Maurice Freed – A New Yorker State of Mind

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Above: Clockwise from top left—the Douglas DC-3 was introduced to airlines in 1935; Seaboard streamlined locomotive, c. 1930s; 1936 Lincoln-Zephyr; 1936 Pierce Arrow. (hushkit.net/Wikimedia/classicautomall.com)

As we’ve seen in previous issues, E.B. White often served as The New Yorker’s unofficial aviation correspondent; despite his sometimes anachronistic views on progress, he never missed a chance to hop aboard an airplane and marvel at the scene far below.

November 2, 1935 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

White’s enthusiasm, however, was tempered with doubts about air safety, including observations he made in an August 31, 1935 column following the deaths of Wiley Post and Will Rogers in an Alaska plane crash. Here is what he wrote then:

The aviation industry’s strong reaction to that “noisy little paragraph” apparently led to a number of subscription cancellations, prompting White to return to the topic in his Nov. 2 “Notes and Comment” column:

HE’D BEEN AROUND…**E.B. White** supported his comments on air safety by citing his many flying experiences, including soaring around the Empire State Building “on a blithe morning.” Pictured above is a New York Daily News plane flying over Manhattan in 1934. (NY Daily News)

White also turned to statistics for his defense, finding that per passenger mile, railroads were still the safest mode of transportation in the country.

HOP ABOARD…According to 1933 statistics shared by **E.B. White,** trains were the safest mode of transportation per passenger mile, followed by buses. Automobiles were the least safe, a fact that still holds true today. From left, Greyhound bus and driver, 1937; automobile wreck, 1930s; New York Central’s 20th Century Limited leaving Chicago’s LaSalle Street station in 1938. (Facebook/Reddit/Wikipedia)

With that, White still wasn’t done with the topic, turning to none other than Anne Morrow Lindbergh for her thoughts on flying, which she shared in her latest book, North to the Orient. White noted Lindbergh’s mixed feelings about flying, about getting to places quickly and missing familiar landmarks. He also suggested that someday airline passengers would use mountains and rivers as landmarks…(I still try to do that when I fly, but at 35,000 feet it is a challenge). Today most folks are content with plugging in their earbuds and tuning out completely.

NOT YOUR EVERYDAY OUTING…In July 1931 Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh embarked in their Lockheed Model 8 Sirius on an often treacherous 7,100-mile journey across Canada, Alaska, Siberia and Japan in an attempt to find a commercial route to Asia for Pan American Airways. Top photo, Charles (standing on pontoon) and Anne (in the cockpit) make final preparations before the flight; bottom photo, enthusiastic crowds greet the Lindberghs upon their arrival in Japan. The Siberia-to-Japan leg was the most dangerous due to heavy fog. (historynet.com)

E.B. White also announced the return to the city of former Mayor Jimmy Walker, who had fled to Europe in 1932 amid corruption charges. White noted that New York’s nightclubs were eager to welcome the fun-loving Walker back to town.

SECOND ACT…Still image from a 1935 British Pathé newsreel shows the triumphant return from Europe of former Mayor Jimmy Walker and his wife, **Betty Compton**. (YouTube)

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A Zephyr Blows In

The magazine’s “Motors” correspondent (pen name “Speed”) noted the dazzling display of 1936 models at the New York Automobile Show, singling out the Lincoln-Zephyr as the year’s biggest innovation.

DECO DREAMSCAPE…Streamlining was all the rage at the 1935 New York Automobile Show at Grand Central Palace. Upper right, a woman opens the hood of a streamlining pioneer, the Chrysler Airflow. (New York Daily News)

LEADER OF THE PACK…The 1936 Lincoln-Zephyr had tongues wagging at the New York Automobile Show. (thehenryford.org)

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At the Movies

William Powell and Hollywood newcomer Rosalind Russell blessed film critic John Mosher with their spy caper, Rendezvous, while Pauline Lord got lost in the London fog with Basil Rathbone in A Feather in Her Hat.

