Janet Flanner – Page 3 – A New Yorker State of Mind

White Shadows of the South Seas

Thirty years before South Pacific would grace the silver screen, an earlier film that also explored the clash of civilizations in Polynesia, White Shadows of the South Seas, wowed audiences with its cinematography and, like South Pacific, a melodramatic love story between an American (Monte Blue) and a beautiful Polynesian girl, Fayaway, played by Mexico-born actress Raquel Torres.

Inspired by a 1919 travel book of the same name (by Frederick O’Brien), what is significant about the film is that it was shot in Tahiti, featured a supporting cast of Tahitian islanders, and was the first MGM picture to be released with a pre-recorded soundtrack, which consisted of a musical score and a few effects. It was also the first film in which the MGM Lion (known then as “Jackie”), roared during the introduction.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE…Raquel Torres and Monte Blue in *White Shadows in the South Seas.* (Pinterest)

Leonard Maltin writes the film “features stunning, Oscar-winning cinematography of the Marquesas Islands welded to a story about the corrupting influence of Western civilization, with Blue as an alcoholic doctor who falls in love with native Torres and clashes with an exploitative (pearl) trader…Portions of the beautiful, documentary-style footage were shot under the supervision of Robert Flaherty, who fought with the studio over its emphasis on a melodramatic plot and left the production.”

The film also caused David O. Selznick, one of the top executives at MGM, to quit the studio over a dispute with fellow MGM exec Hunt Stromberg. According to the 1990 book The Dame in the Kimono by Leonard Left and Jerold Simmons, David (Selznick) thought it an idyllic story, Hunt wanted more sex.

Here’s what the Aug. 11, 1928 New Yorker had to say about the film:

GOING NATIVE…Raquel Torres as Fayaway in *White Shadows in the South Seas*. (torontofilmsociety.org)

HE ROARS AT LAST…A cameraman and a sound technician record Jackie’s roar for MGM’s famous logo in 1928. The footage was first used on MGM’s first talking picture, *White Shadows in the South Seas*, as seen at right. (MGM)

WHILE WE ARE ON THE SUBJECT…Five different lions have been used for the MGM logo. Pictured above is Lion #1, named “Slats,” seated next to a less than enthusiastic Greta Garbo in this publicity photo from 1925. Slats was never heard, his career limited to the silent era. Slats was followed by Jackie, the first lion to roar on film (through the use of a gramophone synched to the movie). Jackie was followed by Tanner, George, and finally, Leo. (martinturnbull.com)

Speaking of Garbo, the New Yorker’s film critic “O.C.” was one of the few moviegoers in the world not bewitched by the Swedish actress. In the same issue this is what he had to say about her latest film, The Mysterious Lady:

CHANNELING HER INNER WALLOP…Greta Garbo in *The Mysterious Lady,* 1928. (Pinterest, uncredited)

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Revisiting Race

As I’ve noted before, The New Yorker of the 1920s was decidedly mainstream in its treatment of blacks and other minorities as racial “others.” Here is an example (from the Aug. 11 issue) of the casual bigotry that occasionally could be found in “The Talk of the Town,” this penned by none other than James Thurber:

…and a few pages on in the same issue, this filler art by Julian deMiskey:

* * *

And to close out the Aug. 11 issue, Barbara Shermund looked in on the Uppers during a moment of contemplation:

* * *

The Aug. 18, 1928 issue featured an interesting dispatch from the magazine’s Paris correspondent, Janet “Genêt” Flanner.

Flanner gave us a taste of how the French regarded the recent “Battle of the Century” between heavyweight boxers Gene Tunney and Tom Heeney:

Flanner also wrote about an amusement park near the Porte Maillot in Paris called Luna Park:

WITH A FRENCH ACCENT…Entrance to Luna Park near the Porte Maillot, circa 1922. (Wikipedia)

Postcard image of the Luna Park’s river ride, circa 1910. (paris-unplugged.fr )

Postcard image of Luna’s Roulette Wheel ride, recalling similar ride at Coney Island’s Pavilion of Fun. (paris-unplugged.fr )

Photographer snaps a photo of visitors to Porte Maillot in 1935. Although the banner on plane reads “Souvenir de Luna Park,” the park itself closed in 1931. (parisenimages.fr )

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From Our Advertisers

Another sports celebrity who didn’t mind relieving Old Gold of some extra cash was Babe Ruth, who was next in line to submit to the blindfold test:

I include this ad for Proctor & Gamble’s Ivory Soap (from a 1928 issue of The Saturday Evening Post) as an explanatory note for the New Yorker cartoon that follows, by Gluyas Williams…

Also in the issue, John Held Jr. contributed one of his famous maps, displayed sideways, full-page (click to enlarge):

And finally, we close with Peter Arno, and two outraged spinsters:

Next Time: Hit of the Century…

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

Those of us who still remember cigarette ads on television will recognize the tagline that heads this blog–“You’ve come a long way, baby,” was the jingle for Virginia Slims–which in 1968 was a new, thin cigarette from Phillip Morris marketed specifically to women.

