One of Hollywood’s most famous motion pictures was a story about a giant ape that (literally) falls for a beautiful woman.
March 11, 1933 cover by Rea Irvin.
New Yorker film critic John Mosher found the premise of King Kong ridiculous, but he also found many of its scenes diverting, especially those featuring Kong and a number of prehistoric creatures (created by Marcel Delgado), miniature models brought to life through stop-motion animation techniques pioneered by Willis O’Brien and his assistant, Buzz Gibson. Mosher’s review:
THE TRIALS OF GIANT APEHOOD…King Kong battled nature and man in the eponymous 1933 film that featured a silly love story between actors Bruce Cabot and Fay Wray (lower right, with Robert Armstrong); this being a pre-Code film, Wray had trouble keeping on her blouse, although a scene depicting Kong undressing her and sniffing his fingers was cut, as were some of the more gruesome scenes featuring Kong stomping and chomping his way through Manhattan. (IMDB)
By today’s standards the film’s special effects are quite dated, but they astonished audiences in 1933 and again in a 1952 re-release.
NEW YORK OR BUST…A huge bust of King Kong’s head and torso was fashioned from wood, cloth, rubber and bearskin by Marcel Delgado, Buzz Gibson and Fred Reese. Three operators inside the bust used metal levers, hinges, and an air compressor to manipulate the mouth and facial expressions. In addition, two versions of the ape’s right arm were constructed of steel, rubber and bearskin — one was non-articulated, mounted on a crane, and the other had articulated fingers that allowed Kong to grasp Fay Wray in close-ups (below). A separate non-articulated leg was also mounted on a crane for scenes depicting Kong stomping on villagers. (reddit.com/Pinterest)
* * *
Oh Baby
Before child labor laws were finally enforced in the late 1930s, children were routinely exploited for profit, most famously the Dionne quintuplets by Dr. Allan Roy Defoe, not to mention the many child stars fed into the Hollywood meat grinder. For a public seeking novelty as a distraction from the Depression, there were also numerous “baby orchestras” organized by one Karl Moldrem. “The Talk of the Town” commented:
NURSERY SONGS…One of Karl Moldrem’s baby orchestras assembled in Southern California, 1931. (digitallibrary.usc.edu)
* * *
Edible Art
“The Talk of the Town” has always been a source for light anecdotes, including this brief account of a hungry Vanity Fair photographer:
Alexander Woollcott led his “Shouts and Murmurs” column with an account from a recent benefit performance, during which his friend Noël Coward decided to strike up a conversation regarding the survival of the stage in an era of talking films:
TALKING TALKIES… Noël Coward (left) voiced his concerns about the future of stage entertainment with Alexander Woollcott during a benefit performance likely held on behalf of the theatrical world. (npg.org)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
Ah, we begin with signs of spring, glimpsed beyond the gleaming cowl of a 12-cylinder Lincoln…
…and catch a whiff of that springtime breeze, savored between puffs of your Chesterfield…
…this guy has some spring in his step thanks to the sparkling water he just splashed into his bootleg gin…
…the folks at Dorothy Gray presented a nameless woman (“slim and straight as a gallant boy, yet feminine to her finger tips”) who was ready to greet spring until she saw those “little lines under her eyes”…the horror indeed…
…Coty again presented an attenuated trio in a sexless courtship dance, oozing with anglophilic longing…
…I include this ad solely for the terrific illustration by Mac Harshberger, famed for his elegant, simplified line…
…and a couple of back pagers…thanks to Sonotone, the deafened shall not only hear but will also be stricken by a sudden voiding of the bowels…and below, a surprising ad from the Plaza, one place I never thought would need to advertise…but those were tough times…
…and on to our cartoons, and this spot drawing from Peggy Bacon, whom we haven’t seen in awhile…
…Gilbert Bundy took us to a sanctuary of song…
…another day with our fellow citizens, and Gluyas Williams…
…one from E. Simms Campbell…
…who was the first Black cartoonist published in nationally distributed, “slick” magazines…
…and also the creator of Esky, the pop-eyed mascot of Esquire magazine…
…Carl Rose gave us a night at the opera in this two-page cartoon with the Depression-inspired caption: The artists will now pass among you. Anything you can give will be greatly appreciated….