A CAPER AND A WEEPER…At left, **William Powell** starred with Hollywood newcomer **Rosalind Russell** in *Rendezvous;* at right, Broadway stage actress **Pauline Lord** appeared opposite **Basil Rathbone** in *A Feather in Her Hat.* (1935)

Mosher also screened a French comedy, René Clair’s Le Dernier Milliardaire (The Last Billionaire), finding its slapstick approach to satire a bit dated.

DURABLE AND ADORABLE…**Renée Saint-Cyr** as Princess Isabelle in the French comedy Le Dernier Milliardaire (The Last Billionaire). Known for her chic comedies, Saint-Cyr (1904–2004) was a major French film star for seven decades. (Film Forum)

Finally, Mosher turned his critical eye toward a British sci-fi film, Transatlantic Tunnel. Looking forward to seeing a gee-whiz Jules Verne-type story, what Mosher found instead was a lot of sentimental “padding” and very little gee-whiz.

UNDERWATER…**John Mosher** looked forward to an undersea adventure, but instead got a lot of sentimental fluff in the British sci-fi film, *Transatlantic Tunnel.* Clockwise, from top left, movie poster for the American release; scene from the film depicting the tunnel entrance; the film showcased such futuristic conveniences as video phones (called “televisors”); a group of wealthy industrialists gather at the home of a Mr. Lloyd, a millionaire investor who used a motorized wheelchair. (Wikipedia/Reddit/cinemasojourns.com)

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No Thanks, Ernie

Clifton Fadiman had an armload of books to review, including an autobiography by Andre Gide (If I Die), novels by Mikhail Sholokhov (Seeds of Tomorrow) and Mari Sandoz (Old Jules), and an Ernest Hemingway tale about big game hunting (Green Hills of Africa) that Fadiman did not care for at all. Here are excerpts from a couple of the reviews:

RUGGED TYPES…At left, **Ernest Hemingway** poses with skulls of kudu and female of sable antelope in East Africa, 1934, part of his hunting trip described in *Green Hills of Africa;* at right, photo of **Jules Sandoz** from the frontispiece of *Old Jules*, a biography written by his daughter Mari Sandoz. (JFK Library/U of Nebraska)

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From Our Advertisers

With the National Automobile Show in full swing at the Grand Central Palace, the issue was jammed with ads for every type and price range…the Chrysler Corporation took out this full-page spot on the opening spread to promote one of the lowest priced cars on the market…

…Chrysler/DeSoto continued to tout its streamlined Airflow models…introduced in 1934, the Airflow was the first full-size American production car to use streamlining, and it featured a number of other innovations, but consumers just weren’t ready for something this radical…even with the streamlining toned down after its first year, only 55,000 units were produced during the model’s four-year run…

…on a side note, Chrysler has revived the Airflow nameplate for an electric car concept due to the marketplace in 2028…

…mentioned in Speed’s review of the Automobile Show, the Lincoln-Zephyr would find success with its aerodynamic design…

…most manufacturers were in on the streamlining trend, noticeable in the tilted grilles, low rooflines, and sweeping fenders…

…unlike the other car companies, Pierce Arrow did not produce an economy model to keep its luxury line afloat during the Depression…emphasizing its handmade quality, this American rival to Rolls-Royce went out of business by 1938…

…Goodyear got in on the Auto Show action promoting its tires for the “new and faster cars”…

…the folks at Campbell’s continued their ad series featuring upper-class women covertly serving canned soup to their society friends…in this ad, however, the hostess reveals her secret…

…there were no secrets to be found at Schrafft’s—its popularity increased during the Depression, when more than forty locations in the New York metro offered moderately priced “home-style” meals in an atmosphere that suggested upper-middle-class gentility…

…Long Island’s Lido Country Club tried to drum up some autumn business by promoting the “warm and lazy” sunshine of “Indian Summer”…

…the makers of King George IV Scotch used the face of Stork Club owner Sherman Billingsley to lend some nightlife cachet to their product…here’s an odd little fact: his nephew, Glenn Billingsley, was married to Leave It to Beaver actress Barbara Billingsley, who played June Cleaver on the TV series…

