Above: The Morris B. Sanders Studio and Apartment is the second-oldest modern townhouse in Manhattan. Sanders designed the townhouse, located on 49th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue, in 1934 for his own use, and construction was completed in December 1935. (Wikipedia/docomomo-nytri.org)
Today we barely notice the tens of thousands of shiny glass buildings that populate our cities, not to mention the countless postwar houses that feature vast expanses of glass from floor to ceiling.
April 11, 1936 cover by Helen Hokinson.
In 1936 a house made of glass, especially as a structural element, seemed unlikely to most folks, if not downright bizarre. Enter Lewis Mumford, arts and architecture critic for The New Yorker, who was critical of many modern industrial trends and often promoted his ideal of human-scaled, organic design in buildings and cities. Mumford was not opposed to new technologies, such as glass block, as long as it was employed with sensitivity and good taste. Here are some of Mumford’s observations after visiting the American Glass Industries Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum:
NEW NEIGHBOR…Morris B. Sanders’ studio and apartment at 219 East 49th Street in Turtle Bay boldly interrupted a stodgy row of brownstones. Lewis Mumford pronounced the 1936 building “very handsome.” The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building as an official landmark in 2008. (curbed.com/Wikipedia)
The Sanders House wasn’t the first time a brownstone was replaced by a modernist building. That honor goes to another Turtle Bay-area house, just one block from the Sanders house, designed by architect William Lescaze in 1933-34.
ODD COUPLE…Designed by William Lescaze in the International Style between 1933 and 1934 as a renovation of a 19th-century brownstone townhouse, 211 East 48th Street was one of three houses in Manhattan designed by Lescaze. (atlasobscura.com/inside inside.org)
The Brooklyn Museum exhibition also included commercial examples such as one of the world’s first buildings to be completely covered in glass, the Owens-Illinois Glass Research Laboratory in Toledo, Ohio. Mumford also commented extensively on the new uses of glass in Times Square, namely the rebuilt Rialto Theatre and a Childs restaurant located next door. Excerpts:
THINGS TO COME…Clockwise, from top left, the Owens-Illinois Glass Research Laboratory in Toledo, Ohio, built between 1935 and 1936, is recognized as one of the world’s first buildings to be completely covered in glass, utilizing glass blocks for the facade; Lewis Mumford was less impressed with the use of glass by the newly rebuilt Rialto Theatre, but praised the new Childs location next door for being full of “vitality and color.” (facebook.com/dinerhunter.com)
* * *
Down on Il Duce
Last week we saw Robert Benchley’s review of the anti-war play, Idiot’s Delight. This week he reviews another play with themes that resonated in the moment, Bitter Stream. Written by Victor Wolfson and adapted from Ignazio Silone’s novel, Fontamara, the play depicted the horrors of fascism as Mussolini’s Black Shirts brutally seize an Italian neighborhood. It featured relative newcomer Lee J. Cobb as well as Frances Bavier, who twenty-four years later would portray Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show. Excerpts:
TROUBLE IN SUNNY ITALY…A scene set in Fontamara Square in the play Bitter Stream, which ran for sixty-one performances at the Civic Repertory Theatre. At right, Lee J. Cobb portrayed Don Circonstantza, and Frances Bavier played the part of Soreanera. Bavier is best known for her portrayal of Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). (revolutions newsstand.com/facebook.com)
* * *
Sick Leave
Also last week we saw the first part of Edmund Wilson’s account of his travels in the Soviet Union. For the April 11 installment of “A Reporter at Large” (titled “Scarlet Fever in Odessa”), Wilson recounted his six-week stay in a filthy Soviet hospital. Excerpts:
WANTING OUT…Edmund Wilson couldn’t wait to get out of the “terribly dirty” Odessa hospital where he was quarantined with scarlet fever for six weeks. At left, photo by Margaret Bourke White, “In a Hospital Waiting Room, Moscow,” 1932. At right, Wilson in 1936. (nyamcenterforhistory.org/Wikipedia)
* * *
Gall in Gaul
In her Paris Letter, Janet Flanner continued to share her observations about the French mood (agitated) in the wake of the German occupation of the Rhineland.
HOW ABOUT A NICE DITTY INSTEAD?…Janet Flanner reported that there was a “near riot” when a performance at the Paramount Theater (left) included “military music.” At left, the Paramount in 1927; at right, a Popular Front demonstration in Paris, 1936. (Wikimedia/Bibliothèque nationale de France)
* * *
At the Movies
Little Lord Fauntleroy was Selznick International Pictures’ most profitable film until Gone with the Wind, and it featured one of the top child stars of the 1930s, English-American child actor Freddie Bartholomew (1924–1992). However, New Yorker film critic John Mosher was “bored to extinction” by the popular film.
SLUMMING…At left, Freddie Bartholomew and Mickey Rooney in Little Lord Fauntleroy. Rooney once said of Bartholomew: “He was one of the finest, if not the finest child stars that we had on the scene at that time”; at right, Aubrey Smith, Bartholomew and Dolores Costello in a scene from the film. (MGM/Wikipedia)
One of Hollywood’s greatest screen villains, English actor Henry Daniell, caught Mosher’s attention for his “smooth” performance as a blackmailer in The Unguarded Hour. The critic also enjoyed the thriller The House of a Thousand Candles, but was left flat by Give Us This Night.
A MANNERED SCAMP was how John Mosher described one of Hollywood’s greatest screen villains, English actor Henry Daniell (right) in The Unguarded Hour, which also starred (at left) Loretta Young and Lewis Stone. (imdb.com/facebook.com)THRILLS AND TRILLS…Top photo, Mae Clarke and Phillips Holmes in the spy thriller The House of a Thousand Candles; below, Give Us This Night was one of five films produced by Paramount that featured the popular Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Gladys Swarthout, seen here with Polish opera singer and actor Jan Kiepura.(imdb.com/mabumbe.com)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
If you could afford it, a first-class salon on the Normandie sure looked like a great way to travel to France…
…this full-page ad enticed moviegoers with a quiz that promoted MGM’s The Great Ziegfeld…one of the most successful films of the 1930s, the movie won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Luise Rainer), and Best Dance Direction…
…who knows what will happen after the honeymoon, but we do know they will driving around in this swell-looking Packard 120, a lower-priced model that helped keep Packard afloat during the waning days of the Depression…
…Forstmann Woolens continued to entice buyers with their seasonal images of fine fashions…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with the illustration for “The Theatre” section, this week Miguel Covarrubias taking over for Al Frueh…
…Richard Taylor contributed this fine spot illustration…
…and we have another spot by Helen Moore Sewell…
…James Thurber made an awkward introduction…
…George Price hoped for some comic relief at the theatre…
…Eli Garson found religious zeal at a street corner…
…Alan Dunn gave us a great opening line for an insurance salesman…
…Perry Barlow was inspired by bargains on Union Square…
…Helen Hokinson spotted a familiar face in the crowd…
…a quickie marriage left no room for romance, per Peter Arno…
…Whitney Darrow Jr signed us off with an endorsed blessing…
Above: Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne headed the cast of Idiot's Delight, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning play by Robert E. Sherwood. The anti-war play premiered at Broadway's Shubert Theatre on March 24, 1936, and ran for three hundred performances. (latimes.com)
Set against the backdrop of impending war in Europe, Robert Sherwood’sIdiot’s Delight was a timely exploration of how individuals might respond to a major upheaval. The play’s themes about the futility of war resonate as much today as they did in 1936.
April 4, 1936 cover by Harry Brown. Although he created some distinctive, whimsical covers for The New Yorker (including today’s), there is very little biographical information available on the artist. Brown created eighteen covers for the magazine from 1931 to 1937.
Presented at Shubert Theatre, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play was set at a hotel in the Italian Alps, where the guests—among them a military captain, a German scientist, a radical socialist, and a honeymooning couple—find themselves trapped by the sudden onset of world war. The cast was led by Alfred Lunt, who played a small-time American entertainer accompanied by a troupe of chorines, and Lynn Fontanne, who portrayed a mysterious Russian woman who was traveling with an arms dealer.