…and James Thurber returned to the nudist colony for another look at the age-old struggle between the sexes…
“Nobody said not to go” was a phrase often used by Emily “Mickey” Hahn when returning from one of her far-flung and often wild adventures.
Feb. 4, 1933 cover by Rea Irvin.
And nobody ever told Hahn (1905–1997) what she could write about, and so she wrote, with brio and authority, on a variety of subjects ranging from feminism, diamond mining, and animal behavior to Chinese history and cooking. The author of 54 books, Hahn also penned a number of biographies including those of Leonardo da Vinci, Chiang Kai-shek, and D. H. Lawrence among others. In the Feb. 4 issue Hahn wrote about spending the night at a New York flophouse, not out of necessity but rather to write about the experience. Excerpts:
NO RITZ, THIS…Entrance to a flophouse in the Bowery, photo by Walker Evans, 1934.
In the following two excerpts, Hahn described her sleepless night, and her exit from the flophouse the following morning…
More on Emily Hahn, who defied convention from the very start of her adult life: before graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1926 (the first woman to earn a degree in mining engineering there), she drove across the U.S. in a Model T, dressed a man. She wrote about her experiences in letters to her brother-in-law who, unbeknownst to Hahn, shared them with New Yorker editors. This would lead to a longtime relationship with the magazine, to which she would contribute nearly 200 articles (and one poem) between 1929 and 1996. She would also serve as China correspondent from 1935 to 1943.
In 1930 she traveled to the Belgian Congo, where she lived for two years with a pygmy tribe while working for the Red Cross; she later crossed Central Africa alone on foot. In his 2006 memoir, Let Me Finish, Roger Angell described Hahn as the magazine’s “Belle Geste,” a woman “deeply, almost domestically, at home in the world. Driven by curiosity and energy, she went there and did that, and then wrote about it without fuss.”
AT HOME IN THE WORLD…Clockwise, from top left, Emily “Mickey” Hahn poses with her pet gibbon, Mr. Mills, in Shanghai, circa 1935; undated photo with more of her furry friends; Hahn as a teenager, circa 1920; cover photo from her 1944 book, China to Me; Hahn in 1944 with her daughter Carola, following their return from occupied China. (Wikipedia/Lilly Library, Indiana U)
* * *
Chief Stooge
Theatrical promoter Alfred Cleveland Blumenthal (1885–1957) was well-known to New Yorkers in the 1920s and 30s as a speakeasy owner, buddy to Mayor Jimmy Walker and husband to actress Peggy Fears. Although “Blumey” is largely forgotten today, in 1933 he merited a two-part profile by Alva Johnston. Here are excerpts from the opening lines:
ONLY THE SHADOW KNOWS…A.C. “Blumey” Blumenthal (at left in the light suit) was often seen shadowing Mayor Jimmy Walker in his role as chief counselor and chief stooge. Here the mayor is escorted by Blumey and New York’s finest during corruption hearings in 1931. At right, Blumey’s wife Peggy Fears (1903–1994) in her most notable film role, 1935’s The Lottery Lover. Their tempestuous marriage lasted from 1927 to 1950. (avenuemagazine.com)
* * *
Coward’s Ménage
Playwright Noel Coward existed in the orbit of the Algonquin Round Table crowd, so it was doubtless challenging for Robert Benchley to critically review his friend’s work. Fortunately, Benchley found Design For Living mostly to his liking. Note how Benchley subtly refers to the play’s gay subtext, and to the fact that it mirrored the real-life relationships of the play’s trio.
THREE’S COMPANY…A studio in Paris. A penthouse in New York. A flat in London. These were the settings for Noël Coward’s play Design for Living at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, which starred the wife-husband team Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt and their close friend Coward in a Broadway run of 135 performances from January to May 1933. (Vandamm theatrical photos via wisc.edu)
Benchley did have a few quibbles, but reasoned there was no need to be overly critical when there was such a dearth of quality stage entertainment. Note the great caricatures by Al Frueh (below) that accompanied the review.