…this week the back cover belonged to R.J. Reynolds, with various aviators testifying to the calming effects of Camel cigarettes…the lead endorser in the ad, Frank Hawks, was famous for breaking aviation speed records until he perished in the crash of an experimental plane in 1938…

…Forstmann ads were a regular feature on the inside front cover during the fall/winter fashion season, rendered in a style made popular by illustrator Carl “Eric” Erickson…

…on to our cartoonists, we open the magazine with Maurice Freed…

…James Thurber was busy in this issue, writing a touching character sketch of a medicine show man he greatly admired (“Doc Marlowe”)…and contributing this spot art for “Goings On About Town”…

…he also turned in this terrific cartoon…

…Christina Malman livened up the Auto Show review with this spot art…

…Carl Rose also paid tribute to the annual event…

…Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein did a bit of home decorating…

…Robert Day was ready to call it a night…

…Helen Hokinson contributed two cartoons, shopping for a pet fish…

and taking in a Dolores Del Rio picture…

…no doubt Hokinson’s “girls” were commenting on the 1935 musical comedy In Caliente, featuring Mexican actress Dolores Del Rio (1904–1983)…Del Rio was the first Mexican actress to achieve mainstream success in Hollywood…

**Dolores Del Rio** in a scene from *In Caliente.* (Reddit)

…we continue with George Price, and a dedicated lumberjack…

…Ned Hilton discovered some honesty in the Men’s Department…

…William Steig took a look around on Election Day…

…Richard Decker took the pulse of the medical profession…

…and we close with another by Decker, where seeing is not believing…

Next Time: Jimmy Comes Home…

School Days

Above: First-grade pupils at the blackboard, circa 1943. (The New York Times)

Peering into the life of a Manhattan elementary school—as it was ninety years ago—offers a glimpse into the social mores of the 1930s.

October 5, 1935 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

Taking us back to those days was St. Clair McKelway (1905-1980), who beginning in 1933 served as a writer and editor for The New Yorker. Although not well-known today, McKelway was credited by William Shawn as one of a handful of people who “set the magazine on its course.”

For the “A Reporter at Large” column, McKelway toured PS 165 on the Upper West Side. In this first excerpt, McKelway sits in on a geography lesson:

AROUND THE WORLD IN TWENTY VOLUMES…The Grolier Society’s *The Book of Knowledge* was a well-known resource to students and teachers alike in the 1930s. Originally largely a reprint of the British *Children’s Encyclopædia* with U.S. revisions, it evolved over time into an entirely new entity. This particular volume is from 1919, part of a twenty-volume set. *(Randal Oulton via Wikipedia)*

In this next excerpt, a teacher and principal speak of the schoolchildren dispassionately, casually referring to one pupil’s IQ as “almost down to mental defective.”

PS PUPILS…Students participate in Elizabeth Irwin’s “Little Red Schoolhouse“ program at PS 61 in 1928; at right, a kindergarten painter at PS 23 in 1935. (NYC Municipal Archives/Fordham U)

In this final excerpt, McKelway looked in on the school’s “ungraded class” of sixteen boys, most from families who were “on relief.” Beginning in the third paragraph, note how the teacher speculates on the future of one of the students.

STILL STANDING, STILL SERVING…PS 165 Robert E. Simon school today. *(insideschools.org/Anna Duncan/Friends of PS 165)*

A final note: It is interesting to compare McKelway’s article with one written almost thirty years later by Richard Schickel for Commentary magazine (January 1964). Schickel also visited PS 165, his observations of the “special service” school sometimes echoing McKelway’s. Today PS 165 receives high marks from teachers and parents. Located a few blocks from Columbia University, the school teaches children of graduate students and professors as well as long-time neighborhood residents and newcomers.