The Pulitzer jury called the play first-rate, full of dramatic invention and “Molierian richness.” Critic Robert Benchley heartily agreed:
FRIVOLITY AMID THE CHAOS OF WAR…Clockwise, from top left, souvenir program for Idiot’s Delight; Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in a scene from the play; playwright Robert E. Sherwood; Lunt with a chorus line in Idiot’s Delight. The New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson wrote that the play “demonstrates Mr. Sherwood’s taste for exuberance and jovial skulduggery.”(eBay.com/nypl.org/imdb.com)
Benchley concluded that the play was at once entertaining and edifying:
FORGET ABOUT IT…In Idiot’s Delight, Sydney Greenstreet (left) portrayed a doctor who, in the face of senseless war deaths, gives up on his life-saving research; at right, Jean MacIntyre (left) portrayed Mrs. Cherry, part of a young English honeymooning couple stranded at a hotel due to the sudden closing of the border. With her in the scene are Fontanne and Lunt. (radioclassics.com/Public Domain)
Sherwood adapted the play into a 1939 film of the same name, starring Norma Shearer and Clark Gable.
* * *
Earth Gazing
In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White mused about plans at the Hayden Planetarium for a program that would give visitors some idea of how earth would appear from a point in space. Earthlings would have to wait until 1968 to actually see a clear, color image of their planet.
THE WONDER OF IT ALL…Clockwise, from top left, the cosmosarium at the Hayden Planetarium, circa 1935; Howard Russell Butler’s attempt at an accurate portrayal of the earth for the American Museum of Natural History, circa 1920s; in 1966, Lunar Orbiter I sent back this image of Earth from the vicinity of the Moon; Earthrise is a famous photograph of Earth taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. (facebook.com/pinterest.com/NASA)
* * *
From Russia With Love
Journalist and literary critic Edmund Wilson Jr (1895–1972) traveled in Russia from May to October 1935, and later filed a couple of articles in The New Yorker detailing his travels. Writing for the column “A Reporter at Large,” Wilson described his journey by boat from London to Leningrad, finding an unexpected kinship with his Soviet cabin mates. Excerpts:
DESTINATION…Leningrad’s Nevsky Prospect 1930s; Edmund Wilson Jr in 1936. (pinterest.com/Wikipedia)
Wilson found that he preferred the company of the Soviets to a stuffy English couple who were his dining companions. He concluded:
It should be noted that Wilson, despite his Marxist sympathies, would soon become disillusioned with the Soviet experiment; his travels concluded just before the onset of Josef Stalin’s “Great Purge,” which featured the notorious Moscow Show Trials that sent millions of innocent Soviet citizens to labor camps or to their deaths in prisons.
DOOMED…During the Great Terror, which included the notorious show trials of Stalin’s former Bolshevik opponents in 1936-1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of innocent Soviet citizens were sent off to labor camps or killed in prison. This image from 1936 shows defendants dressed in prison clothing during one of the Moscow Show Trials. (umkc.edu)
* * *
At the Movies
Film critic John Mosher observed that moviegoers mostly needed “thrills and nonsense” at the cinema. Thrills were not to be found, but Harold Lloyd provided the nonsense.
PUNCH LINES…Harold Lloyd (left), portrayed an unlikely middleweight boxer in The Milky Way. Above is a scene with Adolphe Menjou (center) and Lionel Stander. (obscurehollywood.net)
The “thriller” of the week was Moonlight Murder, which Mosher suggested audiences could “dismiss at once.”
DISMISSED…Katharine Alexander, Leo Carrillo and Benita Hume in Moonlight Murder. (rotten tomatoes.com)
Mosher also offered tepid reviews of Everybody’s Old Man and Sutter’s Gold, despite these films featuring a popular humorist and a respected character actor, respectively.
SAY SOMETHING FUNNY…Rochelle Hudson, Irvin S. Cobb and Warren Hymer in Everybody’s Old Man. (imdb.com)WHO AM I?…A vague narrative left critic John Mosher wondering if Edward Arnold’s character was supposed to be a “hero, villain, scamp, or fool” in Sutter’s Gold. Above, Arnold in a scene with Binnie Barnes. (film booster.com)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
Arrow Shirts rolled out a colorful array of pre-shrunk sanforized shirts and neckties just in time for the Easter holiday…
…from the 1930s through the 1950s the distinctive voice of James Wallington (1907–1972) filled the airwaves on both radio and television…here he endorses those “Sanforized Shrunk” shirts…
…French costume designer and illustrator Marcel Vertès (1895–1961) provided the art for the Antoine de Paris lipstick line at Saks…Vertès created the original murals in the Carlyle Hotel’s Café Carlyle and in the Waldorf-Astoria’s Peacock Alley… he also won two Academy Awards for his work on the 1952 film Moulin Rouge…
…Hockanum Mills announced its new line of woolens for the spring racing season…
Hockanum’s Rockville mills were shut down in 1951. Today the site is being redeveloped for commercial and light industrial uses as well as the site for the New England Motorcycle Museum. (historicbuildingsct.com)
…more claims from R.J. Reynolds regarding the gastrointestinal benefits of their Camel cigarettes…
…while Liggett and Myers stuck with the pleasures of hearth and home, and a pack of Chesterfields…
…on to the cartoon section, we begin with Christina Malman…
…Richard Taylor…
…Robert Day…
…and a wonderful spot drawing by illustrator and children’s book author Helen Moore Sewell…
…who won a Caldecott Medal for her illustrations featured in Alice Dalgliesh’sThe Thanksgiving Story (1954)…
…we go shopping with Helen Hokinson in the garden section…
…and in the hat department…
…Mary Petty caught up on the latest gossip…
…Perry Barlow gave us a shopkeeper in need of some marketing tips…
…William Steig continued to probe the joys of married life…
…even one’s dream world required some careful grooming, per Otto Soglow…
…James Thurber drew up a duet out of tune…
…outside of Wall Street, Leonard Dove’s titan of business was just another sugar daddy…
…and we close with Peter Arno, and strangers on a train…
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)
* * *
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: Nightlife correspondent Lois Long checked out the latest clubs as well as old-time favorites in her column "Tables for Two." From left, advertisement for Restaurant Larue; Josephine Baker in 1937; and the entrance to Monte Proser's Beachcomber, an early iteration of the tiki bar that would become ubiquitous in midcentury America. (eBay.com/Wikipedia/mytiki.life)
Part three of Janet Flanner’s profile of Adolf Hitler can be found below, but it’s time to lead with something more pleasant, namely Manhattan nightlife through the eyes of Lois Long.
March 14, 1936 cover by Rea Irvin.
In her “Tables for Two” column headlined “Nostalgic Notes,” Long checked out the new Chez Josephine Baker, the garden-like delights of Restauarnt Larue, and the French-themed Le Coq Rouge.
NEW NIGHTLIFE…Clockwise from top left, ad for Restaurant Larue; 1930s postcard showing interior of Larue; Josephine Baker, proprietor of Chez Josephine Baker; ad for Le Coq Rouge; interior of Le Coq Rouge, 1930s. (eBay/Wikipedia)
Long also noted the Beachcomber Bar, which originated in the basement of an old church, and actor Dan Healy’sBroadway Room.
MAN ABOUT TOWN…Dan Healy was a well-known master of ceremonies in the Manhattan nightlife scene. He married the famed “boop-boop-a-doop” singer (and possible Betty Boop inspiration) Helen Kane in 1939—they later opened a New York restaurant together called Healy’s Grill. (whosdatedwho.com/Facebook)
* * *
Bummed Out
E.B. White (in “Notes and Comment”) referred to confessional essays published in Esquire magazine by F. Scott Fitzgerald that frankly described his struggles with alcoholism and the decline of his literary reputation. The confessional tone of the essays (three in all, published in February, March and April 1936) proved controversial at the time.
In his first essay, “The Crack-Up,” Fitzgerald famously observed that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
A CRY FOR HELP?…At left, F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1930s (top), and, apparently during happier days (below, with wife Zelda); at right, the opening page of “The Crack-Up.” (esquire.com/pbs.org)
* * *
Say What?
