in the 1930s or now, would be likely to accept Raymond Massey’s Oswald Cabal as an empathetic spokesperson for the human race. He is essentially the chairman of the board of a quasi-fascist ruling elite—and not so very far from the idea that Wells, at best ambivalent about democracy, in fact had in mind.”
In all fairness, I should note that Massey did not like his character’s “heavy-handed speeches” that lacked human emotion. He complained H.G. Wells prioritized cold scientific ideals over personal character depth. “For heart interest, Mr. Wells hands you an electric switch,” Massey stated.
WISHES SOMETIMES COME TRUE…In the movie, a little girl in the year 2036 receives a history lesson from her great grandfather (including a video of 1936 New York), and she expresses delight that people will “keep on inventing things and making life lovelier and lovelier.” The little girl was played by eight-year-old Anne McLaren. The great grandfather was played by Charles Carson (1885–1977). (midnightonly.com)DAME McLAREN…In real life that little girl, Anne McLaren (1927–2007), did make life better, becoming a leading figure in developmental biology and paving the way for other women in science. Her work also helped lead to the development of human invitrofertilization. Dame Anne Laura Dorinthea McLaren received many honors for her research and ethical contributions. (YouTube.com/Wikipedia)POW! TO THE MOON…At left, Catherine Cabal (Pearl Argyle) and fellow scientist Maurice Passworthy (Kenneth Villiers) prepare to fly around the moon, launched from a gigantic space gun (right). (theguardian.com/YouTube)
Interestingly, Raymond Massey (1896–1983) and most of the film’s cast would live to see an actual moon landing in just 33 years. Most of them would also be involved in some way in the Second World War, Massey being wounded as part of the Canadian regiment.
American writer and editor Al Graham (1905–1972), who contributed a number of poems and “Talk of the Town” pieces to The New Yorker in the Thirties and Forties, offered some thoughts regarding Things to Come. Here are excerpts of the first and last parts of his piece:
SLOW AND STEADY…Al Graham is perhaps best known for his 1930s humorous verse and children’s literature such as Timothy Turtle (1946) and The Rhymes of Squire O’Squirrel (1963). At right is a cover of the first edition of H.G. Wells’The Shape of Things to Come. (Wikipedia)
Incidentally, the British automaker Triumph used Wells’ title in a 1970s ad campaign for the TR-7…
(The Daily Drive)
While we are talking movies, Mosher also reviewed Frank Capra’sMr. Deeds Goes to Town. Films such as Mr. Deeds and It’s a Wonderful Life were Capra’s “love letters to an idealized America—a cinematic landscape of his own invention,” wrote social critic Morris Dickstein. Or as actor/director John Cassavetes once observed: “Maybe there really wasn’t an America, it was only Frank Capra.” Whatever it was, Mr. Deeds would win Capra his second Oscar for Best Director (he would win three in all, plus a fourth for a World War II documentary).
HAPPY ENDING…Mr. Deeds (Gary Cooper) finds love and salvation with Jean Arthur in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. (britannica.com)
* * *
Ah-Choo!
Those familiar with E.B. White’s writings are likely also familiar with his lifelong struggle with hay fever, or “catarrh” as it was also referred to in those days. White notably wrote about his condition in a 1938 New Yorker essay, “Daniel Webster, the Hay Fever, and Me.” He addresses the malady in his April 25, 1936 “Notes and Comment” column:
SNEEZING AND HONKING…Despite his allergies, E.B. White had a deep love for the countryside and nature. Although he grew up just outside New York City, he cultivated a love of rural life that was finally realized when he and wife Katharine bought a farm near Brooklin, Maine. Above is a 1974 photo (by Jill Krementz) of White at his Maine farm. (cornell.edu)
One of the more common and effective treatments for allergies in the Thirties was the benzedrine inhaler. The active ingredient was amphetamine. It was safe if inhaled, however some folks got the idea to crack open the inhaler and swallow the contents, which would induce a mind-altering effect (the amount of amphetamine in the inhaler was 250 milligrams, much greater than the five or ten milligrams in tablets prescribed for depression).
NOT SHIRLEY TEMPLE, however the marketers of the inhaler probably wanted consumers to make the connection. (mcgill.ca)
* * *
Before the Internet
What did some folks do in the evening before modern-day distractions? According to “The Talk of the Town,” at least one man and his family loved to gawk at the new Wrigley sign in Times Square.
CHEW ON THIS…The Wrigley sign spanned the block on Broadway from 44th Street to 45th Street. Designed by artist Dorothy Shepard, the display featured fish blowing bubbles and was lit by 29,608 lamps and 1,084 feet of neon tubing. It was so large that its electrical power usage was estimated to be equivalent to a small city of ten thousand people. (Wikipedia)
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From Our Advertisers
White Rock continued its series of brightly illustrated ads, this most likely the work of noted illustrator John Holmgren…
…Stage magazine continued to promote its star-studded content in full-page color ads…this one featured American stage and film actress Ina Claire…
Ina Claire, center, with Osgood Perkins and Doris Dudley in End of Summer.(jacksonupperco.com)
…ah, the pleasure of an after-dinner Lucky back in the day when you could still smoke indoors…
…another ad for Green Giant Niblets featuring a rich old toff who’s just over the moon about canned corn…
…these surreal Lyse Darcy ads for Guerlain really stood out in the magazine…
…speaking of standing out, who could resist the distraction of a tabloid, especially with the Gray Lady folded in one’s lap?…Alain illustrates…
…and per James Thurber, who was immune to the charms of a woman with a heart tattooed on her hip?…
…Charles Addams showed us a man with a built-in fishing advantage…
…Gregory d’Alessio gave us an understandable marital mix-up…
…Helen Hokinson offered a dose of “meh” in the hat department…
…Garrett Price showed us the consequences of Robert Moses’s transformation of Long Island from a rural area for the rich into a suburban landscape for the hoi polloi…
…and we close with Peter Arno, who wondered what’s the fun of drinking in the tropics when you can do the same thing in Queens?…
Above: Although MGM head Louis B. Mayer (right) had a strong business sense, he needed Irving Thalberg's keen ability to combine artistic quality with commercial success. During his twelve years at MGM, Thalberg supervised the production of more than four hundred films. (artsfuse.org)
Born in a Ukrainian village in 1884, Louis B. Mayer grew up poor in Canada and dropped out of school at age twelve to support his family. Nearly three decades later he co-founded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, lured the “boy genius” Irving Thalberg from Universal, and went on to lead one Hollywood’s most prestigious filmmaking companies.
March 28, 1936 cover by Perry Barlow.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Henry F. Pringle (1897–1958) looked into Mayer’s life in a two-part profile, leading with a look into the movie mogul’s ability to control his vast stable of stars (illustration by Hugo Gellert):
BOY GENIUS…Clockwise, from top left, MGM producer Irving Thalberg (seen here in 1929 with wife and actress Norma Shearer), had a knack for combining quality art with commercial appeal. Born with a weak heart, Thalberg died in September 1936 at age 37; The Great Ziegfeld was one of MGM’s top movies in 1936—it won three Academy Awards including Best Picture; Louis B. Mayer with young MGM stars Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland; Shirley Temple signing with MGM in 1941 with Mayer, Garland and Rooney. (theguardian.com/Wikipedia/facebook.com)
Mayer (1884–1957) is credited with helping to create the “star system” in Hollywood. “The idea of a star being born is bush-wah,” Mayer once said. “A star is made, created; carefully and cold-bloodedly built up from nothing, from nobody.” Mayer believed he “made” his stars, and therefore had the right to control their careers as well as their very lives. Pringle explained the predicament of actress Joan Crawford:
MAYER-MADE…Louis B. Mayer not only gave Joan Crawford a new name (she was born Lucille LeSueur), he was also instrumental in transforming her from a dancer to a major Hollywood star. Throughout her career at MGM Crawford pestered Mayer for better roles (until she finally left MGM in 1943). However, they remained friends until his death in 1957. Crawford once called Mayer “the best friend I ever had.” (Wikipedia/imdb.com)
Many stars were less forgiving than Crawford regarding Mayer’s controlling behavior. Although many male actors saw him as a father figure, women often had a very different view. A young Elizabeth Taylor called him a “monster” for his attempts to oversee her life, while Judy Garland was forced to go on diets and take amphetamines and barbiturates to meet Mayer’s punishing work schedules. Many believe this led to Garland’s lifelong addiction issues.