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Moving Days

In the fall of 1935 E.B. and Katharine White and their four-year-old son Joel moved from their Greenwich Village apartment on East 8th Street (reluctantly for E.B.) to Turtle Bay Gardens in the East 40s. At about the same time The New Yorker moved from its original headquarters on West 45th Street to its new digs at 25 West 43rd Street, where the magazine would settle in for more than fifty years.

HOME SWEET HOME…This New York townhouse (left) was the new home of **E.B. and Katharine White** in the fall of 1935 (their neighbor was **Katharine Hepburn**). At right, *The New Yorker* also moved to a new home at 25 West 43rd Street. The magazine would occupy several floors of the building for 56 years. (homes.com/Ink Spill)

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A Good Bad Girl

Journalist Meyer Berger (1898-1959) was known for digging deep into his subjects, including a two-part New Yorker profile of Anna Lonergan, “Queen of the Irishtown Docks.” Her two husbands and a brother—notorious killers themselves—were murdered in gang wars along with dozens of others who were Lonergan’s friends and neighbors. She was often called to the morgue to identify murder victims, thus the “Profile” title “Lady in Crepe”—one who is in a constant state of mourning. Here are the opening paragraphs:

SHE WANTED TO BE A NUN…**Anna Lonergan**, as rendered by Reginald Marsh for the Profile.

KILL OR BE KILLED…Members of the Irish “White Hand Gang” battled their Italian rivals (the Black Hand Gang) on the Brooklyn waterfront from the early 1900s to 1930. **Anna Lonergan’s** first husband William “Wild Bill” Lovett (top) was murdered in 1923; her brother Richard “Pegleg” Lonergan was gunned down in 1925. *(artofneed.com)*

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At the Movies

Film critic John Mosher took on a couple of very different films—the lively Claudette Colbert comedy She Married Her Boss, and the “mournful, graceful” Iceland Fisherman featuring the 1890s French cabaret star Yvette Guilbert.

BUSINESS AND PLEASURE…**Melvyn Douglas** and Claudette Colbert in *She Married Her Boss.* (IMDB)

GRAND GRANDMOTHER...John Mosher found French actress and cabaret singer Yvette Guilbert (1865–1944) to be the main attraction as a Breton grandmother in 1934’s *Pêcheur d’Islande* (Iceland Fishermen). Guilbert was a favorite subject of artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who made many portraits and caricatures of Guilbert, including the one at right from 1894. (musee-breton.finistere/National Portrait Gallery, London/Wikipedia)

Mosher also screened Soviet Russia through the Eyes of an American, which documented American engineer Charles Stuart’s travels through the Soviet Union. You can watch the entire film here.

NO FAMINE HERE…Children playing games were featured in *Soviet Russia through the Eyes of an American*, a travelogue that skipped all the bad parts of Stalinist Russia. (YouTube/Hoover Institution)

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Some Housekeeping

Before we jump into the advertisements, I would feel remiss not to mention other writers in the issue, including poet Ogden Nash (“How Now, Sirrah, Oh, Anyhow”), James Thurber (“Smashup,” featuring henpecked husband Tommy Trinway); Frances Warfield (“Practical Nurse”); Theodore Pratt (“I Jes’ Goin'”); James Reid Parker (“The First Day”); Andree L. Eilert (“Words Across the Sea”) W.E. Farbstein (“Copycat”); and P. S. Le Poer Trench (“Parsons is Prepared”). Some of these contributors are long forgotten—Warfield often wrote about her deafness, but little to nothing can be found out about Eilert or Trench without considerable effort (Trench published twice in the New Yorker in 1935).