New Yorker writers rarely missed an opportunity to poke fun of Time magazine’s unique ways with the English language. E.B. White again, in an excerpt:
TIMEWORDS…The March 16, 1936 issue of Time, and E.B. White. (time.com/imdb.com)
* * *
Dying to Know
“The Talk of the Town” made brief mention of a rumor regarding Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton’s health. Reports of her demise were premature; she died in 1979.
HANGING IN THERE…Barbara Hutton with husband no. 2, Count Kurt von Haugwitz-Reventlow, circa 1936. Hutton married seven times, including a brief marriage to actor Cary Grant, who was husband no. 3. (whosdatedwho.com)
* * *
Part Three
Janet Flanner completed her three-part profile of Adolf Hitler by looking into the man’s mind, if that was even possible.
OBEDIENT MASSES…Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler addresses soldiers at a rally in Dortmund, Germany, 1933. (encyclopedia.ushmm.org)
Flanner also noted the Führer’s early days as an unsuccessful painter, and an odd wedding gift to his buddy Hermann Göring:
GOOSED…Top, Adolf Hitler presented a specially painted copy of Correggio’s Leda with the Swan as a wedding gift to Hermann Göring and actress Emmy Sonnemann on April 10, 1935; below, Hitler painted this watercolor during his pre-WWI time in Munich, from May 1913 to August 1914. (Wikipedia)
* * *
China Syndrome
Supporting herself as a writer for The New Yorker, Emily Hahn’s years in Shanghai, China (1935 to 1941) were tumultuous. Living in the city’s red light district, she became romantically involved with the Chinese poet and publisher Shao Xunmei (aka Sinmay Zau) and became addicted to opium. In this excerpted short essay, Hahn described her literary encounters with Shao Xunmei (here referred to as “Pan Heh-ven”) and a passel of translators.
ENOUGH OF THAT…Emily Hahn became romantically involved with the Chinese poet and publisher Shao Xunmei (aka Sinmay Zau), but ultimately left him in order to break her opium addiction. (Wikipedia)
* * *
At the Movies
Critic John Mosher did his best to stay awake during the latest fare from Hollywood…
SPECIOUS SPECTACLE…Top, from left, Louise Fazenda, Paul Draper, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell and Hugh Herbert in Colleen; below, Wendy Barrie and Gene Raymond in Love on a Bet. (cometoverhollywood.com/imdb.com)
Mosher also commented on a film he walked out on (The Farmer in the Dell), and considered the twentieth anniversary of Intolerance, a 1916 drama that had become a “cheap amusement.”
HO HUM…Critic John Mosher walked out of The Farmer in the Dell, mostly due to boredom—above, Frank Albertson, Jean Parker, Fred Stone and Esther Dale in the romcom The Farmer in the Dell; below, scene from D.W. Griffith’s epic silent film from 1916, Intolerance. (imdb.com/cinemafromthespectrum.com)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
The folks at Hormel once again claimed the inside front cover with this array of soups featured sideways, in full color…
…the illustrator of this Lord & Taylor advertisement hoped to superimpose a pair of shoes over a woman’s face, with less than convincing results…
…the makers of Packard automobiles sent a condescending message “To The Ladies,” promising not to “bore them” with talk of mechanical features…
…a sampling of one-column ads featured, from left, the renowned Russian Eagle cafe-bar at the Sherry-Netherland, the Modernage furniture store on East 33rd, and the Milwaukee Road railroad, which offered adventure at such places as a Montana dude ranch…
…the inside back cover featured this drawing of actress/dancer/singer June Knight by Abe Birnbaum…
…Birnbaum was a terrific artist, but his portrait of Knight was not terribly flattering…this is what she looked like in the 1930s…
June Knight (1913–1987) circa 1930s. (reddit.com)
…on to the cartoons, we kick off the issue with Canadian cartoonist Richard Taylor…
…and Taylor again, striking a pose…
…Arnold Hall contributed an example of floral marketing…
…Al Frueh contributed to “The Theatre” section…
…Jack Markow did some rubbernecking…
…Howard Baer welcomed a new tax deduction to the world…
…Perry Barlow drew up impressions of a field trip to the Hayden Planetarium…
…Barlow again…
…one of Helen Hokinson’s “girls” explained herself…
…Barbara Shermund interpreted modern dance…
…Alain sought some dish over tea with the vicar…
…and we close with James Thurber, and a penny for her thoughts…
Above: At left, the Nazi Party sought to remake Christian holidays such as Christmas into Nazi-themed, pagan events, even trying to redefine St. Nicholas as Wotan, the ancient Germanic deity; at right, Adolf Hitler rejected Christianity, calling it a Jewish plot to undermine the heroic ideals of the Aryan-dominated Roman Empire. Here he is seen meeting the nuncio to Germany, Cesare Orsenigo, on January 1, 1935. (reddit.com/Wikipedia)
For the March 7 issue we look at the second part of Janet Flanner’s profile of German dictator Adolf Hitler, in which she attempted to identify the social and political influences that led to his peculiar vision of the world.
March 7, 1936 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
Flanner noted that Hitler’s ancestors were intermarrying, pious Roman Catholic peasants, including his parents, second cousins Klara Pölzl and Alois Hitler. While Klara was a doting parent, Alois was often abusive and distant. And so it began.
MOM AND DAD…Adolf Hitler’s parents were second cousins Klara Pölzl (1860–1907) and Alois Hitler (1837–1903). Pölzl was the third wife of the much older Hitler, who was a stern, mid-level Austrian customs official. (Wikipedia)
Flanner described Hitler’s struggles as an artist (rejected twice by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts), however his real disappointment was nationalistic; serving as a courier (and wounded) in World War I, he blamed internal traitors for Germany’s defeat. To bolster his patriotic ideals, Hitler turned to books, and particularly to poet and dramatist Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805)—the Nazis would later manipulate Schiller’s works to fit the Party’s themes of nationalism, struggle, and obedience. Hitler would further hone his world view through the works of white supremacist Count de Gobineau (1816–1882), nihilist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), and philologist Max Müller (1823–1900), whose work inadvertently contributed to the idea of a superior “Aryan” race.
REWRITING HISTORY…Clockwise, from top, a 1940 Nazi propaganda film, Friedrich Schiller— Der Triumph eines Genies, portrayed Schiller (played by actor Horst Caspar) as an idealistic Übermensch; Hitler and the Nazis were also influenced by white supremacist Count de Gobineau; philologist Max Müller; and the nihilist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. (film portal.de/Wikipedia)
In her conclusion, Flanner noted Hitler’s dislike of jokes at his own expense, and she was surprised that German comedian Weiss Ferdl, known for his “Führer gibes,” wasn’t in a concentration camp with cabaret singer Claire Waldorff (somehow both survived the regime and the war). Flanner also touched on Hitler’s antipathy toward Christianity.
SURVIVORS…At left, Weiss Ferdl (1883-1949) was a German actor, humorous folksinger known for his jibes at Hitler; at right, Claire Waldorff (1884-1957) was a famous cabaret singer and entertainer in Berlin, known for performing ironic songs with lesbian undertones. (Wikimedia Commons)I’LL TRY TO KILL YOU LATER…German Chancellor Adolf Hitler greets (l to r) Roman Catholic Abbot Albanus Schachleiter and Protestant Reichsbischof Ludwig Müller, outside the Frauenkirche in Nuremberg, September 1934. (Wikipedia)
* * *
Thrill Ride
In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White described “one of the strangest nightmares of motordom”…
THE GREAT WALL…E.B. White feared whatever might pop out of the dark tunnels on the northern stretches of Park Avenue. Clockwise, from top, an 1876 illustration of the new viaduct through the Harlem Flats; E. 108th Street pedestrian tunnel between Lexington and Park; Park Avenue Viaduct–La Marqueta. (Wikipedia/manhattanwalkblog.com/6tocelebrate.org)
* * *
Ding-dong
Robert Benchley filed a brief review of The Postman Always Rings Twice, a stage adaptation at the Lyceum Theatre of James M. Cain’s acclaimed novel. Although the play was well received by audiences, many reviewers found the subject matter distasteful. Cain would later describe the 1936 production as “a dreadful experience from beginning to end.”