9983e8cd5c5a373ecc556a6012f32c9a — October 29, 1927 cover by Julian de Miskey.

The campaign launched by the Leo Burnett Agency sought to make Virginia Slims an “aspirational” brand for the liberated woman of the Swinging 60s…

1968-virginia-slims-ad — These ads from 1968 announced a new cigarette for the liberated woman. (flashbak.com)

Forty years earlier, the folks at Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company also thought they could trade on the image of the Jazz Age’s liberated woman with this famous ad from 1926:

154997-chesterfield2 — (History News Network)

Although the woman in the ad was not smoking, a taboo had been broken by merely suggesting she might be a smoker. The New Yorker first explored this topic in their July 24, 1926 issue, with this item in “The Talk of the Town”…

In the Oct. 29, 1927 issue they returned to the topic in the “Talk” column, now that advertisers had gone a step further and actually depicted women with lighted cigarettes between their fingers:

screen-shot-2017-01-04-at-3-17-10-pm — BRAZEN…Ads from 1927 depicting women smoking Old Gold and Marlboro cigarettes.

The Oct. 29, 1927, New Yorker itself featured ads with women smokers, including this installment in a series for Old Gold by cartoonist Clare Briggs…

…and this ad for the the tipless Smokador ashtray, which was featured in many issues of the New Yorker…

What Flattery Will Get You

In addition to women smokers, the New Yorker was also agog about a visit to the city by the great French fashion designer Paul Poiret, who upon his arrival proclaimed American women to be the best-dressed in the world:

screen-shot-2017-01-04-at-4-00-32-pm — THE LIBERATOR…Paul Poiret on a stroll with models, circa 1930. Poiret led a fashion renaissance that introduced free-flowing dresses and “harem pants.” He is often credited with liberating women from the corset. (trendmano.blog.hu)

Perhaps Poiret’s flattery of American women could be attributed to the fact that his designs had lost popularity in France after World War I, and his fashion empire was on the brink of collapse. (Indeed, his fashion house would close in 1929). However today he is recognized as the first great modernist in fashion design, often compared to Picasso in terms of the contributions he made to his field.

The New Yorker took advantage of his visit to the city by featuring him in a lengthy profile in the Oct. 29 issue, written by Paris correspondent Janet Flanner under the pseudonym “Hippolyta.” Despite Poiret’s diminished presence in France, Flanner nevertheless understood his enormous contribution to modern fashion design. She concluded her profile with this observation:

Something Fishy

The New Yorker appealed to young, upscale urban dwellers, so it was no wonder that Harper’s Bazar advertised in the magazine, including this ad in the Oct. 29, 1927 issue that announced the debut in its pages of the English artist known as “Fish”…

Anne Harriet Fish (1890-1964) was famed for her witty depictions of high society in Condé Nast’s Vanity Fair and The Tatler, where she began work in 1914. A rival “smart set” magazine, Harper’s Bazar, was eager to boast that it had finally “landed” the Fish.

6fb43ab16b45d6f41329fef80bd1baf0 — A February 1916 *Vanity Fair* cover by A. H. Fish. (Condé Nast)

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Broadway Ballet

The Oct. 29 “Talk of the Town” noted that Albertina Rasch and her ballet dancers were making quite a splash on Broadway. Her success in staging dances for Flo Ziegfeld’s “Follies” and George White’s “Scandals” would lead to a career in Hollywood, where she would be instrumental in elevating the role of dance director to what we now call a choreographer. Among her many firsts, she is credited with helping to establish Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” as a popular standard by incorporating it into a dance in the 1935 film Jubilee.

The Albertina Rasch Dancers in costume for *Rio Rita* (1927). (songbook1.wordpress.com)

* * *

Where Were You Last Year?

Writing under the pseudonym “Constant Reader,” Dorothy Parker penned a vigorous defense of Ernest Hemingway’s short fiction in the “Books” section of the Oct. 29 issue. Specifically she took issue with critics who continued to rave about Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises, but mostly ignored a collection of short stories he had previously published under the title In Our Time.

screen-shot-2017-01-05-at-1-19-48-pm — HE’S PRETTY GOOD…Ernest Hemingway in 1927, shortly after publication of his novel *The Sun Also Rises.* At right, Dorothy Parker in the 1920s. (NY Daily News/Bookriot)

And finally, Barbara Shermund explored the intersection of high culture and flapper culture in this cartoon…

Next Time: Death Avenue Days…

Age of the Talkies

The Oct. 15, 1927 issue featured the premiere of the film The Jazz Singer. Although the New Yorker found the story a bit dull, it also recognized that the film’s use of sound marked a significant turning point in the short history of cinema.

cca81fb3c6aeb61c01f52c8dc5c3c05b — October 15, 1927 cover by Theodore G. Haupt.