* * *
Water Water Everywhere
In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White was at a loss for words to describe the floods in the northeastern U.S. that followed a bitter winter. A combination of rain and the melting of heavy snowpack caused massive damage in the Connecticut and Merrimack River valleys as well as in the Pittsburgh area. In addition to approximately two hundred fatalities, hundreds of thousands were left homeless.
DELUGE…The flooding in Albany, NY, in 1936 (top) was part of a series of devastating floods that affected much of the northeastern United States. Below, the Holyoke Dam in Massachusetts, March 19, 1936. (South Hadley Public Library/sungazette.com)
White’s “Notes” also included an update on the “aesthetic restlessness” at Rockefeller Center, where the statues Youth and Maiden were removed from the Paul Manship-designed Prometheus fountain. The artist decided the two bronze figures did not fit well in the fountain, so they were moved to the roof garden of the Palazzo d’Italia.
EXILED…Paul Manship’s two gilded figures, Youth and Maiden, representing mankind receiving the fire, originally flanked Prometheus (top photo). In 1936 they were moved to the roof garden of the Palazzo d’Italia, but were returned to the Plaza in the 1980s. Pictured below, the six-foot statues were again moved in 2001 to the top of the Plaza staircase between the Channel Gardens and the Sunken Plaza.(mcny.org/Elisa.rolle/photo-opsblogspot.com)
* * *
Pyramid Scheme
“The Talk of the Town” commented on some unusual research conducted by Dr. A.E. Strath-Gordon, in which he used measurements from the Great Pyramid to predict the end of the Depression. Excerpts:
JUST READ THE STONES…Dr. A.E. Strath-Gordon (1873–1952) was a spiritualist, researcher, author, and lecturer on the occult and paranormal subjects. (strathgordon.wordpress.com)
* * *
Deeper South
James Thurber had some fun with novels about the Deep South that sought to employ authentic dialogue—but not as successfully as novelist Erskine Caldwell. These excerpts are the first and last paragraphs from the piece.
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED…Erskine Caldwell’s writings about poverty and racism in his native South included novels such as Tobacco Road (1932) and God’s Little Acre (1933). Unlike Thurber’s parody, Caldwell’s writing style has been described as spare, direct and unadorned. (Wikipedia/etsy.com)
* * *
An Introduction
I didn’t know much about the novelist Leane Zugsmith until I read her short story in the March 28, 1936 edition of The New Yorker. During the 1930s she was prominent among writers who focused on the struggles of the working class during the Great Depression. “Mr. Milliner” was the eighth short story she published in the magazine, out of a total of fifteen from 1934 to 1949. Here are the opening lines:
FED UP…Writer Leane Zugsmith(1903–1969) focused on the shortcomings of capitalism in her novels and short stories, including her 1936 novel A Time to Remember, which depicted a department store strike and the rise of white-collar unions. She published fifteen short stories in The New Yorker from 1934 to 1949. (bolerium.com)
* * *
Over There
In her latest dispatch from Paris, Janet Flanner noted the growing anxiety among Parisians over Germany’s arms buildup and its re-occupation of the Rhineland.
HAIRY HEADLINES…Janet Flanner noted the anxious crowds around newspaper kiosks (unlike the quiet image above) and the boos being issued by the market women in the Halles (at passing soldiers) as war with Germany was being seen as inevitable. (tresors-de-paris.com/mattbarrett-travel.com)
* * *
At the Movies
Lillian Hellman’s drama The Children’s Hour premiered on Broadway on Nov. 24, 1934, and ran for 691 performances—but bringing it to the screen in the era of the Motion Picture Production Code (aka Hays Code) proved a bit tricky, according to film critic John Mosher. Hellman’s play centered on a schoolgirl’s false accusation of lesbianism against two of her teachers, or as Mosher put it rather delicately, “a friendship of two young women…characterized by such emotional undercurrents as are not held seemly for screen exposition.”
Hellman rewrote the play to conform to the Code, removing any mention of lesbianism and changing the dramatic focus to a schoolteacher accused of having sex with another’s fiance. It appeared in 1936 under the title These Three.
Mosher wished the film could have included Florence McGee, who portrayed the conniving student protagonist Mary Tilford in the original play. The part in These Three went instead to Bonita Granville, who at age fourteen earned an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Mary Tilford.
TWO TAKES…Florence McGee (pictured at right, seated center) portrayed the conniving student protagonist Mary Tilford in the Broadway production of The Children’s Hour. The part of Mary Tilford in the re-written film version of the play, These Three, went to Bonita Granville (left), who at age fourteen earned an Academy Award nomination for her performance. (oscarchamps.com/Wikipedia)THREE TOTALLY STRAIGHT PEOPLE…Joel McCrea, Merle Oberon and Miriam Hopkins starred in These Three, a cinematic rewrite of Lillian Hellman’s play The Children’s Hour. (quadcinema.com)
Mosher also reviewed Petticoat Fever, a “trifle” starring Myrna Loy and Robert Montgomery.
BABY ITS COLD OUTSIDE…Myrna Loy and Robert Montgomery in Petticoat Fever. Montgomery was the father of Elizabeth Montgomery, best known for her portrayal of Samantha Stephens on the TV sitcom Bewitched. (IMDb.com)
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From Our Advertisers
The inside front cover advertisement belonged to the “House of Schenley,” which emphasized the purity of Kentucky’s “limestone waters”…
…the makers of Packard automobiles also appealed to bucolic sensibilities with this homespun image…
…the Easter Parade has been a New York tradition since the 1870s, when New York’s elite would walk down Fifth Avenue to show off the latest European fashions…the event was largely centered around churches like St. Patrick’s, hence the ad from its neighbor across the street, Rockefeller Center…today the event is called the Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival, a more inclusive event featuring eccentric, handcrafted bonnets…
…Lux Soap Flakes were featured in big, celebrity-filled ads in mid-century America, soap being one product (like whiskey and cigarettes) that proved to be mostly Depression-proof…
…a twelve-cylinder engine was usually a feature of top-of-the-line luxury automobiles, but the folks at Lincoln put one into their medium-priced Zephyr…the car succeeded in reigniting sales at Lincoln dealerships during the Depression…
…beginning in the late nineteenth century cigarette companies included coupons that could be redeemed for items ranging from cocktail sets to silk stockings (per this ad)…Brown & Williamson, the makers of Raleigh and Kool cigarettes, featured coupons on the back of every pack, and smokers could write the company for a free premium catalog…
…this Raleigh catalog from the early 1950s even featured toys…250 coupons could get you a “Teddy bear with plastic nose”…so keep on puffing…
…Luckies went with the glamour of flying, an experience only the well-heeled could afford…
…on to our cartoonists, we have Richard Taylor…
…and Barbara Shermund welcoming us into the issue…
…and a this nice spot from Christina Malman…
…Al Frueh gave us his interpretation of Saint Joan…
…W.P. Trent explored the deep seas…
…Helen Hokinson revealed a secret…
…Gluyas Williams was still examining club life…
…William Steig went for a haircut (across two pages)…
…Leonard Dove received some junk mail…
…George Price uncovered a spy…
…Garrett Price assessed the price of fame…
…William Crawford Galbraith continued to explore the world of sugar daddies and chlorines…
Above: Posters advertising The Country Doctor, a film featuring the Dionne Quintuplets as "The Wyatt Quintuplets." (Wikipedia/imdb.com)
The Dionne Quintuplets, famed as the first quintuplets known to have survived infancy, appeared in a motion picture before their second birthday—The Country Doctor—just one example of the many ways the girls were exploited by the province of Ontario, their doctor, their father, and the companies who used their images to sell everything from toys to toothpaste.