AMONG THE KNOWN…At left, **Ogden Nash** (1902-1971) is the most famous of this trio that includes **Theodore Pratt** (1901-1969), center, known as the “Literary Laureate of Florida”; and at right, **James Reid Parker** (1909-1984), who sidelined as a writer of captions for **Helen Hokinson.** Read more about Parker’s contributions to *The New Yorker* at **Michael Maslin’s** *New Yorker* treasure trove **Ink Spill.**

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From Our Advertisers

Apparently business was booming at Forstmann Woolens, who continued to post these stylish ads in the opening pages of The New Yorker—note Midtown’s 1927-29 New York Central Building (now Helmsley Building) that served as a gateway to Grand Central…

…who knew that one could be so stylish while drinking a glass of tomato juice?…

…the Capehart Automatic Phonograph Company produced a radio-phonograph that could automatically flip records to play both sides—this particular model could play up to twenty records in succession…

QUITE THE GIZMO…Restoration of a Capehart 405E. These units were not cheap, selling for the equivalent of $30k or more today. (forum.antiquephono.org)

…Warner Brothers took out a full-page ad to announce the world premiere of A Midsummer Night’s Dream…the lavish, star-studded production featured, among others, James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, Dick Powell, Anita Louise and Mickey Rooney…

AN ACQUIRED TASTE...Anita Louise as Titania, Queen of the Fairies, and **James Cagney** as Bottom, the Weaver, in the 1935 film production of Shakespeare’s *A Midsummer Night’s Dream*. The film failed at the box office with mixed reviews, however it won two Academy Awards—Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing, and it was nominated for Best Picture. Today the film gets mostly good reviews. (www.academymuseum.org)

…Stage magazine also took out a full-page ad to trumpet its own star-studded lineup, including contributions by James Thurber, Peggy Bacon and Abe Birnbaum…

…Mrs. Chiswell Dabney Langhorne, nee Caryetta Davis Saunders (1899-1971), was the latest society maven to encourage women smokers to enjoy the unfiltered pleasures of Camel cigarettes…

…on to our cartoonists, George Price and Maurice Freed got things rolling with these spot drawings…

…Carl Rose mixed the old with the new on moving day…

…Barney Tobey showed us how the posh travelled to school…

…George Price again, here demonstrating the joys of moneyed eccentricity…

…Richard Decker explored the origins of art criticism…

…Mary Petty offered some durable fashion advice…

…and we close with Peter Arno, finding sudden inspiration in a Pink Lady cocktail…

Next Time: A Merry Menagerie…

The Lighter Side of George Grosz

Above: Landscape in Bayside, 1935, by George Grosz (Phillips Collection)

Knowing that the Nazis would not look kindly on his art, George Grosz took a job teaching drawing in New York in 1932, and by 1933 he had become a permanent resident of the city.

March 30, 1935 cover by **Garrett Price** celebrated the traditional “Bock” beer of spring.

Grosz (1893–1959) was overwhelmed by the size and pace of his adopted city, and for the most part he left behind his bitter caricatures and paintings of Berlin’s Weimar years and turned to other subjects, including landscapes and New York’s urban life. Critic Lewis Mumford took in a show of Grosz’s new water colors at An American Place, a small gallery run by photographer and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz.

THE NEW OBJECTIVITY…**George Grosz** (left, circa 1921), was not alone in his harsh depictions of war and of German society during the Weimar Republic. Other key figures in the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) movement included **Max Beckmann** and **Otto Dix** (right, circa 1929). Dix’s oil on canvas *War Cripples (Kriegskrüppel),* 1920, which is pictured above, was exhibited at the First International Dada Fair in Berlin in 1920. Only black and white images exist of the painting, which is believed to have been destroyed by Nazis who condemned it as degenerate art. (Wikimedia Commons/CUNY)

OH THE HUMANITY…Three selections from the “Ecco Homo” series by George Grosz. From left, *Gruß aus Sachsen (Greetings from Saxony)* 1920; *Nachts, (At Night)* 1919; and *Schwere Zeiten (Hard Times)* 1919. Grosz took a dim view of the corruption and moral decline he found in Weimar Berlin. (MoMA)

SEEING RED…Detail from **George Grosz’s** *Metropolis,* Oil on Canvas, 1916-1917. A blood-like shade of red could be seen in many of the artist’s paintings during World War I and the Weimar Republic. In this painting and in others, death is omnipresent. (Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid)