The Jazz Singer was not the first film to employ sound, but as the New Yorker review pointed out, it was the first to effectively use synchronized sound (the industry standard Vitaphone technique) in a way that improved the motion picture.

The film featured only two minutes worth of sound dialogue, so most of the spoken lines were still presented on intertitle cards commonly used in silent films. But it was Al Jolson’s recorded voice, belting out popular tunes including “Toot, Toot, Tootsie,” that really wowed audiences. At the end of the film Jolson himself appeared on stage before an audience “clapping and bellowing with joy”…

jazz_singer_f — IT SINGS! IT TALKS!!!…Al Jolson as Jack Robin and Eugenie Besserer as his mother, Sara Rabinowitz, in *The Jazz Singer*. One attendee at the premiere recalled that when Jolson and Besserer began their dialogue scene, “the audience became hysterical.” (wired.com)

It is interesting that as early as 1927, and even with the relatively crude sound of Vitaphone, the New Yorker was already predicting the advent of a new kind of star (and the decline of the stage actor)…

VitaphoneDemo — BLACK TIE EVENT…A Vitaphone projection setup at a 1926 demonstration. Western Electric engineer E. B. Craft, left, is holding a soundtrack disc, which was essentially a phonograph record. The turntable, on a thick tripod base, is at lower center. (Wikipedia)

As for the movie itself, well, there was Jolson, beloved by many. Perhaps it’s the sound quality, or the 89 years of changing tastes, but I cannot for life of me understand what audiences (or the New Yorker) saw that was so appealing about Al Jolson as a performer.

017-the-jazz-singer-theredlist — THAT WAS THEN…Al Jolson as Jack Robin in *The Jazz Singer*. Although performing in blackface is considered racist today, Jolson’s use of blackface was integral to the film in that it was tied to Jack’s own Jewish heritage and his struggle for identity. Of course that doesn’t make it any less offensive today. (theredlist)

* * * * *

Absent-minded Ambassador

The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” offered some curious observations about the new ambassador to Mexico, Dwight Morrow.

morrows_1931 — SON-IN-LAW…Aviator Charles Lindbergh would marry Dwight Morrow’s daughter, Anne, in 1929. in this photo from 1931 are, from left, Charles Lindbergh, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Elisabeth Morrow, and Dwight Morrow. (kaiology.wordpress.com)

Morrow has been widely hailed as a brilliant ambassador with a keen intellect. The New Yorker, however, offered some additional perspective on the man:

Flight of Fancy

In the wake of Charles Lindbergh’s famous flight, the New Yorker (and the rest of the country) continued its fascination with air travel, which at this point was confined to military and commercial pilots, stunt flyers and the well-to-do.

f12cabindown — The Fokker F.VII pictured above is likely the same plane or very similar to the one owned by Texas oilman William Denning. The interior depicted below is also similar to what is described in the *New Yorker* article. (aviation-history.com)

* * * * *

RIP Isadora Duncan

The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent, Janet Flanner, wrote of the funeral of famed modern dancer Isadora Duncan in her column, “Letter from Paris.” Duncan was killed in a freak accident on the night of Sept. 14, 1927 when her silk scarf, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels of the car in which she was riding, breaking her neck.

bizarre-deaths-isadora-duncan — Isadora Duncan (ati.com)

Other items of note from the Oct. 15 issue, E.B. White contributed this ditty…

…and Corey Ford, who gave the fictional Eustace Tilley his persona, wrote of Tilley’s feat crossing Broadway in a parody of adventure stories popular at the time. An excerpt:

And finally, Peter Arno explored childhood angst among the smart set:

Next Time: Electric Wonders…

The Movies Take Wing

The First Academy Award for Best Picture went to Wings, a romantic action-war picture directed by William Wellman and featuring Paramount’s biggest star at the time, the “It Girl” Clara Bow and the young Gary Cooper in a role that would launch his Hollywood career.

31163f0a903d36d43f89b8495fe4e9a4 — August 20, 1927 cover by Helen E. Hokinson.

The film was shot on location at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas, on a budget of $2 million (about $27 million today). About 300 pilots were involved in filming realistic (and dangerous) air-combat sequences using both mounted and hand-held cameras.