March 21, 1936 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
The Country Doctor was the first of three 20th Century Fox films featuring the toddlers as the “The Wyatt Quintuplets.” Actor Jean Hersholt played the country doctor (“Dr. John Luke”) in all three films, his character based on Allan Roy Dafoe, the Ontario obstetrician who successfully delivered the identical quints in 1934. It was a sign of the times that no one seemed too concerned about the children’s welfare—TheNew Yorker’s John Mosher was joined by his fellow critics in generally praising the film.
MARKETING MATERNITY…The Country Doctor was the first of three 20th Century Fox films featuring the Dionne Quintuplets. Clockwise, from top left: Slim Summerville, Jean Hersholt, and John Qualen in The Country Doctor; Ontario Premier Mitchell Hepburn with the quintuplets in 1934; a 1936 book based on the film; a 1937 ad for Karo Syrup, a major sponsor of the girls and Dr. Dafoe; an array of quintuplet-related toys included paper dolls and the much sought after Madame Alexander dolls. (Wikipedia/ebay.com/facebook.com/pbs.org)
The Dionne Quintuplets were used to endorse an array of products including Quaker Oats, Colgate toothpaste, Palmolive soap, and Lysol disinfectant. Dr. Dafoe became a wealthy man due to his association with the quintuplets, while the government of Ontario saw enormous tourism potential (the girls were made wards of the province ostensibly to protect them from exploitation). At the age of four months the quintuplets were moved from the farmhouse where they were born to a compound (“Quintland”) that featured an outdoor playground designed as a public observation area.
SURROUNDED BY RICHES…at left, Allen Roy DaFoe on a postcard with the Dionne Quintuplets; tourists consult sign for the next public showing of the “Quints.”(roadtripusa.com/facebook.com)CHA-CHING…Oliva Dionne, the quintuplets’ father, ran this souvenir and refreshment stand at Quintland, where the public flocked to view the girls playing. (montrealgazette.com)
The last surviving quintuplet, Annette, died on December 24, 2025, at the age of 91. Her sister Cécile died a few months earlier, also at age of 91.
John Mosher also reviewed Mae West’s latest film, Klondike Annie. Some critics regarded it as her finest film, despite heavy censorship and the outrage of “Decency people.”
GO WEST, WEST…Mae West portrayed a kept woman who murders her keeper in self-defense and escapes to Nome, Alaska in Klondike Annie. At left, West in a scene with Son Yong; at right, with Phillip Reed. (Pinterest)
* * *
St. Katharine
Robert Benchley found Katharine Cornell’s theatrical performance in Saint Joan to be “as fine as was expected.” An excerpt:
KNOWN QUANTITIES was how Robert Benchley described the talents of stage actress Katharine Cornell. At left, Cornell as Saint Joan; at right, Cornell (1893–1974) is perhaps best known in her role as Elizabeth Barrett in the 1931 Broadway production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. (Wikipedia)
* * *
It Begins…
On March 7, 1936, 22,000 German army troops crossed a bridge over the Rhine River and entered the Rhineland, breaking the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which mandated a demilitarized Rhineland to ensure French safety. Despite the violation, and the fact that the German army was still weak, France and Britain took no military action. E.B. White reported:
REOCCUPATION…On March 7, 1936, German Army troops crossed a bridge over the Rhine River and entered the Rhineland for the first time since the end of World War I. The lack of response from France and Great Britain no doubt emboldened Hitler to annex Austria and occupy Czechoslovakia in 1938. (iwm.org.uk)
Howard Brubaker, in his column “Of All Things,” also noted:
* * *
Some Pretty Things
“The Talk of the Town” paid a visit to the Museum for the Arts of Decoration at the Cooper Union and found many treasures within, including a unique circular elevator.
BRIDGE TO THE PAST…The Cooper Union’s Museum for the Arts of Decoration held many treasures, including (at bottom) an Italian birdcage fashioned to resemble the Rialto Bridge; at top, rooms filled with examples from the decorative arts. (cooperhewitt.org)
The “Talk” visit included a ride up a circa 1850s elevator shaft designed by inventor Peter Cooper four years before safety elevators even existed. The design was based on Cooper’s belief that the circular shape was the most efficient.
ROUND AND SOUND…At left, entrance to Peter Cooper’s circa 1850s round elevator and the elevator’s shaft at the Cooper Union Foundation Building. The round shaft remains a central feature of the building today, now housing a modern round elevator designed in 1972. (Cooper Union Library)
* * *
Commie Cutlery
American non-fiction writer Carl Carmer published the first part of a two-part essay on the revolutionary Oneida Community, which Carmer dubbed “a materially successful communist experiment…”
This polyamorous Christian utopia disbanded before the end of the 19th century and reemerged as a joint-stock company, Oneida Community Limited, which focused on making silverware. This brief excerpt is from the first paragraph.
COHABITING COMRADES…Oneida commune members gather on the lawn in front of the Community Mansion House in in Madison County, New York, circa 1860s. Members of the community practiced free love, women and men had equal freedom in sexual expression and commitment, and children were raised communally. (collectorsweekly.com)
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From Our Advertisers
Yes, take a doctor’s advice, and put some leaded gas in your car, and into the air you breathe…
…R.J. Reynolds presented three women who exemplified the “society model” trend of the 1930s…well-known debs and socialites who provided an air of prestige to a brand…especially cigarettes…
…Lorillard Tobacco Company, on the other hand, stuck with pin-up artist George Petty to push their Old Golds…
…General Motors took out the middle spread to tout their low-priced luxury automobile, the La Salle…
…the convertible La Salle looked handsome, if not a bit brisk with the top down…
…American luxury carmaker Packard proudly displayed their twelve-cylinder luxury model, but reminded readers they could have a lesser model, the 120, for a price “in the $1,000 field”…
…a couple of one-column ads…Don Herold helped Hale’s move mattresses, while fashion columnist Alma Archer employed class anxiety to promote her new book, The Secrets of Smartness and the Art of Allure…
SMARTNESS AUTHORITY Alma Archer in 1937. Archer (1898–1988) wrote a widely read column for the New York Mirror that was syndicated in more than a thousand newspapers.
…if you have been following this blog, you’ll recall the ads with angry duchesses fuming over tomato juice and rich old men fondly recalling their countrified youth via canned corn niblets…well here is one robber baron who needed some niblets pronto to quiet his rage…maybe a snifter or two of brandy would have also helped…
…on to our cartoonists, James Thurber kicked things off on page two…
…the “Goings On” section concluded on page four with this drawing by Charles Addams…
…a couple more spot drawings from the issue by Christina Malman (left) and Richard Taylor…
…Al Frueh offered this interpretation of the players in End of Summer…
…and we have Thurber again, with a hard-to-miss distraction…
…William Steig continued to explore the varieties of “Holy Wedlock”…
…Leonard Dove gave us a golddigger stranded at sea…
…Gardner Rea put a captain of industry in a tight spot…
…Ned Hilton encountered a hairy challenge…
…Eli Garson demonstrated some remarkable foot dexterity…
…while Robert Day showed a lack of dexterity a construction site…
…Charles Addams revealed a materialist in the brotherhood…
…Peter Arno’s charwomen let a sleeping dog lie…
…and we close Garrett Price, and one perceptive lad…
Above, left, Janet Flanner regards the cover of the Sept. 13, 1931 issue of The New Yorker; at right, Adolf Hitler's chosen filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl at Nuremberg's "Shovel Day" parade, 1936. (Library of Congress/Sueddeutscher Verlag)
The February 29, 1936 issue stands out from pack not only for its cover—James Thurber’s first—but also for the magazine’s first in-depth look at a man who would spark the deadliest conflict in human history.