SCHEMERS AND DREAMERS…Richard Barthelmess and Mary Philips portrayed star-crossed lovers in the 1936 stage production of The Postman Always Rings Twice. Philips was a noted Broadway performer and Humphey Bogart’s first wife. (Wikipedia/imdb.com)
* * *
At the Movies
Critic John Mosher commented on familiar Hollywood tropes (doctors chasing nurses, execs pursuing secretaries etc.) and offered up the “tepid” example of Wife vs. Secretary, which featured three of Tinseltown’s top stars.
MILD HIJINKS…At left, Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in a scene from Wife vs. Secretary; at right, Gable with Myrna Loy.(faintlyfamiliar.com/facebook.com)
Mosher didn’t find much excitement in the dog-themed picture The Voice of Bugle Ann, and was left flat after seeing Road Gang and the German film Liebelei.
SWEET AND SOUR…Lionel Barrymore and Spring Byington were on one side of a feud over a special dog in The Voice of Bugle Ann. (tcm.com)WELL THIS SUCKS…At left, Donald Woods and Carlyle Moore Jr. find themselves behind bars in Road Gang; at right, Paul Hörbiger and Olga Tschechowa in 1933’s Liebelei (aka Playing at Love). (rotten tomatoes.com/screenslate.com)
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Language Arts
H.L. Mencken continued his exploration of American English by taking a look at past attempts to simplify spelling—most of them unsuccessful. Excerpts:
NOT ONE FOR GIMMICKS…H.L. Mencken at his desk at the Baltimore Sun.(Paris Review)
Mencken noted the Chicago Tribune’s radical approach to simplified spelling in 1934, and the lasting effects of Noah Webster’s American dictionary.
“PEDAGOGUE” was one of the milder insults cast at Noah Webster by his peers. (National Portrait Gallery)
* * *
First World Problem
Food critic Sheila Hibben looked into the complexities of tea-drinking during the cocktail hour, and vice-versa.
CHOOSE YOUR MOOD…The Plaza Hotel offered the ideal setting for whatever libation one chose at tea time. At left, the Plaza’s Persian Room, 1934, and the Palm Court, undated photo. (cooperhewitt.org/mcny.org)
* * *
Finer Things
Rebecca West was a brilliant journalist and gifted prose writer, and when she published something people took notice, including critic Clifton Fadiman, who noted her return with The Thinking Reed. A brief excerpt:
A MIGHTY PEN…Rebecca West (1892-1983) was considered one of the finest prose writers of twentieth-century England. This 1934 photograph was produced by Howard Coster. (National Portrait Gallery)
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From Our Advertisers
The March 7 issue opened to this sumptuous image of luxury travel aboard the Normandie…
…the salons of Dorothy Gray returned with another tale of a magical transformation, here the plain “Miss Adams” suddenly becomes lovely and exciting thanks to the illusion of cosmetics…
…the makers of Packard automobiles took out this full page ad to gently chastise Time magazine for questioning the carmaker’s adherence to a timeless, “basic design”…
…although in Time’s defense the Packard didn’t look much different from this Lincoln…
…what did look different was the Chrysler/DeSoto Airflow, which had disappointing sales due to a streamlined design that was a bit too radical for consumers…
…actress and costume designer Kate Lawson (1894-1977) made her image available to promote washable wallpaper…
…in addition to calming nerves and boosting energy, Camels apparently aided one’s digestion, or so this ad claimed…
…Liggett & Myers stuck with the homespun approach, here three generations light up Chesterfields in the warm glow of the parlor…
…did you spot the cigarettes in the ad?…
…on to the cartoons, we have Al Frueh’s take on the Ziegfeld Follies…
…James Thurber contributed this to the calendar section…
…and Thurber again with his beloved dogs…
…George Price found a glitch at the weather bureau…
…Californians circled their wagons in the hostile Midwest, per Carl Rose…
…Alain saw a trip to the dentist in this man’s future…
…Helen Hokinson lost us in the peculiarities of needlepoint…
…Barbara Shermund found a bargain in portraiture…
…and Shermund again, in the dress department…
…and we close with Whitney Darrow Jr, and something to write about…
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)…
* * *
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.”
* * *
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)
* * *
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)
* * *
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)
* * *
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: The 1936 Ziegfeld Follies premiered on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on January 30, 1936 and closed on May 9, 1936 after 115 performances. (Hulton Archive)
Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr died in 1932, but his famous theatrical revue lived on for years with revivals including one in 1936 that Robert Benchley praised for being better than the originals.
February 8, 1936 cover by Helen Hokinson, marking the opening of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden. According to Michael Maslin’s always enlightening Ink Spill, the first dog-themed New Yorker cover was Feb. 8, 1930, by Theodore Haupt (below).
Now on with the show. Brought back to life by Ziegfeld’s widow Billie Burke and theatre operators Lee and J. J. Shubert,The Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 was loaded with talent, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, choreography by George Balanchine, and sets and costumes by Vincente Minnelli. What really brought people in was the star of the show, Fannie Brice, who was supported by cast members Bob Hope, Eve Arden, Josephine Baker, and the Nicholas Brothers, among others. Benchley wrote:
FANNIE AND THE REST…Clockwise, from top left: Bob Hope and Eve Arden performed the popular tune “I Can’t Get Started With You”; Hope with Fannie Brice in the sketch “Baby Snooks Goes Hollywood”; Josephine Baker premiered “The Conga” at the Follies, and Harriet Hoctor performed her “Night Flight.” (gershwin.com/uneicone-josephinebaker.webador.fr/libraryofcongress,org)
This ad for the 1936 Follies prominently featured Benchley’s endorsement:
(uneicone-josephinebaker.webador.fr)
Billie Burke (1884–1970) authorized Follies revivals with the Shuberts in 1934, 1936 and 1943, with the Shubert family producing a final revival in 1957. In 1936 MGM also filmed a Ziegfeld biopic, The Great Ziegfeld (which won two Academy Awards), casting William Powell as Ziegfeld and Myrna Loy as Burke. Burke wanted to play herself in the film, but at age 51 she was deemed too old for the part.
ZIEGFELD MAGIC…Florenz Ziegfeld’s widow Billie Burke kept the Follies going after her husband’s death in 1932. She is best known today for her portrayal of Glinda the Good Witch of the North in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. (oscars.org/Wikipedia)
Fannie Brice (1891–1951) was the biggest star of the Follies and so dominated the show that when she became ill in May 1936 the production closed. Brice returned to the Winter Garden that September for 112 more performances.
Benchley also praised Call it a Day, a 1935 play by British writer Dodie Smith that ran for 194 performances at the Morosco Theatre. Benchley thought it was so good he saw it twice.
SPRING FEVER drove the action in Dodie Smith’s (right) hit comedy Call it a Day. The play chronicles a single spring day in the lives of the Hilton family, during which each member encounters unexpected romantic temptations and complications. Gladys Cooper, left, starred as Dorothy Hilton. The play was adapted to a Hollywood film in 1937. (vocal.media/Wikipedia)
* * *
At the Movies
We go from the stage to the screen, where John Mosher took in Rose Marie, a musical comedy based on a popular 1924 Broadway play. The film “repolished” the old play and used it as a framework for a series of duets between Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.
MELODIOUS MOUNTIE…Lobby card for Rose Marie, a musical romcom about a singing Mountie and a world-renowned prima donna, joined in love by a haunting “Indian mating call.” (Wikipedia)
Mosher reviewed three other films that could have used some of Rose Marie’s cheer:
CHEERLESS FARE…Clockwise, from top: Gloria Stuart, Freddie Bartholomew, and Michael Whalen in Professional Soldier; James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan and Ray Milland in Next Time We Love; Helen Vinson and Conrad Veidt in King of the Damned. (Wikipedia/imdb.com/letterboxd.com/silversirens.co.uk)
* * *
Miscellany
I strive to keep these posts at a readable length, and (hopefully) lively and enjoyable to read, which means that I cannot include absolutely everything that appears in each issue. For example, there are a number of regular features from the sports world—ranging from major attractions like hockey and college football (no coverage yet of baseball—which for some reason Harold Ross hated—or basketball) to more niche pursuits, such as squash (below) or indoor polo. From time to time I will include these under “Miscellany” as a way to give readers a more complete picture, and to assuage my fear that I am leaving something important out. Here is a very brief snippet of a regular feature, “Court Games,” by staff writer Geoffrey T. Hellman.