_57942979_wings_pose_hi — LOFTY AMBITIONS…Charles “Buddy” Rogers and Clara Bow in *Wings,* 1927. (BBC)

william-wellman — NO CGI HERE…Director William Wellman, during production of *Wings,* 1927. (New York Times)

photo33chic_0632 — WHERE DID HE BUY HIS INSURANCE?…Stunt pilot Dick Grace specialized in crashing planes for films, and was one of the few stunt pilots who died of old age. (ladailymirror)

* * *

We leave the skies for the trenches in another World War I film–Barbed Wire–that was entertaining New Yorkers in 1927…

barbed-wire-1927-image-10 — LOOKS MORE INTERESTING OUT THERE…Pola Negri watches the Germans in *Barbed Wire*, 1927 (Wikipedia)

The Duncan Sisters were back, this time on the silver screen in an adaptation of their Broadway hit play, Topsy and Eva. Yes, one of the sisters performed in blackface, which was acceptable to white audiences of the time (including New Yorker critics). You can read more about this duo in my recent blog entry, Fifteen Minutes is Quite Enough.

screen-shot-2016-11-21-at-4-24-40-pm — Advertisement for the film, *Topsy and Eva*, 1927. (nilsasther.blogspot.com)

Meanwhile, Paris correspondent Janet Flanner was noting some modern influences in the city thanks to the influence of the German Bauhaus…

002_mallet_stevens_rue_mallet_stevens_paris_theredlist — Rue Mallet Stevens was designed by Paris-based architect, designer and production designer Robert Mallet-Stevens, who founded the Union of Modern Artists (UAM) in 1929. (theredlist.com).

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From the “they couldn’t see it coming” department, this item in “Talk of the Town” caught my eye. We have since learned that carbon emissions are indeed taking a toll on human life…

…and a couple of cartoons from this issue, this one courtesy of Barbara Shermund…

…and this from an unidentified cartoonist (Dussey?) that gives us a glimpse of the world to come thanks to merger of technology and tedious, proud parents…

* * *

And to end on a “Wings” theme, the following week’s issue…

029648b8835cd8a9600d9dc4caf29b32 — August 27, 1927 cover by Theodore G. Haupt.

…offered this advertisment from L. Bamberger & Co. that gave us a tongue-in-cheek glance at the future of aviation…

Next Time: The Wages of Beauty…

The Flying Fool

Charles Lindbergh was “The Flying Fool” no more after flying nonstop across the Atlantic to worldwide acclaim. The New Yorker shared in the enthusiasm, although it tried its best to appear not too impressed by the feat. But as we shall see in subsequent issues, the New Yorker, along with the rest of the media, wouldn’t be able to get enough of the now “Lucky Lindy,” at least until he started spouting fascist sympathies.

may-28 — May 28, 1927, cover by Ilonka Karasz.

But that’s in the future. Here’s what the New Yorker had to say following Lindbergh’s famous flight in “Talk of the Town…”

And from its distant perch the magazine also took some shots at the media hype surrounding Lindbergh, and the usual retinue of money-changers (see title image above)…

So what was the New Yorker saying about the historic moment? Well, for most of us, life goes on…

screen-shot-2016-10-07-at-4-48-14-pm — HE’S A GOOD BOY…Still from Movietone newsreel showing Lindbergh with his mother before the historic flight. (Movietone)

…and for those who missed it on TV (because it wasn’t invented yet), they could catch a newsreel of Lindbergh at the Roxy, complete with crude sound effects:

air_and_space_museum_paris_lindbergh — OH CALM DOWN…A gendarmerie links arms in a futile attempt at crowd control as a mob closes in on the just-landed Spirit of St. Louis at Le Bourget airport in Paris. (parisdigest.com)

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On the other side of the pond, Paris correspondent Janet Flanner wrote about the Paris media’s complete denial or ignorance of the deaths of their own Atlantic flyers, Nungesser and Coli, who were lost at sea in their crossing attempt.

* * *

The New Yorker offered more observations on the Machine-Age Exposition, this time in a column titled “About the House,” by Repard Leirum, which was Muriel Draper spelled backwards. Under this pseudonym Draper served as interior decoration critic for the New Yorker — she was one of the most influential personalities in the American interior decorating in the early 20th century.

1013583 — Muriel Draper, as photographed by Carl Van Vechten on July 30, 1934. (Muriel Draper Papers, Yale)

klh_36_hr-web — This model of a radio station by Knud Londberg-Holm was displayed at the Machine-Age Exposition in New York City May 16-28, 1927. (artblart.com)

About Muriel Draper: Although she wrote on interior design for the New Yorker during the late 1920s, she was more widely known as a “culture desk” writer, and was prominent in promoting the Harlem Renaissance. She became active in left wing politics after a trip to the Soviet Union in 1934, and in 1949 she was investigated by the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee and thereafter ceased her political activities.

The Machine-Age Exposition Draper visited had a decidedly socialist flavor with its prominent inclusion of the Soviet Union and its touting of the International Style of architecture. Before it was appropriated by post-war corporate America, the International Style was developed as housing and workspaces for the masses.