February 29, 1936 cover by James Thurber. This was the first of six covers Thurber contributed to The New Yorker. You can see all six covers at Michael Maslin’s Ink Spill, the go-to site for all things Thurber and so much more. UPDATE: Also check Maslin’s post regarding the repeat of this cover on Sept. 4, 2023. Fascinating read!
Before we jump in…Thurber’s close friend E.B. White noted another unusual fact about this issue…
…twenty-eight years later, and a dime extra (cover by Garrett Price)…
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Inside the Feb. 29 issue, The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent Janet Flanner published the first part of a three-part profile on German dictator Adolf Hitler. In this first excerpt she described the Führer’s ascetic diet and personality (caricature by William Cotton).
NAZI NUM NUMS….Adolf Hitler with one of his official food tasters, Margot Woelk, during World War II. Woelk later claimed she was the sole survivor from a group of food tasters who were summarily executed by the Red Army after the fall of Berlin. (warfarehistorynetwork.com)
Flanner described Hitler’s relationships with influential women, particularly filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.
FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS…Adolf Hitler had influential admirers both in and outside of Germany, including, clockwise, from top left, filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (in the white skirt described by Flanner) at the 1936 “Shovel Day” in Nuremburg; Winifred Wagner, daughter-in-law of composer Richard Wagner, in 1925; Hitler with Unity Mitford, one of six aristocratic Mitford sisters and a fanatical Nazi; Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl with another Mitford sister, Diana Mitford, at a 1934 Nuremberg rally. Diana as married to Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, and Hanfstaengl was the son of Katharina Wilhelmina Hanfstaengl, a prominent Munich art publisher who helped finance Hitler’s rise to power. (Sueddeutscher Verlag/Wikipedia/historyreader.com)
Flanner concluded the piece with a look at Hitler’s sexuality, which seemed non-existent, and drew an ominous conclusion about his personality type.
EXPENDABLE…Ernst Röhm with Adolf Hitler in 1933. Although Hitler knew Röhm was gay, he also valued Röhm’s leadership and organizational skills, that is until his presence proved a liability. Röhm was murdered by the SS in 1934 during the “Night of the Long Knives.” (Wikipedia)
As part of a centenary series, The New Yorker’s Andrew Marantz recently looked at Flanner’s profile of Hitler, noting that she was “neither an antifascist, like her friend Dorothy Parker, nor a Fascist, like her friend Ezra Pound; she was against crude bigotry, but she was not the world’s greatest philo-Semite.”
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Lamour Amour
In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White pointed out the challenges of expressing physical beauty over a non-visual medium like radio:
TELEGENIC…Hopefully E.B. White managed to see Dorothy Lamour on the “television waves… bumping along over the Alleghenies.” At left, publicity photo of Lamour from 1937; at right, Lamour appeared as a mystery guest on What’s My Line?, Feb. 20, 1955, seen here with host John Daly. In later years Lamour was a guest on a number of television shows, ranging from Marcus Welby, M.D. to Remington Steele. (Wikipedia/YouTube.com)
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Shadow Plays
Morris Bishop (1893-1973), a noted scholar of the Middle Ages as well as a writer of light verse, offered up these lines after screening early silent films at the Museum of Modern Art. The screenings were curated by Iris Barry to showcase MoMA’s new film library and to advance the study of film as a serious art form.
TIME CAPSULES…The Museum of Modern Art was a pioneer in the study of film as a modern art form. Among the films screened at MoMA in 1936 (clockwise, from top left): famed stage actress Sarah Bernhardt as Queen Elizabeth in the Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth (The Loves of Queen Elizabeth) with Lou Tellegen, 1912; Bernhardt in the film Camille (La Dame aux camélias) with André Calmettes, 1911; Theda Bara’s 1917 take on Camille, in a scene with Alan Roscoe; Gloria Swanson in Zaza, 1923. (Wikipedia/imdb.com/YouTube.com)
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A Reporter’s Chops
With so much attention given to James Thurber as a humorist, it is easy to forget that he was an experienced journalist, and that he could apply his considerable gifts as a writer to narrative non-fiction. For the Feb. 29 “A Reporter at Large” column, Thurber penned “Crime in the Cumberlands.”I can’t do it justice through excerpts, but I highly recommend giving it a read as a prime example of Thurber’s skills as a reporter.
SERIOUSLY SERIOUS WRITER…You can find both humorous and not-so-humorous crime stories (and drawings, of course) in 1991’s Thurber on Crime, edited by Robert Lopresti. “Crime in the Cumberlands” is included in the collection. (jamesthurber.org/barnesandnoble.com)
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At the Movies
Not so serious were the films being churned out by Hollywood, including the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers toe-tapper Follow the Fleet, set to an Irving Berlin score that featured the hit “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” Critic John Mosher was on board for the ride.
GOOD CLEAN FUN…Dance partners “Bake” Baker (Fred Astaire) and Sherry Martin (Ginger Rogers) find love during shore leave in Follow the Fleet.(Toronto Film Society)
Bandleader Harry Richman, well known in the New York nightlife scene of the 1920s and 30s, showed his acting chops in The Music Goes ‘Round…
I CAN SING TOO…Rochelle Hudson and Harry Richman in The Music Goes ‘Round. (imdb.com)
…Fred MacMurray, Sylvia Sydney, Henry Fonda and Fred Stone appeared in living color in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine–it was just the second full-length feature to be shot in three-strip Technicolor and the first to be shot outdoors in Technicolor…
LIFELIKE…Clockwise, from top left: Fred MacMurray; Sylvia Sydney; a Paramount movie poster; Henry Fonda and Fred Stone.(moviesalamark.com/imdb.com)
…the 1936 film Rhodes (aka Rhodes of Africa) featured the massive acting talents of Walter Huston and Peggy Ashcroft; not surprisingly, the subject matter of the film has not aged well…a 2015 review in The Guardianis headlined: “Rhodes of Africa: only slightly less offensive than the man himself”…
COLONIAL KLINK…Walter Huston and Peggy Ashcroft in Rhodes.(imdb.com)
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From Our Advertisers
We begin with a Stage magazine ad from the inside front cover, featuring an illustration by Alexander King…
…only new-money swells would be seen doing this…old money wouldn’t dare enter the kitchen, unless they needed to sack the cook…
…on the back cover of the Feb. 29 issue you would find this elegant woman taking a break from her vanity to enjoy a “toasted” Lucky…
…we join our cartoonists, starting with this spot by Richard Taylor…
…Garrett Price got stuck over the frozen falls…
…George Price drew up a sandwich board competition…
…Al Frueh continued to illuminate “The Theatre” section…
…James Thurber posed a loaded question…
…Denys Wortman got down to some debugging…
…Carl Rose offered up another example of rugged individualism…
…Charles Addams came down to earth…
…Alain illustrated a case of jury tampering…
…Helen Hokinson demonstrated the allure of a netted hat…
…and Hokinson again, doing some early spring cleaning…
…and Barbara Shermund explored the idyll of wanderlust…
…and before we go, here is the New Yorker cover—by Helen Hokinson, Sept. 12, 1931—that was the object of Janet Flanner’s attention…
Above: A mechanic (Chester Conklin) gets caught up in his work with the help of the Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) in Modern Times. (festival-entrevues.com)
The film Modern Times was Charlie Chaplin’s last performance as “The Tramp” (or, “The Little Tramp”), a character he created more than twenty years earlier to represent a simple person’s struggle to survive in the modern world. That struggle was no more apparent than in Modern Times, a film in which the Tramp faced the dehumanizing industrial age in all its kooky complexity.