A SOFTER SIDE could be found in **George Grosz’s** later watercolors, although he hadn’t entirely lost his sense of the satirical, or his taste for red paint. From left, *Street in Harlem,* circa mid-1930s; *Ehepaar* (A Married Couple), 1930; *Central Park at Night*, 1936. (Phillips Collection/Tate Gallery/Art Institute Chicago)

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Not the Bee’s Knees

For all the progressive thinking that was on display in the early New Yorker, we also reminded that it was also a creature of its time in 1935. Here are excerpts from a lengthy “Talk of the Town” entry that described the sad winnowing process of Broadway revue producer Earl Carroll…

JUDGEMENT DAY…Here is a screenshot from a short film featuring the 1935 audition described in the “Talk” segment. At left is Earl Carroll. You can watch the film **here.** (YouTube)

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Too Little For Too Much

Film critic John Mosher gave Alfred Hitchcock’s 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much just five lines in his review. He described it as “one of those preposterous adventure stories which Englishmen are always writing…” The film, however, was an international success, and it would define the rest of Hitchcock’s career as a director of thrillers with a unique sense of humor.

A HAPPY, CAREFREE HOUR is how critic John Mosher described his experience watching 1934’s The Man Who Knew Too Much. Clockwise, from top right, director **Alfred Hitchcock** with the film’s German star, **Peter Lorre**, who learned his part phonetically; Lorre and **Cicely Oates**; **Edna Best** did her best at playing a grieving mother. The film was remade by Paramount in 1956, starring James Stewart and **Doris Day.** (Wikipedia/aurorasginjoint.com/IMDB)

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Dizzy Nor Dazzled

In 1935 Lois Long had been divorced from cartoonist Peter Arno for about four years, and she was the mother of six-year-old daughter from that marriage. That didn’t keep her from sampling the city’s night life, but the days of speakeasies and drinking sessions that lasted into the wee hours were over for the 34-year-old Long. For her “Tables for Two” column she took the elevator up to the 65th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza to take in the entertainment at the Rainbow Room…as well as the pedestrian crowd…

WHAT A WHIRL…Above, diners watch a performance by ballroom dancers **Lydia and Joresco** in the then newly opened Rainbow Room in 1934. **Lois Long** enjoyed the Rainbow Room in its 1930s heyday, but she missed her old speakeasy crowd, noting that the Rainbow Room’s customers weren’t “dizzy enough” to suit her tastes. (Rockefeller Center Archives)

…her speakeasy days were over, but it appears Long still enjoyed a bit of indulgence…here is how she concluded her column:

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From Our Advertisers

Step into a crowded mid-century elevator and you were bound to catch a whiff of the menthol-tinged scent of Aqua Velva, not objectionable if properly applied…

…speaking of menthol, the makers of Spud cigarettes were now competing with upstart menthol cigarette makers including Kool…this ad has all kinds of problems, including the suggestion that the occasional Spud not only inspires one’s nuptials, but also ensures marital bliss, as well as a lifetime of chain-smoking…

…Luckies, on the other hand, continued to appeal to the modern woman, and what impressionable young woman wouldn’t be inclined to pick up the habit to complete her ensemble?…

…the makers of College Inn tomato juice gave their raving Duchess the week off, but we get another old sourpuss in the form of a “Dowager” who demands that her servant remove a glass of what very well could have been tomato juice…enter the old bat’s niece, Dorothea, who suggests that the cook, Clementina, serve some Libby’s pineapple juice instead, probably spiked with vodka given the Dowager’s sudden change of demeanor…

…Essex House continued their class-ridden ad campaign, this time with some stuff-shirt dreading his world cruise

…carmakers continued to emphasize economy and price to move their latest models, including the 1935 Nash with “Aeroform Design”…

…last week I noted that Packard was doubling down on promoting the elite status of its premium automobile; however, the carmaker did introduce a “120” that cost a fraction of its luxury models and helped the company’s bottom line…