A side-note: The Exposition was initiated by Jane Heap, who like Muriel Draper was a follower of the charismatic Russian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff (among Gurdjieff’s other followers were architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the writer P. L. Travers (Mary Poppins) and 1960s counterculture figure Timothy Leary).

georges_gurdjieff — George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, circa 1925-35 (Library of Congress)

Marxists with spiritual yearnings — and especially guild socialists — were attracted to Gurdjieff’s ideas about something he called “The Work,” in which crafts and community life provided ways to cultivate a deeper understanding of ourselves and our purpose amidst the activities of daily life.

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And now on to a different kind of Marxism…this odd little item from the “Talk of the Town”…

In 1927 the Marx Brothers were still known as a traveling vaudeville act–their first feature film was still two years away. But thanks to the vaudeville circuit of the day, an astonishing number of people in cities large and small across the country would see them perform. The “Talk” item concludes with this story that references Henry Ford’s well-known anti-semitism:

mte5ndg0mdu0nty4njy2njm5 — OH THE MOVIES THEY WILL MAKE…The Marx Brothers, from left, Chico, Zeppo, Groucho and Harpo. (biography.com)

Next Time: The Age of Innocence…

Mode de Vie

We cross the pond for the May 14, 1927 issue, for a look at all things French. As I’ve previously noted, New Yorker readers of the 1920s had a decidedly Francophile bent when it came to food, fashion and general joie de vivre.

304b9308de906b0c02f50b14add69c6d — May 14, 1927 cover by Rea Irvin.

In fact, readers were so enamored with France that the country merited its own New Yorker correspondent, Janet Flanner, who wrote under the nom de plume “Genêt.”

In the May 14 issue Flanner casually mused about the racing season at Longchamps, which attracted the likes of Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt (nee Anne Harriman), who was well-known in France for her philanthropic work during World War I, including her founding of an ambulance service and a hospital at Neuilly. Vanderbilt received the class of the Legion of Honor in 1919 in recognition of her war work, and in 1931 she was made an officer of the legion.

11733033805_35c6a9f8d5_b — BLUE BLOODS…Mrs. W.K. Vanderbilt (left) with Mrs. Robert Bacon (nee Martha Waldron Cowdin), circa 1915-1920. Bacon served as chairman of the American Ambulance Committee. (Library of Congress)

In “Talk of the Town,” the editors suggested that readers go to Madison Square Garden and check out the world’s largest canvas painting, Panthéon de la Guerre, more for the spectacle than for any artistic merit:

pantheon_de_la_guerre_panorama_smaller — Section of *Panthéon de la Guerre* showing allies of World War I, now in Memory Hall, Liberty Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri. (theworldwar.com) **Click to enlarge**

Panthéon de la Guerre was painted during World War I as a circular panorama — 402 feet in circumference and 45 feet high — displayed in Paris in a specially built building next to the Hôtel des Invalides. It was visited by an estimated 8 million people between 1918 and 1927.

The painting was acquired by American businessmen in 1927 and exported to New York, where it was displayed at Madison Square Garden. Some changes were made to the painting for the benefit of an American audience, including the addition of an African-American soldier. The work later toured the U.S — from 1932 to 1940 it went to Washington DC, Chicago, Cleveland, and San Francisco. It was then acquired by restaurant entrepreneur William Haussner for $3,400.

In 1956 Haussner donated the work to Leroy MacMorris to be adapted for display at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City. MacMorris drastically reduced the size of the work and modified it to emphasize America’s contribution to WWI: Only 7 percent of the original work was retained, and large French sections were left out. MacMorris likened it to “whittling down a novel to Reader’s Digest condensation.” And he didn’t stop there. He also modified some figures to represent post-WWI figures such as Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

exhibithall — A BIT OF THIS, A DASH OF THAT…Figure of Victory from the Temple to Glory cut to fit above a doorway at Memory Hall, Liberty Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri, with the staircase of heroes to either side. Compare to original below:

To reduce and reconfigure the painting, MacMorris first photographed it in detail, then cut out the figures in the photos and used them like puzzle pieces to work out his new condensed version, which was dedicated on Nov. 11, 1959.

As for the unused portions, what MacMorris did not use he threw away, sending several of the larger excised passages back to Haussner for display in his Baltimore restaurant. MacMorris also gave pieces to the art students who helped him reconfigure the painting and to a number of prominent Kansas Citians.

2qaatdogmghsne7v2y1e — Fragment from *Panthéon de la Guerre* depicting a British nursing sister. (theworldwar.org)

The National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City recently held an exhibition on the painting and its recovered fragments.

