Tag: Irvin S. Cobb

Idiot’s Delight

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’s Idiot’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.

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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’s The 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…

Next Time: People in Glass Houses…

 

She Wore the Pants

It’s hard to fathom that a woman wearing trousers used to cause such a stir, but for international film star Marlene Dietrich it was an opportunity for the publicity that invariably came with defying the norms of fashion and sexuality in 1930s.

July 22, 1933 cover by Constantin Alajalov.

In May 1933 Dietrich was headed to Paris on a steamer, relaxing on the deck in a white pantsuit. Prior to her arrival, the Paris chief of police announced she would be arrested if she showed up in pants. However when Dietrich arrived at the Gare Saint Lazare wearing a man’s suit and overcoat, she stepped off the train, grabbed the chief of police by his arm, and walked him off the platform.

The New Yorker’s Janet Flanner reported on Dietrich’s comings and goings in her regular column “Letter From Paris”…

TAKING PARIS BY STORM…Clockwise, from top left: Marlene Dietrich in Paris, 1933, accompanied by her husband, Rudolf Sieber; Dietrich on the SS Europa, Cherbourg, France, May 1933; Dietrich arriving at the Gare Saint Lazare station, May 20, 1933 (this photo is often paired with an erroneous caption claiming that Dietrich is being arrested by French authorities. On the contrary, she owned them the moment she stepped onto the platform); Dietrich signing autographs in Paris, 1933. (bygonely.com/Smithsonian/Twitter/Pinterest)

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Bullish On Office Space

Despite the Depression, millions of square feet of office space were being added to the massive Rockefeller Center complex, including the Palazzo d’Italia at 626 Fifth Avenue. “The Talk of the Town” reported:

THE BIG SHORT…Attached to the International Building at its northwest corner, the Palazzo d’Italia was originally planned as a nine-story building, a fact that impressed the fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini because it beat the six-story height of the French and British Buildings. In the end Benito only got six as well. (Wikipedia/Pinterest)

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Urban Jungle

Astoria Studios in Queens was built in 1920 for Famous Players-Lasky and is still home to New York City’s only studio backlot. In 1933 it served as a tropical setting for The Emperor Jones, featuring Paul Robeson in the title role. “The Talk of the Town” looked in on the movie’s faux jungle:

35TH STREET JUNGLE…Paul Robeson in a scene from The Emperor Jones. (flickr.com)

Loosely based on a Eugene O’Neill play and financed with private money, the film was made outside of the Hollywood studio system and distributed by United Artists.

EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES…Brutus Jones (Robeson) schemes with colonial trader Smithers (Dudley Digges) on his plan to become emperor in The Emperor Jones. (moma.org)

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From Our Advertisers

Yes, it’s advertising so we don’t expect it to be realistic, but I can guarantee no one is going to look like that after a ride to the beach in a rumble seat…also the woman behind the car is either floating or has exceedingly long legs…

…Hupmobile enlisted humorist Irvin S. Cobb to help boost its sagging sales…

Irvin S. Cobb (1876–1944) wrote for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, and was once the highest paid staff reporter in the United States. (carnegiecenterlex.org)

…with the return of legal beer the makers of Budweiser struck a patriotic note in promoting their “King of Bottled Beer” to thirsty New Yorkers…

…the makers of Pabst Blue Ribbon claimed the title of “Best of the Better Beers” with this ad featuring a woman who appeared on the verge of going overboard…

…if beer wasn’t your thing, you could try your hand at mixing a “30-Second Highball” per this Prohibition-themed ad…

…delving into the back pages one finds all sorts of curiosities, including this mail-order “charm school” operated by Margery Wilson…

…Wilson (1896–1986) acted in numerous silent pictures (including the 1916 D. W. Griffith epic Intolerance) and in the early 1920s was a writer, director and producer…

Margery Wilson in Eye of the Night (1916). She was among pioneering women filmmakers of the 1920s. (columbia.edu))

…it must have been a hot summer in New York with the abundance of air-conditioner ads…here’s one from Frigidaire for a unit that despite its size (and enormous cost) could cool only one room…

…this next air-conditioner ad from G-E seems poorly conceived…you would think an air-conditioned office would make the boss and his secretary a bit happier than they appear here…maybe they just got the bill from General Electric…

…we begin our cartoons with another pair of sourpusses, courtesy Mary Petty…

…George Price offered up this bit of art for the opening pages…

…William Steig headed to the country to escape summer in the city…

…William Crawford Galbraith’s bathers kept cool by examining the flotsam from distant shores…

…Charles Addams explored various themes before he launched his “Addams Family” in 1938…

…and we move on to July 29 with a terrific cover by Barbara Shermund…

July 29, 1933 cover by Barbara Shermund.

…in this issue Geoffrey T. Hellman penned a profile of Egyptologist Herbert E. Winlock, who made key discoveries about the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and served as director of the Metropolitan Museum from 1932 to 1939, where he was employed his entire career. Excerpt:

CAN YOU DIG IT…Early 1920s photo of the Metropolitan Museum’s Theban expedition team. Herbert E. Winlock is in the back row, second from left. His wife, Helen Chandler Winlock, is in the front row, far right. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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Chilling With U.S. Grant

In those days before air-conditioning was widely available or used, “The Talk of the Town” dispatched an investigator to sample indoor temperatures at various public places, finding the coolest spot at Grant’s Tomb:

WHERE THE COOL PEOPLE HANG OUT…Clockwise, from top left: The tomb of Per-neb at the Metropolitan Museum registered a cozy 80 degrees, while in the same museum it was a balmy 84 by Emanuel Leutze’s famed painting Washington Crossing the Delaware; the New York Aquarium in Battery Park was a bit cooler at 79 (pictured is the Sea Lion Pool); while Grant’s Tomb was downright chilly at 70. (Met Museum/Wildlife Conservation Society/grantstomb.org)
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Node of Gold
Apparently the famed crooner Bing Crosby had a minor node on one of his vocal cords, and when he consulted a specialist he was advised against removing it, lest he alter his voice in a way that would affect his career. Indeed, the node seemed to add an “appealing timbre” to his signature sound, so Crosby had his voice insured by Lloyd’s of London for $100,000 with a proviso that the node could not be removed. Howard Brubaker made this observation in “Of All Things”…

LUMP IN HIS THROAT…Bing Crosby with Marion Davies in the 1933 film Going Hollywood. (IMDB)

…Brubaker also shared this prescient observation from American astronomer Vesto Slipher…

…Slipher (1875–1969) would live long enough to confirm his statement…the first full-disk “true color” picture of the Earth was captured by a U.S. Department of Defense satellite in September 1967:

(USAF/Johns Hopkins University)

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More From Our Advertisers

This ad was on the inside front cover of the July 29 issue, a rather jarring image following that lovely Barbara Shermund cover…

…the hugely popular P.G. Wodehouse was back with more silly antics from the British upper classes…

…while some New Yorkers could take a break from their reading and hit the dance floor atop the Waldorf-Astoria…

…and tango to the stylings of bandleader Xavier Cugat…

Xavier Cugat and band atop the Waldorf-Astoria. (cntraveler.com)

…this ad for the French Line, illustrated by Ruth Sigrid Grafstrom, offered a precious scene of a page-boy lighting a woman’s cigarette, a sight unimaginable today…

…and we close with a cartoon by Gardner Rea, doggone it…

Next Time: The Flying Season…