…Packard’s competition was Lincoln and Cadillac, among other luxury brands, but Pierce Arrow represented the pinnacle of luxury and craftsmanship, the American equivalent of Rolls Royce…unlike the other luxury brands, Pierce Arrow did not offer a lower-priced car, and the company folded it 1938…

…speaking of luxury cars, if you owned a Lincoln, this little ad tucked into the top corner of page 55 showed you were to go to get a tune-up…

…the publishers at Street & Smith announced the launch of a new fashion magazine, Mademoiselle, a seemingly daring move in Depression America…the cover featured an illustration by Melisse (aka Mildred Oppenheim Melisse)…the magazine was later acquired by Condé Nast, and folded in November 2001…

**Mildred Oppenheim Melisse’s** cover for the debut issue of *Mademoiselle,* April 1935. Melisse also supplied the cover art for the May and June issues that year. (Pinterest)

…Otto Soglow was on his way to becoming a wealthy man thanks to his “Little King” cartoon…William Randolph Hearst lured Soglow and the cartoon away from The New Yorker in 1934, so the only way the wee potentate could appear in the magazine was in an ad, like this one for Bloomingdale’s…

…Soglow continued to contribute to The New Yorker, and we kick off our cartoons with an April Fool’s joke…

…for the second week in a row Maurice Freed supplied the opening spot art for “Goings On About Town”…

…Helen Hokinson was on the hunt for some predatory fish…

…James Thurber looked in on the nudist fad that emerged in the 1930s…

…and we close with George Price, an some alarming bedside manners…

Next Time: Keep Calm and Carry On…

Something Frivolous

And what can be more frivolous than a Busby Berkeley musical, with scores of leggy showgirls tap-dancing in perfect rhythm, or dressed in identical white gowns while playing flying pianos. Make sense? No, and that was the whole point.

March 23, 1935 cover by Peter Arno. The color, contrast and composition are striking; it looks more like a cover from the 50s or 60s.

“In an era of breadlines, depression and wars, I tried to help people get away from all the misery…” Berkeley once remarked. “I wanted to make people happy, if only for an hour.” Gold Diggers of 1935 was Berkeley’s second “Gold Digger” picture (he choreographed or directed four; there were six in all, including one silent), and it was the first in which he served as sole director. Critic John Mosher didn’t know what to make of the film, likening it more to an earthquake than an entertainment.

SOMEONE HAS TO DO IT…**Busby Berkeley** (1895-1976) works with dancers (left) during the production of 1933’s *42nd Street*; right, at work on one of his lavish sets, circa 1930s. (IMDB)

The “harmless jingle” Mosher referred to, Harry Warren and Al Dubin’s “Lullaby of Broadway,” received an Oscar for Best Original Song (it also gave me an earworm for a week).

GOLDEN GIRLS…Clockwise, from top left, **Alice Brady** as the parsimonious Matilda Prentiss and Adolphe Menjou as the conniving Russian dance director Nicolai Nicoleff in *Gold Diggers of 1935*; a scene from the dancing pianos sequence; **Dick Powell** and Gloria Stuart as the film’s sweethearts. (Wikipedia/YouTube/IMDB)

Amid the frivolity, Mosher noted the juxtaposition of the jingly “Lullaby of Broadway” with the haunting, two-minute sequence of Wini Shaw singing “Lullaby” as her disembodied face emerges from the blackness toward the viewer.

The scene continues as the woman (Shaw) turns onto her back, her head slowly dissolving into the nighttime city…after a raucous, mass tap-dancing scene, she falls to her death, and the sequence is reversed, her face disappearing into the blackness. The blog Acidemic gives an interesting take on this part of the film, which is more reminiscent of a German avant-garde film than Berkeley’s usual fare…

…Mosher found the scene “terrifying.” Perhaps Shirley Temple helped calm his nerves with her precocious antics in The Little Colonel…

NO FLOATING HEADS HERE…**Shirley Temple** and **Bill Robinson** doing the famous staircase dance in *The Little Colonel* (1935). (TCM)