* * *

In her fashion column, “On and Off the Avenue,” Lois Long advised readers on where to shop in Paris. I’m not certain, but I believe she invented the pen name “Parisite” to write this particular column, which featured recommendations for many stores and bargains in the City of Light (Long had indeed visited Paris before writing the column). A brief excerpt from the beginning of the column:

And now for the advertisements, all from the May 14 issue, featuring various French themes, such as this one for Krasny makeup that evokes the glamour of Paris and the intrigue of Russian women…

…or exotic perfumes for only the most exclusive set…

…or the chic look of Revillon Freres spring coats and wraps…

…or fake vermouth…this odd little illustration in the back pages for non-alcoholic vermouth, served by a dutiful French maid to what appears to be a giant. You have to feel sorry for the writers of such ads during Prohibition, trying so hard to make this sad libation appealing to thirsty New Yorkers…

…but there were those lucky few who could actually travel to France and drink the real stuff, you could get a really swell send-off with a “Bon Voyage Basket” from L. Bamberger & Co…

…and while you were in France (at least for the men), Peter Arno could show you how to give the glad eye to the mesdemoiselles…

Next Time: Shock of the New…

Fight Night in Philly

We skip ahead to the Oct. 2, 1926 issue to look at one of the big events of that year–the Dempsey-Tunney heavyweight prize fight (I’m not skipping issues…Sept. 25 appears later in this blog).

652f917918402a71eb86f6671c9f228a — Oct. 2, 1926 – Issue # 85 – Cover by Constantin Alajalov. (Once again, note the ongoing comic reference to androgyny in 20’s fashion)

Heavyweight boxing was a big part of the American sports scene in the 1920s, and two giants of the sport, Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, dominated the headlines in the late 1920s thanks to much-heralded bouts in Philadelphia in 1926 and a rematch in Chicago the following year (which would include the famous “long count” incident).

Screen Shot 2016-02-26 at 12.30.40 PM — An estimated 135,000 fans packed Sesquicentennial Stadium in Philadelphia for the Dempsey-Tunney bout. (NYTimes)

The New Yorker joined in on the hoopla, publishing a lengthy account of the match by Waldo Frank (aka “Search-light”), who trained his jaded eye on the whole affair:

MediaStream.ashx — VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS…a rain-soaked throng at the Dempsey-Tunney fight in Philadelphia. (City of Philadelphia)

According to the New York Times, the crowd included such notables as Charlie Chaplin, cowboy movie star Tom Mix and the English Channel swimmer Gertrude Ederle.

Screen Shot 2016-02-26 at 12.13.08 PM — Coverage of Tunney’s victory by unanimous decision took up three-quarters of the front page of *The New York Times,* and also filled most of pages 2 through 7. (*The New York Times*)

But in typical fashion, Waldo was less than dazzled, finding the rain an apt metaphor for a spectacle mostly unseen by those in attendance:

Never one to wallow in tragedy, the magazine made a brief (and oddly droll) reference in “The Talk of the Town” to a hurricane that hit Miami and its environs (it killed 372 people and injured more than 6,000):

Other items of note in the issue included this examination of country vs. city life by cartoonist Barbara Shermund…

…and this cartoon by Al Frueh commenting on the challenges of Manhattan’s rapidly changing cityscape:

The changing city was also on the mind of Reginald Marsh in this illustration he contributed to the Sept. 25, 1926 issue of the magazine:

The Sept. 25 issue also featured an update from Paris correspondent Janet Flanner…

d9f3d5507a7bade4fc28276d12a63260 — Sept. 25, 1926 – Issue # 84 – Cover by Constantin Alajalov.

…who commented on the large number of American tourists crowding the city just as the locals were fleeing for their long, late summer holidays:

She offered some numbers to back up her observations:

3333095832_f6a6fd78cb_o — Janet “Genêt” Flanner (right) and longtime companion Solita Solano (center) in Paris in the 1920s. Solano was a well-known writer and drama critic for the *New York Tribune.*

And finally, a cartoon by Rea Irvin exploring the trials of the idle rich:

Next Time: Do Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?

Parisians & Puritans

In her latest dispatch from Paris, correspondent Janet “Genet” Flanner offered New Yorker readers a glimpse into the French mind, its fear of “Americanization” and its perception of America’s Puritanical attitudes behind Prohibition.

Screen Shot 2015-11-13 at 2.25.59 PM — April 3, 1926 cover by Rea Irvin.