RACKETEERS…At left, Beekman Pool of the Harvard Club was the 1936 singles champion of the Metropolitan Squash Racquets Association; at right, Edwin Bigelow of the U.S. Squash Racquets Association presents the National Trophy to Germain Glidden. To the far right is runner-up Andrew Ingraham, who looks a bit miffed about getting a plate rather than a trophy cup. (thecarycollection.com)
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From Our Advertisers
Let’s start with the inside front cover…advertisements from Dorothy Gray salons were all about the restoration of youth in older women…apparently the treatments were so successful that “Mrs. M” was a bigger attraction at a Ritz-Carlton debutante party than her society-bound daughter…note the young gents at right checking out mom, and not the deb…
…opposite Dorothy Gray was this elegant appeal from Bergdorf Goodman…ads aimed at more refined tastes almost always featured these attenuated figures (whether they were people or luxury automobiles)…I guess I would hold onto something too with stilts like those…
…here’s a Steinway grand for less than a grand…$885 in 1936 is roughly equivalent to $20,000 or so today, but that’s still a bargain—Steinway grand pianos currently start at around $85,000…
…speaking of bargains, you could own “The Most Beautiful Thing on Wheels” (according to this ad) for a mere $615…
…and for an extra twenty-five bucks you could own a durable Dodge like the one endorsed by Roy Chapman Andrews (1884–1960), a globetrotting explorer who discovered fossilized dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert in the 1920s…
THE REAL INDY…Roy Chapman Andrews gained national fame as an explorer for New York’s American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). The discovery of a nest of complete dinosaur eggs in Mongolia in 1923 (above) provided the first proof that the critters hatched out of eggs. Named AMNH’s director in 1934, Andrews is thought to be an inspiration for the film hero Indiana Jones. (amnh.org/roychapmanandrewssociety.org)
…the folks at Chrysler were doing everything they could to get people interested in buying their Airflows—despite its technological advances, the car’s streamlined design (toned down in later models) was just too radical for mass market tastes…note how the ad draws attention to the work of “Artist Floyd Davis”…
…here’s a photo of Floyd Davis…
CHEERS…Illustrator Floyd Davis (1896–1966) poses in an ad for Lord Calvert whiskey, 1946. In 1943 Life magazine called him the “#1 Illustrator in America.” (Wikipedia)
…the Fisher company, makers of car bodies for General Motors, liked to emphasize the safety of their “Turret Top,” although it didn’t seem to occur to anyone that a child dangling from a car window was problematic…
…actress Lupe Vélez made the unlikely claim that flying on a 1930s airliner was “as comfortable as a private yacht”…
…ads for White Rock were among the more colorful found in the early New Yorker…
…on the back cover, Liggett & Myers tobacco company shifted gears from elegant to homespun with an ad that emphasized the high quality of Turkish leaf tobacco…
…the folks at Coty hired two New Yorker contributors, poet Arthur Guiterman and illustrator Constantin Alajalov, to promote their line of lipsticks…
…which brings us to the cartoonists, beginning with Al Frueh…
…Richard Taylor opened things up in “Goings On”…
…and George Price added this bit of action to the calendar section…
…Abe Birnbaum contributed this delightful spot drawing…
…the Westminster dog show was the talk of the town, and at Grand Central, per Perry Barlow…
…Robert Day had a fight on his hands…
…Helen Hokinson’s “girls” were out to snub the sanitation department…
…Rea Irvin drew up the literal downfall of one business…
…Eli Garson had us seeing spots…
…Charles Addams found the Pied Piper in a Salvation Army band…
…Alan Dunn gave new meaning to “taking a detour”…
…Barbara Shermund illustrated one of the perils of cocktail parties…
…and we close with Peter Arno, and the sinister world of taxi dancers…
Above: Beginning in 1934, the President’s Birthday Balls became annual fundraisers for polio research. The Waldorf-Astoria's 1936 event (left) featured dance bands, celebrities, and formal dress. At right, a 1934 "Toga Party" birthday with FDR's Cuff Link Gang, Washington D.C. (fdrlibrary.org)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s birthday was a cause for annual celebration throughout the country, where cities and towns both large and small used the occasion to raise money for polio research.
February 1, 1936 cover by Roger Duvoisin.
The Jan. 30, 1936 President’s Birthday Ball marked FDR’s 54th year, featuring celebrities, dances, and a national radio address. The Waldorf-Astoria hosted an event, as did the Central Park Casino, where E.B. White found the one-hundred-dollar price tag and the dress code a bit too rich for his tastes, but not too rich for Lucy Cotton Thomas Magraw, a Manhattan social climber who represented the “Spirit of Golden Prosperity” at the Casino event.
LIKE MOTHS TO FLAME…At left, debutantes mark FDR’s birthday fundraiser at the Waldorf-Astoria in the 1930s; at right, Lucy Cotton Thomas Magraw (1891–1948) was a chorus girl from Houston who appeared in several silent films, but was best known as a Manhattan social climber and for her marriages to a series of prominent men. (wwd.com/davidkfrasier.com)
FDR himself was diagnosed with polio in 1921, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. To counter the effects of the disease, Roosevelt explored the potential benefits of hydrotherapy, establishing a rehabilitation center at Warm Springs, Georgia. Proceeds from the charity balls went to Warm Springs until Roosevelt founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis in 1938. Funds raised by the foundation supported the development of a vaccine by the 1950s.
A NIGHT OF MERRIMENT…Celebrations in CCC camps in honor of FDR’s birthday became annual events, such as the one at left (illustrated by Marshall Davis) that depicted various happenings at the 1936 President’s Birthday Dance in Biloxi, Mississippi; at right, actress Jean Harlow cutting FDR’s birthday cake at the Eastbay Birthday Ball in Oakland, CA, in 1934. (newdealstories.com/facebook.com)
“The Talk of the Town” noted the role of Carl M. Byoir, a pioneering publicist, in creating the buzz around the yearly birthday balls.
CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?…Clockwise, from top left, Carl Byoir created and organized one of the world’s largest public relations firms in 1930, and was a force behind making the FDR Birthday Balls a major national event; Eleanor Roosevelt cuts the cake at a Birthday Ball, Washington, D.C., Jan. 30, 1936; Margaret Lehand, personal secretary to President Roosevelt, holds up one of the 30,000 dimes received on the morning of Jan. 28, 1938 for FDR’s National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which would later become the March of Dimes. (Wikipedia)COIN FOR A CAUSE…As we saw in the previous post, it was comedian Eddie Cantor who coined the phrase “March of Dimes” for the annual fundraiser for polio research. The phrase later became the official name of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. (Facebook)
The Roosevelt Dime went into circulation in 1946, commemorating FDR’s role in inspiring the March of Dimes.
* * *
Rap on Scrap
Poet and author Phyllis McGinley apparently had her fill of social occasions that included interminable, tedious viewings of the hosts’ scrapbooks, photo albums, and various tchotchkes.
SPARE ME YOUR VACATION SLIDES…Phyllis McKinley would have hated Facebook. (Wikipedia)
* * *
Wise Guy
Henry F. Pringle published the first part of a three-part profile on Elihu Root, making much of the fact that Root (1845–1937) was still kicking at ninety after a lifetime of public service including two stints as Secretary of War and serving as Secretary of State under President Theodore Roosevelt. Unofficially, he advised a number of presidents and other leaders on foreign and domestic issues, giving him the imprimatur of a political “wise man.” A brief excerpt (with caricature by William Cotton):
WAR BUDDIES…U.S. Secretary of War Elihu Root (right) and his successor, William Howard Taft, c. 1904. Taft was elected U.S. President in 1908, and in 1912 Root would receive the Nobel Peace Prize. (Wikipedia)
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Devastating Irony
According to critic Robert Benchley, the adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome to the stage required a precise hand, and apparently director Max Gordon delivered when it opened at the National Theatre. Excerpt:
EDITH WHARTON WOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD, according to Robert Benchley, of the stage adaptation of Ethan Frome. The cast, from left, included Pauline Lord, Raymond Massey, and Ruth Gordon. Benchley would have been well acquainted with Gordon, who was a familiar face at the Algonquin Round Table. (Facebook)
Benchley praised the performances of the principal actors Pauline Lord, Raymond Massey, and Ruth Gordon.