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Up In Smoke

In “Notes and Comment” E.B. White considered the possibility that cigarette smoking might be harmful to unborn babies, and wryly suggested that embryos could replace grandmothers as a new growth market for big tobacco:

…White referred to the advertisement below, which appeared in the Feb. 9, 1935 issue of The New Yorker:

…White also commented on his recent visit to Madison Square Garden’s winter skating carnival…

THE DOUBLE AXEL was still thirteen years in the future when Swedish skaters **Gillis Emanuel Grafström** (left) and Vivi-Anne Hultén delighted E.B. White at Madison Square Garden. Photos are from 1924 and 1932, respectively. (Wikipedia)

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Prescience of Mind

We have more from E.B. White, this time in a humorous piece titled “The Dove’s Nest,” in which White took a poke at the most influential newspaper editor in the country, Arthur Brisbane. A close friend of William Randolph Hearst, Brisbane essentially ran Hearst’s newspaper empire. The New Yorker often ridiculed Hearst’s (and Brisbane’s) jingoistic approach to the news that included giant headlines warning of war. Excerpts:

William A. Swanberg, author of the 1961 biography Citizen Hearst, described Brisbane as “a one-time socialist who had drifted pleasantly into the profit system…in some respects a vest-pocket Hearst–a personal enigma, a workhorse, a madman for circulation, a liberal who had grown conservative, an investor.”

DAMN THOSE TORPEDOES…**Arthur Brisbane** in 1933. His grandson, **Arthur S. Brisbane,** now retired, served as public editor of *The New York Times* from 2010 to 2012. (credo.library.umass.edu)

The New Yorker continued to take jabs at Brisbane in the following issue (March 30). Brisbane owned a large estate (including a horse farm) in New Jersey that he made available to New Deal work programs during the Depression. I suppose this Al Frueh cartoon was some kind of reference to that…

…also in the March 30 issue was this ad from World Peaceways, which raised alarms about possible war and bombs raining down from the sky…

…back to the March 23 issue, where we find the calming strains of a Brahms concerto at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Arturo Toscanini with some support from his son-in-law, Vladimir Horowitz…

MAY I CALL YOU DAD?…Not likely something said by young **Vladimir Horowitz,** left, to father-in-law **Arturo Toscanini**. (WQXR/Britannica)

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From Our Advertisers

Beginning in 1934 the makers of Old Gold cigarettes hired pin-up artist George Petty to create a series of ads featuring a homely, clueless sugar daddy and his leggy mistress…here he turns the tables, introducing a “Pudgy Wudgy” matron putting the moves on a handsome hosiery salesman…

…this Petty ad appeared in the Feb. 9, 1935 issue of The New Yorker…

…the makers of Camels continued their campaign of “distinguished women” who enjoyed their product…here we have a former debutante, Dorothy Paine, an “alert young member of New York’s inner circle.” Not much of a record of Dorothy, who married a man named Walter H. Sterling in 1935…apparently they moved to Phoenix and bought up property in the Southwest…

…the makers of General Tire offered this grim assessment of tire safety…the lad seems to be a mere investment of time…

…although prestige brands suffered mightily during the Depression, the folks at Packard were doubling down on the elite status of their automobile…

…we’ve seen the work of fashion illustrator Ruth Sigrid Grafstrom before in ads for Spud cigarettes…here she contributes some elegant lines to a spot for Bergdorf Goodman (is the woman on the right smoking a Spud?)…

…here’s the Duchess again, still blowing her top over College Inn tomato juice…just look at her clenched fists…that fop with a monocle looks like he just took a left hook to the chops…

…on to our illustrators, William Cotton created this caricature of Rexford Guy Tugwell for Russell Lord’s two-part profile…Tugwell and President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Resettlement Administration, which relocated rural unemployed to “Greenbelt Cities” near urban job markets. Critics called him “Rex the Red” for his social engineering experiments, and after he was forced out of federal government, Tugwell was appointed in 1938 as the first director of the NYC Planning Commission. Naturally, he would butt heads with Robert Moses…