A sweet Valentine’s Day-themed cover by William Steig, February 15, 1936.
The film is notable for being Chaplin’s first picture to feature sound, and the first in which Chaplin’s voice is heard—singing Léo Daniderff’s comical song “Je cherche après Titine” (although Chaplin replaced the lyrics with gibberish). Modern Times was nevertheless filmed as a silent, with synchronized sound effects and a small amount of dialogue. Critic John Mosher appreciated the movie as being “of the old era,” not anticipating that it would become one of cinema’s most iconic and beloved films.
JUST A COG IN THE MACHINE…Clockwise, from top left: Repetitive assembly line work drives the Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) to a nervous breakdown; the steel factory is an Orwellian world where the president (Allan Ernest Garcia) constantly monitors his workers—even in the bathroom where the Tramp is caught taking a break; the company tries out a new lunch efficiency machine on the Tramp, with mixed results; iconic image of the Tramp at work. (medium.com/YouTube.com)(thetwingeeks.com)
One of the film’s best stunts involved the blindfolded Tramp rollerskating on the fourth floor of an under-construction department store; Chaplin employed a matte painting, perfectly applied on a glass pane in front of a camera, to create the illusion of a sheer drop-off. Even as an illusion, Chaplin’s skating skills were remarkable.
HIGH ANXIETY…The blindfolded Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) skates precariously close to a sheer drop-off on the fourth floor of a department store while his companion, an orphan girl known as “The Gamin” (Paulette Goddard) puts on her skates, unaware of his peril. (YouTube.com)
The model below shows how the effect was achieved, filming next to a glass-mounted matte painting to create the illusion of a sheer drop off…
(reddit.com)
In his conclusion, Mosher found the film to be “secure in its rich, old-fashioned funniness.”
Chaplin gave a happy send-off to the Tramp, who at the end of earlier films walked down the road alone. Modern Times closed with the Tramp and the Gamin walking hand in hand, dreaming of a life together.
FOND FAREWALL…Paulette Goddard joined Charlie Chaplin on the road at the end of Modern Times. Goddard became Chaplin’s third wife in 1936. (the-cinematograph.com)THE TRAMP RETURNS…World premiere of Modern Times, Feb. 5, 1936, at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City. The film was one of the top-grossing films of 1936. (Wikipedia)
A final note: The website The Twin Geeks offers an excellent synopsis and analysis of Modern Times.
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Bachelor King
In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White wrote about the ascension to the British throne by Edward VIII following the death of his father, George V. In this excerpt, White considered a question raised by the Daily News regarding the king’s plans to marry (a question answered a few months later when Edward announced his plan to wed American divorcee Wallis Simpson, which led to a constitutional crisis and Edward’s subsequent abdication).
BUT I DON’T WANNA BE KING…The reluctant king Edward VIII would choose love over the crown when he abdicated the throne in December 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson (bottom left); E.B. White noted one woman’s suggestion that the king should marry actress Greta Garbo, since “Both have had a rough time at love.” (highland titles.com/George Eastman Museum)
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By Any Other Name
“The Talk of Town” featured a profile of Arthur J. Burks, a prolific writer of pulp fiction who published everything from detective stories to science fiction under a half-dozen pseudonyms. A brief excerpt:
A CURIOUS MIND…Arthur J. Burks (1898–1974) and the cover of Astounding Stories, January 1932, which featured the first part of his two-part tale, “The Mind Master.” Burks produced around eight hundred stories for the pulps, twenty-nine of which appeared in the magazine Weird Tales. (findagrave.com/gutenberg.org)
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A Day in the Life
From 1935 to 1962 Eleanor Roosevelt published a daily syndicated newspaper column titled “My Day”—through the column millions of Americans learned her views on politics, society, and events of the day as well as details about her private and public life. James Thurber couldn’t resist writing a parody—here’s an excerpt:
THE REAL DEAL…At left, sample of one of Eleanor Roosevelt’s syndicated “My Day” columns from 1938; photo of the First Lady from 1932. (arthurdaleheritage.org/Library of Congress)
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At the Movies
Besides Modern Times, there were other movies of note that were given rather scant attention in Mosher’s column, including the film adaptation of The Petrified Forest starring Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis and Leslie Howard.
Robert E. Sherwood wrote the 1934 Broadway play of the same name, which was co-produced by Howard and featured both Howard and Bogart. When it was adapted to film, Howard insisted that Bogart appear in the movie, and it made Bogart a star (he remained grateful to Howard for the rest of his life).
DANGEROUS DINER…An odd mix of patrons at a gas station cafe are taken hostage by desparate criminals in The Petrified Forest. From left are Leslie Howard, Dick Foran, Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. Playwright Robert Sherwood based Bogart’s character, Duke Mantee, on the the real-life criminal John Dillinger, the FBI’s first “Public Enemy #1.” (moma.org)
Other cinema diversions included the musical Anything Goes, which included songs by Cole Porter; the comedy Soak the Rich, which featured a radical who falls in love with a rich man’s daughter; and a detective film, Muss ‘Em Up, with the usual movie gangsters.
TAKE YOUR PICK…Clockwise, from top left: Ida Lupino and Arthur Treacher in the musical Anything Goes; Bing Crosby (in disguise) and Ethel Merman in Anything Goes; John Howard, Mary Taylor and Walter Connolly in the comedy Soak the Rich; Preston Foster, Maxine Jennings and Guinn “Big Boy” Williams in the detective film Muss ‘Em Up. (imdb.com/torontofilmsociety.com/zeusdvds.com)
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The Amazing Race
The New Yorker periodically featured “That Was New York,” which took a detailed look at significant events in the city’s history. In this installment, Donald Moffat recalled the 1908 New York to Paris automobile race, which commenced in Times Square on February 12 with six cars representing the U.S., France, Germany and Italy. It was an extraordinary event given that motorcars were a recent invention, and roads were nonexistent in many parts of the world. A brief excerpt:
ON YOUR MARK…Cars lined up in Times Square on Feb 12, 1908 for the start of what would become a 169-day race. American George Schuster was declared the winner when he arrived in Paris on July 30, 1908, after covering approximately 10,377 miles (16,700 km). (Library of Congress)
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Miscellany
Another regular feature in the early New Yorker was coverage of the New York Rangers, a team founded in 1926 by Tex Rickard after he completed construction of the third incarnation of Madison Square Garden. The Rangers were one of the Original Six NHL teams before the 1967 expansion, the others being the Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs.
In this excerpt, the writer “K.B.” described the rough play against rival Detroit, which would win back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1936 and 1937.
ZESTY…The excerpt above noted that the Rangers’ Phil Watson cuffed the Red Wings’ Syd Howe “with a zest richly appreciated by the balcony.” At left, team photo of the 1935-36 New York Rangers, with star and fight instigator Phil Watson identified with arrow; at right, Syd Howe won three Stanley Cups with Detroit, winning back-to-back in 1936 and 1937, and then again in 1943. (hockeygods.com)
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From Our Advertisers
General Motors’ luxury car line offered three price points (and this lovely image) to weather the Depression years, ranging from the relatively affordable La Salle to the Cadillac Fleetwood…
…the Chrysler corporation took a different approach, deploying a very wordy full-page ad that referenced history (a Madame Curie analogy) and something called “Unseen Value” to move its line of autos…
…the makers of College Inn Tomato Juice Cocktail brought back the “Duchess” with this shocking scene at the opera…
…recall last summer when College Inn featured the Duchess in a series of ads that illustrated her increasing fury over plain tomato juice…one wonders what sort of sadistic torment she had in mind for her hostess, “the old WITCH”…
…on to our cartoonists, beginning with this spot by James Thurber…
…and Thurber again, with an unwanted call to solidarity…
…William Steig explored marital bliss…
…George Price gave us a Three Stooges moment…
…I do not have the identity of this cartoonist…I will keep looking, but would love suggestions in the meantime…*update*…thanks to Frank Wilhoit for identifying the cartoonist below as John Kreuttner, also confirmed through Michael Maslin’s Ink Spill…
…Charles Addams added some frills to an executive suite…
…Otto Soglow illustrated the hazards of sleepwalking…
…Alain revealed a challenge to the publishing industry…
…Peter Arno possibly craved some sauerkraut and corned beef…
…William Crawford Galbraith was in familiar sugar daddy territory…
…Whitney Darrow Jr gave a nod to some homey surrealism…
…Barbara Shermund offered some well-weathered advice…
…and we close with Garrett Price, and a visitor more suited to Charles Addams…
Above: Mary Pickford (right, from 1916) spoke out against salacious content in films, such as this scene from 1930's Madam Satan. (Wikipedia/mainemedia.edu)
James Thurber seemed to enjoy teasing silent film legend Mary Pickford in her new career as social commentator and author of spiritual articles and books. Having retired from acting in 1933, Pickford was also using her powerful position as a co-founder of United Artists to focus on the moral direction of the film industry.