IN FINE FORM…Pauline Lord, Raymond Massey, and Ruth Gordon in a publicity still for Ethan Frome. (witness2fashion.com)
* * *
At the Movies
We take to the air with Howard Hawks’ Ceiling Zero, which featured an odd mix of screwball dialogue and nerve-wracking flight scenes. Critic John Mosher found the film to be well done, even though most of its action took place on the ground.
GROUNDED…Shot a shoestring budget, Warner Brothers’ Ceiling Zero, directed by Howard Hawks, staged most of the action at an airline’s headquarters rather than up in the air. From left are Pat O’Brien, James Cagney, and June Travis. (Harvard Film Archive)
Mosher was also happy to welcome Myrna Loy back to the silver screen in the “agreeable” Whipsaw.
HUSTLE AND BUSTLE…Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy starred in action-packed crime drama Whipsaw. (Letterboxd.com)
Mosher was at a loss to explain the popularity of comedian Joe Penner, whose presence in the film Collegiate inspired impatient “mobs” to crash the windows and doors of the Paramount Theatre.
INCONSEQUENTIAL was the word John Mosher used to describe Collegiate. Clockwise, from top left, Frances Langford and Jack Oakie in a scene from Collegiate—Oakie played a man who inherits an all-girls school from his aunt; Betty Grable with Joe Penner; Grable shows off her school spirit and her famous legs in a publicity photo. (rottentomatoes.com/imdb.com)
About Joe Penner (1904–1941): Broadcast historian Elizabeth McLeod sums up Penner’s popularity as “the ultimate Depression-era zany.” Mostly forgotten today, Penner was a national craze in the mid-1930s. “There is no deep social meaning in his comedy, no shades of subtlety,” writes McLeod, “just utter slapstick foolishness, delivered in an endearingly simpering style that’s the closest thing the 1930s had to Pee-wee Herman.”
WANNA BUY A DUCK? was Joe Penner’s catchphrase. Born József Pintér in what is now Serbia, he is shown here with his ubiquitous duck, Goo Goo. According to historian Elizabeth McLeod, Penner was doomed to an early decline by the sheer repetitiveness of his format. He died in his sleep, of a heart attack, at age 36. (imdb.com)
* * *
Something Completely Different
We go from Joe Penner to George Santayana, who finished the six-hundred-page The Last Puritan after laboring on the novel for fifteen years. A brief excerpt from a Clifton Fadiman review:
WHEN WRITERS MADE THE COVER…George Santayana on the cover of Time, Feb. 3, 1936. (Time.com)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
The folks at Hormel continued their ad series pairing Hormel French Style onion soup with notable historic figures…apparently Mary, Queen of Scots was honored with some onion soup when she married the Dauphin in 1558…nearly three decades later she would lose her head under the reign of Elizabeth I…
…the opening spread of the magazine sometimes offered odd juxtapositions…
…and what was this obsession with peas?…last week (and previous weeks) the makers of Green Giant canned foods featured a “Major” obsessed with fresh peas…
…in this issue, the folks at Birds Eye presented frozen peas as a fresher alternative to canned…the ad featured their own version of a “Major,” here sharing the wonderful news about frozen peas with his cronies…
…Capitol Theatre predicted that their latest feature, Rose Marie, would be even better than Naughty Marietta…
…and apparently it was…
WHEN I’M CALLING YOOOOUUUU…The Capitol Theatre’s prediction came true—Rose Marie was a big hit, as was the duet “Indian Love Call” (it remained a signature song for both actors); at left, Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald in Rose Marie; at right, Eddy and MacDonald in 1935’s Naughty Marietta. “America’s Singing Sweethearts” made eight films together. (MGM)
…only forty hours to paradise, claimed this ad on the inside back cover…
…and on the back cover, readers were greeted by a smug, almost withering look—a fashionable woman striking a pose, one that was doubtless imitated by many in the smart set who would soon realize they were hopelessly addicted to nicotine…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with Al Frueh and his topless tribute to George White’sScandals…
…Gregory d’Alessio drew up this trio—endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorph—for the opening pages…
…here’s a spot by Robert Day, dreaming of warmer climes…
…we join Charles Addams at the Louvre…
…and on a desert island…
…a rather strange entry by Alice Harvey, with the longest caption I’ve come across so far…
…we join William Steig’s “Small Fry” during a school day, beginning on page 24…
…and continuing onto page 25…
…here is how it originally appeared…
…In 1935, Saks Fifth Avenue installed an indoor ski slope on the men’s floor of its New York City flagship store, here illustrated by Perry Barlow…
IT WAS A THING…Ski slope inside Saks Fifth Avenue, New York, 1935. (CNN.com)
…department stores such as Macy’s often featured model homes in their household departments…Alan Dunn added a bit of color, or rather, soot, to this one…
…Helen Hokinson looked for answers at a book shop…
and Hokinson again, doing a bit of home decorating…
…it appears Morton was displaying a copy of Constantin Brancusi’s Princess X…
(sheldonartmuseum.org)
…Barbara Shermund engaged in some light banter at a cocktail party…
…and we close with a surprise visit from William Crawford Galbraith…
Above: Portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe, 1935, by Alfred Stieglitz, gelatin silver print; at right, O'Keeffe's Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills, 1935. Oil on canvas. (National Gallery/Brooklyn Museum)
Over the seven decades of her career, Georgia O’Keeffe created works that did not necessarily follow the art movements of the 20th century. Critic Lewis Mumford referred to these works as “autobiographies in paint,” every painting “as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa.”
January 18, 1936 cover by Robert Day, illustrating the days before the invention of the Zamboni (in 1949).
O’Keeffe was married to art dealer and photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who exhibited her works at his “An American Place” gallery at 53rd and Madison. The couple had a complex, open relationship (Stieglitz had a number of affairs) that proved painful to O’Keeffe, and in 1933 she was hospitalized for two months after experiencing a nervous breakdown; she did not paint again until the following year. Although Mumford did not directly reference this episode in O’Keeffe’s life, he did note that “Certain elements in O’Keeffe’s biography were plainly visible” in her paintings.
PAINED PAINTINGS…Clockwise, from top left, Georgia O’Keeffe’sEagle Claw and Bean Necklace, 1934; Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV, 1930; Purple Hills, 1935. (MoMA/Phillips Collection/San Diego Museum of Art)
Mumford noted that O’Keeffe’s newer works revealed a “resurrection of spirit,” such as the painting of a ram’s skull, “with its horns acting like wings, lifted up against the gray, wind-swept clouds…”
GLOWING WITH POETRY AND TRUTH is how Lewis Mumford described Georgia O’Keeffe’s latest work. Clockwise, from top left: Ram’s Head suggested to Mumford “a resurgence of life and a resurrection of spirit” in the artist; other bright works included Sunflower, New Mexico 1, 1935; and Hill, 1935. (National Gallery/Cleveland Museum of Art/ Denver Art Museum)
* * *
Lights Out
In the previous issue E.B. White noted that the Edison Company was threatening to cut off electric service to the magazine’s offices due to nonpayment. This “Notes and Comment” update cleared up the matter.