All the more reason the French were bemused by reports that American and English citizens led the lists of reported drug raids in the City of Light…

or that somehow Prohibition was a question of theological differences:

The April 3, 1926 issue also offered up some curious advertisements. Aiming square at the grasping Anglophilia of New Yorker readers, here’s a pitch for a used Rolls Royce:

And with the money left over from your savings on the used Rolls, you could buy this 47-foot cruiser from the American Car and Foundry Company:

Moving along to the April 10, 1926 issue (cover designed by H.O. Hofman)…

…I discovered this clever “map” by John Held Jr. For fans of “Boardwalk Empire” or other 1920s gangster-themed fare, Held’s map confirms it was no secret that Atlantic City was a major port for rum runners:

Also on the theme of Prohibition, cartoonist James Daugherty (Jimmy the Ink) had some fun with New Yorker colleague Lois Long (aka “Lipstick”) by pairing her with New York’s top Prohibition prosecutor Emory Buckner in this unlikely scenerio:

Note the lock on the fire hydrant. Padlocking restaurants and clubs suspected of selling alcohol was a favorite tactic of Buckner and his agents. Long famously took him task in her Oct. 31, 1925 “Tables for Two” column. You can read about it here in my previous post, “How Dry I Am.”

Next Time: The Great American Novelist…

Party Time With Gentleman Jimmy

Screen Shot 2015-07-23 at 12.08.59 PM — Nov. 21, 1925 cover by Stanley W. Reynolds.

Mayor Jimmy Walker wasn’t known for being cerebral. But as the voters’ choice to lead the City of New York, he could not have been more well-suited (pun intended) to the zeitgeist of the final, dizzying, roaring years of The Jazz Age.

Walker was a flamboyant man-about-town, a clothes horse who was no stranger to speakeasies or the backroom politics of Tammany Hall.

As Jonathan Mahler wrote in New York magazine (April 1, 2012), Gentleman Jimmy “perfectly embodied that moment of indulgence: the public servant who favored short workdays and long afternoons at Yankee Stadium, who was loath to miss a big prizefight or Broadway premiere, who left his wife and Greenwich Village apartment for a chorus girl and a suite at the Ritz-Carlton.”

Not that there weren’t some concerns. “The Talk of the Town” offered this early observation of the incoming mayor:

Screen Shot 2015-07-24 at 1.01.10 PM — New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker during a visit to Boston. (voxart)

Mahler quoted a columnist from Walker’s time, who noted that “No man could hold life so carelessly without falling down a manhole before he is done.” And Walker would fall to scandal by 1932. But we will get to that. For now, it’s party time in Gotham.

The New Yorker continued to have fun with President Calvin Coolidge, publishing this cartoon by Izzy Klein that took a poke at Coolidge’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, in which Coolidge spoke at length about the nation’s abundance:

Talk also reported the latest bootleg prices in “The Liquor Market…”

“Profiles” examined the life of New York Times owner Adolph Ochs. The writer Elmer Davis observed that “More than any other newspaper owner, he is his paper, and his paper is himself…”

Screen Shot 2015-07-24 at 12.23.11 PM — Detail from a lantern slide depicting Basil Sydney as Hamlet and Charles Waldron as Claudius in the Booth Theatre’s 1925 production of *Hamlet* in “modern dress.” (Graphic Arts Collection, Princeton)

In “The Theatre,” critic Herman J. Mankiewicz addressed criticisms of the Booth Theatre’s new approach to Hamlet, which was presented “in modern dress.” Mankiewicz wrote that the departure from traditional Elizabethan costumes had brought the play “into the open,” and that Basil Sydney was a “splendid” Hamlet.

In “Books,” reviewer Harry Este Dounce recommended Ford Madox Ford’s No More Parades (“a fine display of virtuoso writing”) and Arthur Schnitzler’s Fraulein Else (“a scintillant little firework”).

tumblr_mqej7s8XOl1qzx4bjo1_1280 — Lilyan Tashman, left, and Pauline Starke in Robert Z. Leonard’s *Bright Lights,* 1925 (Tumblr)

In “Motion Pictures,” Theodore Shane panned the movie Lord Jim (based on the Joseph Conrad novel), but he enjoyed the “simple hokum tale” of Bright Lights and the “restrained” performance of Pauline Starke, “a perfect miniature Gloria Swanson.”

In “Tables for Two,” Lois Long despaired of finding a decent “swank dinner” on a rainy autumn evening, and finally headed to a Viennese restaurant (Frau Greta’s) for some German comfort food. The rain turned to torrents as she then headed out for some nightlife:

Long concluded her “Tables” column with this peevish note on “grammar:”

In her other column, “On And Off The Avenue,” Long wrote about the increasing popularity of New Yorkers traveling to Florida for the winter, and in anticipation of the Christmas holiday, offered this advice on what not to give as gifts:

In her report from Paris, Janet Flanner commented on the popularity of Josephine Baker at the Champs Elysees Theater:

b0eb9a7f4c28207dba1c475c70e61e24 — Josephine Baker and Joe Alex in their opening night performance of “La Revue Negre” at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Paris, 1925 (Tumblr)

Flanner also commented on the growing appreciation of paintings by Henri Rousseau, who just a decade or so earlier was considered something of a joke among art circles:

60.1583 — Henri Rousseau’s *The Football Players*, 1908. Today even Rosseau’s lesser-known works are valued in the millions (Wikimedia)

And finally, Julian de Miskey’s take on The Big Game:

Next Time: A Debutante’s Diatribe…

Oh Those French

Screenshot 2015-07-10 16.32.07 — Oct. 24 cover by Max Ree.