December 21, 1935 cover by Ilonka Karasz.
Back in the Sept. 21 issue of The New Yorker, Thurber took a humorous poke at Pickford’s Liberty magazine article on the afterlife, and found more fodder after Pickford, in an interview with the World-Telegram, criticized “salacious” films. “Be a guardian, not an usher, at the portal of your thought,” she advised. Thurber took the bait. Excerpts:
KEEPING IT CLEAN…From left, producer Samuel Goldwyn, actors Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. pose behind Mary Pickford at a United Artists board meeting in Los Angeles, July 9, 1935. (AP)
Thurber took particular pleasure in Pickford’s comments regarding the control of one’s dirty thoughts:
PICKFORD’S UNITED ARTISTS produced some memorable, non-salacious films in 1936, including Charlie Chaplin’sModern Times, and the acclaimed Dodsworth starring Ruth Chatterton and Walter Huston as Fran and Sam Dodsworth. (Wikipedia)
Pickford had a strong ally in the Hays Code, a set of self-imposed censorship guidelines that would keep mainstream studio films relatively free of salacious content for the next thirty years.
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A White Christmas
E.B. White offered holiday greetings to everyone from drinkers of blended whiskey to the makers of red tape (plus a plug for New Yorker subscriptions)…
CHEERS AND JEERS…E.B. White sent holiday greetings to the men who were changing the Normandie’s massive propellers (from three- to four-blade), and probably wanted to give a lump of coal to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia for “foolishly” banning organ grinders from city streets. (ships nostalgia.com/ephemeralnewyork)
…and concluded with these words…
…Otto Soglow added this bit of spot art to the bottom of White’s “Notes and Comment”…
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A Holiday Tradition
Page 21 featured Frank Sullivan’s annual Christmas poem (he wrote forty-two of them from 1932 to 1974)…
…which continued on page 22…
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Lost In Paradise
Robert Benchley did the honors as theatre critic for the Dec. 21 issue, enjoying an evening at Longacre Theatre with the richly endowed characters featured in Clifford Odets’Paradise Lost.
GREAT PLAY, WHATEVER IT MEANS…Robert Benchley thoroughly enjoyed Clifford Odets’ gallery of characters in Paradise Lost. Top, Odets circa 1930s; below, photo from the 1935-36 production at Broadway’s Longacre Theatre. (mcny.org)
Apparently the rest of the Broadway fare was not so great, as Benchley fled Cort’s Theatre (it featured This Our House, which closed after just two performances) to catch A Night at the Opera with the Marx Brothers.
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At the Movies
Benchley wasn’t the only one enjoying a night at the movies. Critic John Mosher found favor with German actor Emil Jannings’ latest flick, The Making of a King (Der alte und der junge König), calling the film “a sensible picture of the old bully,” namely the father of Frederick the Great.
LIGHTEN UP, FRED…Heinrich Marlow (left) and Emil Jannings in a scene from The Making of a King. The film depicted the turbulent relationship between Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I and his son, Crown Prince Friedrich. (IMDB)
Mosher found bright moments in Ginger Rogers’ latest film, but would have preferred another pairing with her fellow hoofer, Fred Astaire.
BETTER WITH FRED thought John Mosher of Ginger Rogers’s brave turn as an actress fleeing from her admiring fans in 1935’s In Person. Rogers donned eyeglasses, a wig, and fake teeth (inset) to portray the actress in hiding. She is pictured here in a scene with co-star George Brent. (IMDB)
Mosher was stimulated by The Great Impersonation, however, the “cordial” films about small town life and happy radio folk left him less than enthused.
MORE SPIES, PLEASE…John Mosher didn’t get too excited over the standard fare offered in the films Millions in the Air and Your Uncle Dudley, however he found the performances of Edmund Lowe and Wera Engels (bottom right) in the spy caper The Great Impersonation to be most stimulating. (IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
After touring France in the late 1870s, a New York drugstore owner named Richard Hudnut returned to the States determined to introduce French-style perfumes and cosmetics to American women. He soon transformed his drugstore into an elegant showroom, and in time became the first American to achieve international success in cosmetics…
…advertisements for Christmas gifts mostly dropped out of the magazine, and the back of the book was filled with spots touting various New Year’s Eve entertainments…
…in this ad from the Minnesota Valley Canning Company (renamed Green Giant in 1950), a robber baron’s humble roots, and his checkbook, are triggered by a can of corn…
…thanks to the makers of Luckies, Jolly Old St. Nick was dropping more than soot down your chimney on Christmas Eve…
…we kick off our cartoons with this spot illustration by Abe Birnbaum…
...Richard Decker gave us this caption-less appeal to the masses…
In 1933 the U.S. economy began a slow recovery from the 1929 market crash, but the recovery stalled in 1934 and 1935, and folks including E.B. White were looking for any indication of brighter days ahead.
June 29, 1935 cover by Barbara Shermund. A prolific contributor of cartoons to The New Yorker (600 in all), Shermund also illustrated eight covers, including this charmer.
White suggested that Americans look for smaller signs of normalcy, such as the new slogan, “Happy Motoring,” that was being rolled out by Standard Oil’s Esso.
IT’S A GAS…At left, Gasoline Station, Tenth Avenue, photo by Berenice Abbott, 1935; at right, newspaper ad, May 1935. (metmuseum.org/wataugademocrat.com)
Like many of us, White was a study in contradictions, enthusiastically embracing the age of air travel while rejecting the style and comforts of modern automobiles (he famously loved his Model T). It is no surprise that he also preferred Fifth Avenue’s spartan green and yellow omnibuses over the new streamlined buses that would soon be plying the streets of Manhattan.
NO THANKS…E.B. White preferred the spartan accommodations of the old Fifth Avenue buses to the comforts of their replacements. (coachbuilt.com)
White elaborated on the advantages of the older buses:
STYLE OVER COMFORT…Of the old Fifth Avenue buses, E.B. White wrote that he preferred the “hard wooden benches on the sun deck, conducive to an erect posture, sparkling clean after a rain.” (Ephemeral New York)
* * *
Cinderella Story
Challenger James J. Braddock achieved one of boxing’s greatest upsets by defeating the heavily favored (and reigning champ) Max Baer. For this feat he was given the nickname “Cinderella Man” by journalist Damon Runyon. The writer of the “Wayward Press” (byline “S.M.”) seemed less impressed, and mocked the national media for their sudden pivot on the bout’s unlikely outcome.