THE PRICE FOR POWER…Above, an aerial view from 1926 of New York Edison’s East River Power Station at 38th Street. In 1936 it was powered by coal, which burned pungently and created problems with soot throughout the area. (tudorcityconfidential.com)
* * *
Revisiting a Pint-size Poet
“The Talk of the Town” paid a visit to Nathalia Crane (1913–1998), who became famous after the 1924 publication of her first book of poetry, The Janitor’s Boy, at the age of ten. Excerpts:
PIXIE POET…Nathalia Crane published her first poems in The New York Sun when she was only nine years old, the paper unaware that she was a child. She later became a professor of English at San Diego State University. (gutenberg.org)
The fledgling Crane received a very different New Yorker reception in 1928, when Dorothy Parker took her to task for contributing to the collapse of grammar and civilization in general. Here’s an excerpt from Parker’s Jan. 7, 1928 “Reading & Writing” column:
GRUESOME was the word Dorothy Parker chose to describe chocolate-covered olives and bad poetry. At left, Parker in 1928. At right, a contents page from The Spirit of St. Louis, a collection of one hundred poems selected from thousands in a poetry contest celebrating Charles Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic. (literaryladiesguide.com/ebay.com)
* * *
Order in the Court
Howard Brubaker commented on a recent ruling by the Supreme Court regarding the ongoing fight by Republicans to curtail FDR’s New Deal.
* * *
Cinderella Stories
For his Jan. 4, 1936 “A Reporter at Large” column Morris Markey visited “Major Bowe’s Amateur Hour” at NBC’s Rockefeller Center radio studios. He was so impressed by the rags-to-riches stories that he shared a few in his Jan. 18 column, titled “The Crystal Slipper.” He warned readers that the stories were “sentimental,” but not in the vein of A Christmas Carol: “Tiny Tim, asking God to bless every one, regardless, was a pious little fraud,” Markey noted. Excerpts:
Markey shared the story of a garbage collector turned opera tenor, and a wealthy debutante who was encouraged to “stay off the stage” by “Major” Edward Bowes himself.
CUT THE TRASH TALK…Joseph Rogato told the Amateur Hour audience that his job as a “garbage man” was no laughing matter, and went on to wow them with his singing voice. At left, a detail from an ad for Chase & Sanborn coffee, the show’s sponsors. At right, show founder and host “Major” Edward Bowes with the gong he used to abruptly end acts he deemed poor—he soon abandoned the practice after listeners objected. (eBay.com/Facebook)
Markey next told the story of Marguerite Ryan, the “Singing Housewife”…
FROM RELIEF TO RICHES…This Chase & Sanborn advertisement described Marguerite Ryan’s brush with fame and her deliverance from poverty thanks to her appearance on the Amateur Hour. (newspapers.com)
Finally, the story of Rhoda Chase, whom Bowes promoted as a “penniless orphan.” Born Anna Blanor, her stage name, Rhoda, was selected by a psychic, while her last name was inspired by sponsors Chase & Sanborn.
VELVET VOICE…At right, detail from a Chase & Sanborn ad that promoted Rhoda Chase as a “Penniless Orphan” who made the big time thanks to the Amateur Hour. At left, a 1944 newspaper ad for the Zombie Club in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Known as “The Blue Velvet Voice”, Chase was a radio, stage, nightclub and USO blues singer. (Wikimedia Commons/eBay)
* * *
At the Movies
Film critic John Mosher found some bright spots at the movies, praising René Clair’s The Ghost Goes West but feeling sorry for Jean Harlow in her “thankless” role in Riffraff, a film about the tuna-fishing industry.
THE FRIENDLY GHOST…Robert Donat and Patricia Hilliard in the romantic comedy The Ghost Goes West. (IMDB)FISH OUT OF WATER…Spencer Tracy, Jean Harlow, and Joseph Calleia in Riffraff, a drama about a strike at a tuna fishery. “Just why a life of tuna-fishing should be chosen as background for Miss Harlow’s vehicle I can’t imagine, but there it is,” wrote critic John Mosher. (IMDB)
Mosher didn’t know what to make of Katharine Hepburn’s latest film, Sylvia Scarlett, in which she portrayed a con artist disguised as a boy hiding from the police. Despite its major star power and George Cukor as director, the film was a flop.
Mosher also reviewed Last of the Pagans (also about a labor dispute!) and The Private Life of Louis XIV (released in Germany in 1935 as Liselotte von der Pfalz).
SHE’S A MAN, MAN…Clockwise, from top left, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Sylvia Scarlett; Lotus Long and Mala in Last of the Pagans;Renate Müller in The Private Life of Louis XIV (Liselotte von der Pfalz). Müller would die in 1937 at age 31 under mysterious circumstances. Many believe the Nazis had her killed because she refused to appear in their propaganda films. (academymuseum.org/MGM/IMDB)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
General Motors promoted their Buick Eight in a two-page advertisement that called out Eustace Tilley and reprinted a Carl Rose cartoon from the Nov. 2, 1935 issue…
…here is the original cartoon…
…with the holidays a memory and the Depression still lingering, most of the automobile ads touted economy over luxury, however Chrysler claimed you could have both with this $760 model…
…by the looks of this guy, he probably added three fingers of vodka to his pineapple juice…
…as noted before, the folks at World Peaceways pulled no punches with their anti-war appeals…
…the makers of Lux were still rolling out Broadway stars to endorse their toilet soap…(Betty Lawford, #5, was an English film and stage actress and a cousin of actor Peter Lawford)…
…the inside back cover belonged to Stage magazine…the illustration, “Amateur Night at the Apollo,” is by Alexander King…
…the Grand Central Palace was hosting the thirty-first annual National Motor Boat Show, a rare back cover not taken by a tobacco company…
…a couple of ads from back of the book…at left, an Anglophilic appeal from Miami’s Roney Plaza Hotel, and, at right, pre-revolutionary days at the National Hotel in Havana (I had a drink there a few years ago during the Obama thaw…the lobby is beautiful, a classic from another era still hanging on thanks to Canadian and European tourists)…
…William Steig continued to illustrate these one-column ads from Pilgrim Rum…
…which segues to our cartoonists…on the bottom of page 3 was this one-column drawing by Peggy Bacon…
…Norwegian opera singer Kirsten Flagstad (1895–1962) was a famous Wagnerian soprano who made a triumphant debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1935…
Kirsten Flagstad circa 1940. (Wikipedia)
…we continue with Helen Hokinson soaking up some sun…
…Robert Day cracked the whip in the steno pool…
…originally published sideways, another look at club life by Gluyas Williams...
…James Thurber offered up a toast…
…Richard Taylor looked into an auction mystery…
…Barney Tobey gave us a friendly greeting on the slopes…
…Perry Barlow was lost in a department store…
…William Crawford Galbraith continued to probe the woes of sugar daddies…
Above: Irene Dunn gets her head examined by Parisian doctors during a scene from the 1935 melodrama Magnificent Obsession. (letterboxd.com)
I can’t think of a better time to escape the world for a few moments and indulge in a bit of frivolity. In this case we take a brief look at a popular film that pushed the envelope of plausibility in true Hollywood style.
January 11, 1936 cover by Helen Hokinson.
Magnificent Obsession featured two of Tinseltown’s leading stars, Irene Dunn and Robert Taylor. Although many critics have called the film’s plot preposterous, it was a fan favorite—at the Radio City Music Hall premiere on Dec. 30, 1935, capacity crowds braved sub-zero weather to see it.
For a film that has been debated and discussed for decades (and remade to some acclaim in 1954 by director Douglas Sirk with Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in the leads), critic John Mosher barely gave it a glance, feeling sorry for Dunne in her role as a tragically blinded widow.
MAGNIFICENT HAPPENSTANCE…In Magnificent Obsession,Robert Taylor played a spoiled playboy, Robert Merrick, who survives a boating accident at the expense of kindly doctor. Clockwise from top left, Taylor in a scene with Margaret Brayton; Taylor and Irene Dunn in the scene where Dunne’s character, Helen Hudson, is struck by a car and blinded; Dunn with child actor Cora Susan Collins (who incidentally passed away in April 2025 at age 98); the end of the film emphasized Merrick’s transformation from a selfish playboy into a selfless, Nobel Prize-winning man of faith and science. (roberttayloractor.blog/mubi.com/rottentomatoes.com/Facebook)
A brief synopsis: Wealthy playboy Robert Merrick (Robert Taylor) drunkenly capsizes his boat. A hospital’s only pulmotor saves his life at the expense of a beloved surgeon who dies without it. Merrick falls in love with the surgeon’s widow, Helen (Irene Dunn). While driving Helen home he makes a pass at her; she exits the car and is struck by another, losing her eyesight. Merrick conceals his identity while watching over Helen; he then follows her to Paris, where she learns her sight is gone forever. Merrick reveals his identity and proposes. Helen flees. Six years later Merrick, now a Nobel Prize-winning brain surgeon, restores Helen’s sight.