Apparently even Parisians have fashion lapses from time to time. Janet Flanner (Genêt) reported with some alarm a “curious phenomenon” from Paris in the Oct. 24, 1925 issue of The New Yorker.

It seemed that the otherwise fashionable Parisians were slumming it a bit and had adopted a dowdy look previously associated with residents of the British Isles. (The un-dowdy image at the top of the page is French designer Sonia Delaunay and her matching Citroen in 1925).

Apparently such pedestrian tastes had also caused a shift from formerly fashionable travel destinations on the Atlantic coasts to Mediterranean destinations:

And to top things off, the French were agog over the latest Charlie Chaplin film, The Gold Rush (another French favorite of American clown-dom, Jerry Lewis, would be born the following year):

But then there was another new distraction in town, the Autumn Salon:

6865003683_3b4a1952df — Pavel Tchelitchew, self-portrait, 1925 (Flickr)

Pavel Tchelitchew was known as a leader of “mystical surrealist” painting. He left his native Russia in 1920 and lived in Berlin before moving to Paris in 1923. There he became acquainted with Gertrude Stein and Edith Sitwell, the latter with whom he had a long-standing friendship.

The French were also on display in a comic piece by Theodore Shane, who also served as the magazine’s movie critic.

Shane wrote a piece titled “Fra~nce” in a style that suggested he was teaching children about France by dividing words into syllables (it was similar to a piece about Russia (“Rus~sia”) in the Aug. 29 issue, signed “Freudy”) Here’s a sample:

A full-page ad on the Page 1 announced the “The Midnight Open” event at The 19^th Hole Club in the Hotel Roosevelt, with an impressive lineup of golf professionals such as Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen and even “prominent amateurs” including Bobby Jones.

41864_172_z — The Roosevelt Hotel, which opened in 1924 (Expedia)

I was surprised that the annual membership fee was advertised as only $10, which would roughly translate to $135 today—a bargain compared to what it costs today to join even the lowliest golf club.

“Talk of the Town” welcomed news from Boston that “ladies are to be allowed to smoke in the open” in that city (drawing by Johan Bull):

In a feature “Our Collegiate Hilltop,” Elmer Davis wrote about the droves of college students who had taken over much of the available housing along Morningside, “a ghetto for the Nordic native-born.” Davis offered this lament about Columbia’s continued creep into the surrounding neighborhoods (with accompanying art by Helen Hokinson:

“Profiles” examined the life of “A Kind Man,” William Lyon Phelps. That title was not meant as a complement from writer Waldo Frank, but rather it was his “kindness” toward authors that caused him to praise books that were not worthy of praise and made him the personification of the “most American of disasters: the disaster of Good Intentions, when they are not fortified by intellectual hardness, when they are not drained of all sentimental juices.”

ethel-27 — Ethel Barrymore in 1925 as Ophelia in Walter Hampden’s Production of *Hamlet*. (barrymorefamily.com)

In “The Theatre” Elsie Ferguson and Basil Rathbone were appearing in “The Grand Duchess and the Waiter” at the Lyceum (“an agreeable piece of work”), while Ethel Barrymore “wowed” critic Herman J. Mankiewicz with her performance as Ophelia in a revival of Hamlet at Walter Hampden’s theatre.

Or at least I think she wowed him. Mankiewicz knew and worked with the Barrymore family, and I wonder if his over-the-top style here is a wink to the fact that a 45-year-old Ethel was playing the part of a young virgin. Here’s an excerpt from the review:

I hate to jump ahead, but in the Nov. 14 issue, “Talk of the Town” offered this humorous anecdote from one of Barrymore’s performances:

In sporting news, John R. Tunis continued his coverage of rivalry matches staged at Yankee Stadium, this time the fiercely competitive Notre Dame vs Army matchup. Despite Notre Dame’s renown under Knute Rockne, Army was a worthy foe in the 1920s and in this particular matchup the Cadets blanked the Irish 27-0. The matchup between these teams was so popular that it was played at Yankee Stadium until 1947.

And finally, Lois Long sharpened her pencil and offered her thoughts on a dull dinner crowd at Pierre’s:

A drawing by Peter Arno (who would marry Long in 1927) in another section of the magazine seemed to refer to Long’s lament:

Long also offered some criticisms of a “new negro revue” that decidedly differed from the mainstream:

A great illustration by Julian deMiskey of the Bellows exhibition at the Met:

Next Time: Short-tempered about Temperance…