BRINGING THE FIGHT…Challenger James J. Braddock lays into defending champ Max Baer during a heavyweight boxing title match on June 13, 1935, at the Madison Square Garden Bowl in Long Island City. Although the national media dismissed Braddock’s chances of winning, Braddock trained hard for the fight while Baer spent more time clowning around than training. Braddock won by unanimous decision, eight rounds to six. (thefightcity.com)
* * *
Seemed Like a Nice Guy
Henry Pringle penned the first part of a three-part profile of Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948), who was also a former New York governor and U.S. secretary of state. William Cotton rendered a rather severe-looking Hughes in this caricature for the profile…
…although in reality he tended to look more like this…
PROGRESSIVE THINKER…Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes in 1931. Known as a reformer who fought corruption, Hughes was a popular public figure in New York. (Wikipedia)
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From Our Advertisers
We begin with an advertisement that goes down easy, with its minimal style…
…by contrast, a busy Camel advertisement…R.J. Reynolds alternated full-page ads featuring society women with these health-themed spots that linked smoking with athletic prowess…
…this advertisement by Fisher claimed the 1935 Pontiac was “The most beautiful thing on wheels,” however here it looks perfectly ancient…
…as does this Nash on the inside back cover…
…the back cover was claimed by Highland Queen, a blend of some very fine distilleries…
…Theodore Seuss Geisel continued his ongoing saga against the mighty mosquito…
…and we have this back of the book ad for Webster cigars, who enlisted the talents of Peter Wells…
…Wells (1912–1995) was also a children’s book writer, most famous for contributing drawings to the Katzenjammer Kids comic strip …
Peter Wells, detail from the opening page from “The Katzenjammer Kids,” #16, Spring 1951, King Features Syndicate, Inc.
…and of course we are all familiar with Otto Soglow, who sold his beloved Little King to Hearst (and made a pile) but was still able to feature his diminutive potentate in the The New Yorker in a series of ads for Bloomingdales…
…which brings us to our cartoonists, and a familiar torment for our beloved James Thurber…
…Independence Day offered a marketing challenge to these shopkeepers, per Garrett Price…
…Peter Arno was at his best, in his element…
…Charles Addams explored the unnatural, which would become his calling card…
…Robert Day offered a new twist to the tonsorial arts…
…William Steig gave examples of some budding “tough guys”…
…a rare baseball-themed cartoon from Richard Decker (editor Harold Ross was not a baseball fan)…
…from George Price, what appears to be the end of his “floating man” series, which began in September 1934…
…and we close with one my favorite cartoonists, Barbara Shermund, here at the bookstore…
Above: Postcard image of Washington Square Park, circa 1930. (citybeautifulblog.com)
New Yorkers know all about change, and especially during the 1920s and 30s when the city razed everything from Dutch settler houses to the Gilded Age mansions of Fifth Avenue. Landmarks such as the old Waldorf-Astoria were leveled to make way for the Empire State Building, while several blocks—22 acres of residential and commercial buildings—were scraped clean for Rockefeller Center.
June 8, 1935 cover by Harry Brown. This June bride-themed cover was Brown’s fourteenth of the eighteen covers he would create for The New Yorker.
Some things, like Washington Square, were still held dear by city residents. But very little was sacred to the city’s new park commissioner, Robert Moses, who had no problem leveling whole neighborhoods if they stood in way of a road or some other ambitious project.
It all seemed well at first when Moses called for the repair of neglected parks, including Washington Square. However, when changes to the park were revealed by the Villager, residents were outraged. Moses’ plan, designed by landscape architect Gilmore Clarke, was a complete reversal of the park’s existing design. In “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White explained:
Village residents organized a “Save Washington Square” committee and successfully blocked Moses from implementing his plan; in true Moses style, he responded by allowing the park to deteriorate.
MAKE NO LITTLE PLANS…Clockwise, from top left, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses; proposal to add colonnades to either side of the arch; landscape architect Gilmore Clarke; Clarke’s plan for the redesign. (Wikipedia/washingtonsqpark.org)
Moses, however, didn’t give up on Washington Square. Around 1940 he began floating the idea of building a double highway through the park. Local residents again rallied, joining business owners and NYU officials in blocking the audacious scheme.
DOUBLE TROUBLE…Around 1940 Moses began floating the idea of building a double highway through Washington Square Park. This illustration is circa 1950. (MTA Archives)
White continued on the theme of city planning, calling on Moses this time to figure out a better plan for sidewalk cafés.
AL FRESCO…Postcard images of sidewalk cafés at 24 Fifth Avenue (top) and 23rd and Lexington, circa 1935. (picryl.com)
Additional note: The magazine’s June 15, 1935 issue featured Lois Long’s criticisms of sidewalk cafés in Manhattan:
Long did offer, however, a couple of recommendations for sidewalk dining, including the Breevort in Greenwich Village…
If you really wanted to eat outside, Lois Long suggested the Breevort in Greenwich Village. (New York Public Library)
…and the St. Moritz’s Café de la Paix at 50 Central Park South…
The St. Moritz’s Café de la Paix in the 1940s. (blog.bondbrand.com)
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Sexily Danced the Burlesques
New Yorker writers loved to take shots at Henry Luce, publisher of Time and Fortune. Wolcott Gibbs famously satirized Time’s writing style in a parody profile in 1936: “Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind.” When Fortune decided to take a look behind the curtain at a burlesque show (February 1935), “The Talk of the Town” was ready to pounce.
The Fortune piece featured oil paintings by Stuyvesant Van Veen, including this one depicting the Proscenium at the Irving Place…
Fortune images courtesy fulltable.com
…Van Veen got behind the curtain to create this painting (below) of “Burlesque Queens,” and the magazine chastely demonstrated the “cycle of the strip act” with the help of Miss Jean Lee, aka Miss Jess Mack…
The New Yorker also took a sideways glance at Fortune’s stuffy approach to the subject of striptease, suggesting that it was much ado about nothing.
IT’S ALL AN ACT, FELLAS…Gypsy Rose Lee in 1943. (nypl.org)
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Futures and Fascists
Before the days of television and the Internet, a world’s fair was the place to go to see the latest technologies and other attractions from countries around the world. Paris correspondent Janet Flanner filed a special report on the Brussels International Exposition of 1935, which attracted 20 million visitors in a little over six months.
EURO SPECTACLE…Clockwise, from top left, the menacing facade of the Italian Pavilion—its interior walls featured frescoes of marching fascists; the Palais des Expositions (Grand Palais) still stands today as the Brussels Exhibition Centre; an early demonstration of television; the U.S. featured an “Indian Village” at the Expo. (fomo.be/Wikimedia/en.worldsfairs.info)
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Matchbox Cars
The New Yorker regularly checked the automobile competition from overseas, and found a tiny German car to be “perfectly amazing,” even if it didn’t go over so well with consumers.
IT’S CUTE, BUT…Due to its extreme unbalance of the Mercedes-Benz 130 H (two-thirds of the mass, including the engine, was on the rear axle), the car apparently was awkward to handle. It was discontinued in 1936. (automobile-catalog.com)
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From Our Advertisers
Anyway, most Americans preferred bigger cars, especially ones by luxury makers such as Lincoln, if they could afford them…
…Lincoln’s parent company, Ford, offered up a more affordable convertible with some flair of its own…automakers were fond of the marriage theme in advertisements, especially in the month of June…
…automakers and related industries were important advertisers during The New Yorker’s first years…
…indeed, the back cover of Issue #1 (Feb. 21, 1925) featured this ad from the United States Rubber Company, promoting its U.S. Royal Cord Balloon Tires…
…another faithful advertiser in the magazine’s first decade was the Bermuda Trade Development Board…
…this ad for Four Roses whiskey recalled “the glamorous days” (ahem) before the Civil War…
…and this colorful ad from World Peaceways reminded readers there was nothing to celebrate about wars…these ads pulled no punches (read the first few lines)…
…”most interesting country in the world today!” proclaimed this ad inviting tourists to the Soviet Union…during 1934-35 Joseph Stalin was ruthlessly purging the Party, and local leaders across the country were being annihilated…of the 2.3 million people who had been party members in 1935, just under half were executed or perished in labor camps…this fact probably wasn’t mentioned in the travel folder…
…the Webster Cigar Company hired Otto Soglow to create an ad doubtless based on the popularity of “The Little King,” but this isn’t the diminutive monarch…
…which takes us to our cartoonists, beginning with this spot signed E.S., I believe, or L.S. (anyone know?)…at any rate, its whimsical…
…of course we know Robert Day…
…Day again, in a very different style…
…Helen Hokinson, sounding a contemporary note…
…a kindergarten political standoff, courtesy Garrett Price…
…Rea Irvin, and the obsolescence of Pan (today she’d have a cell phone)…
…Peter Arno, and a clueless, cold, cuckold…
…and we close with Alan Dunn, and the future of transportation…
Above: Landscape in Bayside, 1935, by George Grosz (Phillips Collection)
Knowing that the Nazis would not look kindly on his art, George Grosz took a job teaching drawing in New York in 1932, and by 1933 he had become a permanent resident of the city.