In the film’s defense, plots that stretch credibility have been around since the Greeks and deus ex machina, and consider how many films today employ “portals” of various types to get heroes out of sticky situations. Unless you’re talking about a Werner Herzog film, it’s all make believe.
HANDS OFF…John Mosher had particular scorn for the way beloved character actor Charles Butterworth (left) was used in the film. Along with Dunn, Butterworth was another “victim” of Magnificent Obsession, according to Mosher. (IMDB)
* * *
A Lot On His Mind
E.B. White had a lot to say in his Jan. 11 “Notes and Comment,” beginning with a paragraph about the impending merger of two Condé Nast publications, Vanity Fair and Vogue. The old Vanity Fair magazine, published from 1913 to 1936, was a casualty of the Great Depression, and it essentially disappeared with the merger (Condé Nast revived the title in 1983).
FADE OUT…At left, Bali Beauty by Miguel Covarrubias, on the cover of the final issue of the old Vanity Fair magazine, February 1936. Publisher Condé Nast merged VF with Vogue beginning with its March 1, 1936 issue (at right). The New Yorker, once considered a competitor of the old Vanity Fair, was itself acquired by Condé Nast in 1985. (vanity fair.com/vogue.com)
White also commented on a new book, The Ruling Clawss, which criticized The New Yorker for its “bourgeois attitude.” Interestingly, the book was produced by none other than New Yorker cartoonist Syd Hoff, who wrote and illustrated The Ruling Clawss as “A. Redfield,” a pseudonym he used in the 1930s for his contributions to The Daily Worker and other leftist causes.
HOFF IN A HUFF…Cover of the 1935 edition of The Ruling Clawss; frontispiece from a 2023 reprint of the book by The New York Review of Books. Syd Hoff (1912–2004) contributed 571 cartoons to The New Yorker between 1931 and 1975. Hoff also drew cartoons for The Daily Worker under the pseudonym “A. Redfield.” (abebooks.com/nyrb.com)
In The Ruling Clawss, Hoff (as Redfield) criticized “bourgeois humor” as an opiate of the masses, citing The New Yorker, Esquire, Judge, and Life as publications that take “the banker boys and politicians, who are the rapers of liberty and democracy,” and present them between perfume ads in whimsical situations. The bourgeoisie makes itself look human, wrote Hoff, “By exposing itself in the boudoir, or the night club, doing foolish things or saying something ‘funny’…In other words, the fascists and warmongers are little lambs who do their parts in contributing to the merriment of a nation.”
Referring to his fellow cartoonists, Hoff concluded: “the Arnos, Soglows, Benchleys and Cantors…are all talented and funny, but…and here, I believe, is the point…their comedy is all too often a whitewash for people and conditions that, in reality, are not funny.”
NO LAUGHING MATTER…Examples of Syd Hoff’s cartoons in The Ruling Clawss. (nyrb.com)
Today Hoff is probably best remembered for his children’s books, especially Danny and the Dinosaur. You can read all about his work at this website.
* * *
A Different Kind of Hoff
We move on to another Hoff, namely Mardee Hoff, who was “ungrammatically selected” by the American Society of Illustrators as the possessor of the “most perfect figure in America.” Here is an excerpt from “The Talk of the Town.”
HER BODY OF WORK…Mardee Hoff (1914–2004) possessed the best body shape in America, according to the American Society of Illustrators following a contest involving 2,600 women at New York’s Commodore Hotel. At left, Hoff on the cover of Life, Oct. 21, 1940. At right, circa 1936. (findagrave.com/Reddit)
* * *
Life With Clarence
“The Talk of the Town” noted the passing of beloved author and cartoonist Clarence Day in a lengthy tribute that highlighted his remarkable output despite crippling arthritis. Excerpts:
GOOD OLD DAYS…Clarence Day (1874–1935) developed crippling arthritis as a young adult, and spent the remainder of his life as a semi-invalid. Nevertheless, he churned out more than a dozen books, most famously Life With Father, a collection of stories from The New Yorker that were published in book form shortly after Day’s death. The New Yorker continued to publish Day’s stories through August 1937. Above, Day, circa 1920, and a first edition of Life With Father. Below, scene from the 1947 comedy film by the same name featuring William Powell, Irene Dunn, and Elizabeth Taylor. (Wikipedia/abebooks.com/IMDB)
* * *
At the Movies
In addition to Magnificent Obsession, John Mosher endured screenings of several other pictures he could not recommend, despite featuring “talented and delightful people”…
…Mosher thought the best thing about mezzo-soprano Gladys Swarthout in Rose of the Rancho was her, um, feet…
SINGING BANDIT…Gladys Swarthout, a popular Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano, portrayed the daughter of landowner besieged by outlaws in Rose of the Rancho. In the film she disguises herself as a man (right) and organizes a band of vigilantes to fight the outlaws. The film was one of five produced by Paramount in the 1930s featuring Swarthout. (IMDB/swarthoutfamily.org)
…and he was frankly mystified by the Soviet Russian film Frontier, featuring lots of beards, collective farms, and a big display of airplanes at the finale…
FOR THE FATHERLAND…At left, Aleksandr Dovzhenko directs the Soviet film Frontier (aka Aerograd), about a remote Siberian outpost that comes under threat of attack by the Japanese. At right, Sergey Stolyarov portrayed the pilot Vladimir Glushak, who was filled with wondrous tales about the new city of Aerograd. The film was commissioned by Joseph Stalin. (IMDB/kinorium.com)
…English actress, dancer and singer Jessie Matthews (1907–1981) also wore the pants in First a Girl, a comedy adapted from the 1933 German film Viktor und Viktoria (which was remade as Victor/Victoria in 1982 with Julie Andrews)…
SHE/HE…At left, Jessie Matthews in First a Girl, a comedy adapted from the 1933 German film Viktor und Viktoria; right top, Matthews with Sonny Hale; and, at bottom, with Griffith Jones. Mosher called the film a “dreary affair.” (IMDB/interwarlondon.com)
* * *
All Aboard
During the 1930s “Snow Trains” carried skiers from Manhattan to the Catskills, the Berkshires and other destinations. Railroads offered travel packages that helped popularize downhill skiing before World War II. Excerpts:
POLAR EXPRESS…A Snow Train arrives at Thendara Station full of skiers headed for the slopes and winter activities in Old Forge. Circa late 1930s. (northcountryatwork.org)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We take wing with Bergdorf Goodman’s stylish “Trinidad Clipper suit…
…the folks at Nash took out the center spread to tout their inexpensive yet distinguished Ambassador…
…apparently it was distinguished enough for these toffs…
…by contrast, a more spare, minimal style is seen in this ad for Schaefer beer…
…and in this ad for Bloomingdale’s…this was tricky to reproduce, the lightness of the compass against all that black ink…
…here’s a new marketing ploy from R.J. Reynolds…smoke a half a pack of their Camels, and then send back the rest if you don’t like them…I’m guessing most folks finished them off…
…Liggett & Myers kept it simple, equating smoke in your lungs with clean, crisp winter air…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with spots by Gregory d’Alessio…
…Daniel “Alain” Brustlein…
and Christina Malman…
…Leonard Dove looked in on an owly patient…
…Alain again, seeking an elusive promotion…
…the stages of love and marriage, per George Price…
…Helen Hokinson reconvened her ladies club…
…Barbara Shermund discussed politics…
…Mary Petty considered the price of great art…
…and Petty again, at the dress shop…
…Robert Day illustrated the benefits of “how to” books…
A New Yorker State of Mind 