March 30, 1935 cover by Garrett Price celebrated the traditional “Bock” beer of spring.
Grosz (1893–1959) was overwhelmed by the size and pace of his adopted city, and for the most part he left behind his bitter caricatures and paintings of Berlin’s Weimar years and turned to other subjects, including landscapes and New York’s urban life. Critic Lewis Mumford took in a show of Grosz’s new water colors at An American Place, a small gallery run by photographer and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz.
THE NEW OBJECTIVITY…George Grosz (left, circa 1921), was not alone in his harsh depictions of war and of German society during the Weimar Republic. Other key figures in the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) movement included Max Beckmann and Otto Dix (right, circa 1929). Dix’s oil on canvas War Cripples (Kriegskrüppel), 1920, which is pictured above, was exhibited at the First International Dada Fair in Berlin in 1920. Only black and white images exist of the painting, which is believed to have been destroyed by Nazis who condemned it as degenerate art. (Wikimedia Commons/CUNY)
OH THE HUMANITY…Three selections from the “Ecco Homo” series by George Grosz. From left, Gruß aus Sachsen (Greetings from Saxony) 1920; Nachts, (At Night) 1919; and Schwere Zeiten (Hard Times) 1919. Grosz took a dim view of the corruption and moral decline he found in Weimar Berlin. (MoMA)SEEING RED…Detail from George Grosz’sMetropolis, Oil on Canvas, 1916-1917. A blood-like shade of red could be seen in many of the artist’s paintings during World War I and the Weimar Republic. In this painting and in others, death is omnipresent. (Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid)A SOFTER SIDE could be found in George Grosz’s later watercolors, although he hadn’t entirely lost his sense of the satirical, or his taste for red paint. From left, Street in Harlem, circa mid-1930s; Ehepaar (A Married Couple), 1930; Central Park at Night, 1936. (Phillips Collection/Tate Gallery/Art Institute Chicago)
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Not the Bee’s Knees
For all the progressive thinking that was on display in the early New Yorker, we also reminded that it was also a creature of its time in 1935. Here are excerpts from a lengthy “Talk of the Town” entry that described the sad winnowing process of Broadway revue producer Earl Carroll…
JUDGEMENT DAY…Here is a screenshot from a short film featuring the 1935 audition described in the “Talk” segment. At left is Earl Carroll. You can watch the film here. (YouTube)
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Too Little For Too Much
Film critic John Mosher gave Alfred Hitchcock’s 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much just five lines in his review. He described it as “one of those preposterous adventure stories which Englishmen are always writing…” The film, however, was an international success, and it would define the rest of Hitchcock’s career as a director of thrillers with a unique sense of humor.
A HAPPY, CAREFREE HOUR is how critic John Mosher described his experience watching 1934’s The Man Who Knew Too Much. Clockwise, from top right, director Alfred Hitchcock with the film’s German star, Peter Lorre, who learned his part phonetically; Lorre and Cicely Oates; Edna Best did her best at playing a grieving mother. The film was remade by Paramount in 1956, starring James Stewart and Doris Day. (Wikipedia/aurorasginjoint.com/IMDB)
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Dizzy Nor Dazzled
In 1935 Lois Long had been divorced from cartoonist Peter Arno for about four years, and she was the mother of six-year-old daughter from that marriage. That didn’t keep her from sampling the city’s night life, but the days of speakeasies and drinking sessions that lasted into the wee hours were over for the 34-year-old Long. For her “Tables for Two” column she took the elevator up to the 65th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza to take in the entertainment at the Rainbow Room…as well as the pedestrian crowd…
WHAT A WHIRL…Above, diners watch a performance by ballroom dancers Lydia and Joresco in the then newly opened Rainbow Room in 1934. Lois Long enjoyed the Rainbow Room in its 1930s heyday, but she missed her old speakeasy crowd, noting that the Rainbow Room’s customers weren’t “dizzy enough” to suit her tastes. (Rockefeller Center Archives)
…her speakeasy days were over, but it appears Long still enjoyed a bit of indulgence…here is how she concluded her column:
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From Our Advertisers
Step into a crowded mid-century elevator and you were bound to catch a whiff of the menthol-tinged scent of Aqua Velva, not objectionable if properly applied…
…speaking of menthol, the makers of Spud cigarettes were now competing with upstart menthol cigarette makers including Kool…this ad has all kinds of problems, including the suggestion that the occasional Spud not only inspires one’s nuptials, but also ensures marital bliss, as well as a lifetime of chain-smoking…
…Luckies, on the other hand, continued to appeal to the modern woman, and what impressionable young woman wouldn’t be inclined to pick up the habit to complete her ensemble?…
…the makers of College Inn tomato juice gave their raving Duchess the week off, but we get another old sourpuss in the form of a “Dowager” who demands that her servant remove a glass of what very well could have been tomato juice…enter the old bat’s niece, Dorothea, who suggests that the cook, Clementina, serve some Libby’s pineapple juice instead, probably spiked with vodka given the Dowager’s sudden change of demeanor…
…Essex House continued their class-ridden ad campaign, this time with some stuff-shirt dreading his world cruise
…carmakers continued to emphasize economy and price to move their latest models, including the 1935 Nash with “Aeroform Design”…
…last week I noted that Packard was doubling down on promoting the elite status of its premium automobile; however, the carmaker did introduce a “120” that cost a fraction of its luxury models and helped the company’s bottom line…
…Packard’s competition was Lincoln and Cadillac, among other luxury brands, but Pierce Arrow represented the pinnacle of luxury and craftsmanship, the American equivalent of Rolls Royce…unlike the other luxury brands, Pierce Arrow did not offer a lower-priced car, and the company folded it 1938…
…speaking of luxury cars, if you owned a Lincoln, this little ad tucked into the top corner of page 55 showed you were to go to get a tune-up…
…the publishers at Street & Smith announced the launch of a new fashion magazine, Mademoiselle, a seemingly daring move in Depression America…the cover featured an illustration by Melisse (aka Mildred Oppenheim Melisse)…the magazine was later acquired by Condé Nast, and folded in November 2001…
Mildred Oppenheim Melisse’s cover for the debut issue of Mademoiselle, April 1935. Melisse also supplied the cover art for the May and June issues that year. (Pinterest)
…Otto Soglow was on his way to becoming a wealthy man thanks to his “Little King” cartoon…William Randolph Hearst lured Soglow and the cartoon away from The New Yorker in 1934, so the only way the wee potentate could appear in the magazine was in an ad, like this one for Bloomingdale’s…
…Soglow continued to contribute to The New Yorker, and we kick off our cartoons with an April Fool’s joke…
…for the second week in a row Maurice Freed supplied the opening spot art for “Goings On About Town”…
…Helen Hokinson was on the hunt for some predatory fish…
…James Thurber looked in on the nudist fad that emerged in the 1930s…
…and we close with George Price, an some alarming bedside manners…
A New Yorker State of Mind 