Benchley had a different sort of dilemma criticizing Elmer Rice’s earnestly patriotic We, the People, a play about the misfortunes of a working class family in Depression America.
Rice, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1929, was an occasional contributor to The New Yorker from 1929 to 1931, including his sci-fi satire on the film industry, Voyage to Purila, which was serialized in 11 installments (with illustrations by Peter Arno) in The New Yorker from Oct. 12 to Dec. 21, 1929.
LET’S MAKE A MOVIE…Elmer Rice (standing) joins theatre producer Joseph P. Bickerton, Jr. (left), and Universal’s Carl Laemmle Jr. to sign a contract for the film version of Rice’s 1931 Broadway play Counsellor at Law. The film proved to a critical success. (Wikipedia)
Meanwhile, film critic John Mosher was trying his best to enjoy the latest Hollywood fare, another Broadway play adapted to the silver screen. Whistling in the Dark…
MURDER MOST AMUSING…The 1933 American pre-Code comedy-mystery film Whistling in the Dark starred Ernest Truex and Una Merkel. (IMDB)
However, Mosher was surprisingly enthused by the rustic charms of Iowa country folk in State Fair…
THE TRIUMPH OF PRIZE PICKLES and other delights awaited viewers of 1933’s State Fair, which gave star billing to Will Rogers and Janet Gaynor. At right, Lew Ayres sweet-talks Gaynor at the fairgrounds. (IMDB)
* * *
Form Follows Function
E.B. White paid close attention to all of the little details of daily life, including the advertisements that appeared in The New Yorker. In “The Talk of the Town” he wrote about a Camel ad that inspired a sudden fashion trend:
…here is the Dec. 24, 1932 New Yorker ad to which White referred:
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We keep our cigs lit for our first ad, from Lucky Strike, keeping it simple with their familiar slogan…
…this ad from Powers Reproduction shows us the beach caps that were all the rage in the early ’30s…
…this may look like an old car to modern eyes, but in 1933 these sweeping curves were la dernière mode in the auto world…
…and then there was Hupmobile, trying its best to stay relevant in the Depression…
…the company folded in 1939, but a few reminders live on…
HUP HUP HOORAY…The 1917 Hupmobile dealership at 25th and Farnam in Omaha, NE, was located along the old Lincoln Highway and is the last preserved Hupmobile dealership in the United States. On the National Register since 2014, it now houses apartments. (Flickr)
…Valentine’s Day was just around the corner, so time to buy your sweetheart something special, like this scarf that was all the rage among the Miami snowbirds…
…Greenwich Village restaurateur and personality Don Dickerman took out this two-page ad to trumpet his partnership with puppeteer and illustrator Tony Sarg at the Bohemia restaurant on Broadway…
…the German-American Sarg is also known as the creator, in 1927, of the first giant balloons for Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade…
THE OLD GASBAG…Tony Sarg (upper right hand corner) and assistants painting one of his Macy’s parade balloons. (Fotograms News Photo Service via Pinterest)
…on to our cartoons, and what a big day for The New Yorker…the Feb. 4, 1933 issue featured the first captioned cartoon by Charles Addams…
…for the record, Addams’s very first contribution to the magazine was this spot illustration (below) featured on page 65 of the Feb. 6, 1932 issue…
…one of the original contributing artists to The New Yorker,Gardner Rea, continued his skewering of America’s plutocrats…
…William Steig took us before the bench to make an honest plea…
…James Thurber gave us another skirmish between the sexes…
…and recalling my Jan. 12 post (about the Jan. 7, 1933 issue), in which the puritans got their knickers in a bunch over Robert Laurent’sGoose Girl sculpture in the Radio City Music Hall lobby…
…we end with Helen Hokinson, inspired by Laurent’s work…
In the span of 112 minutes, the much-anticipated Fox production Cavalcade took movie audiences through the first 30 years of the 20th century.
Jan. 14, 1933 cover by Peter Arno.
Anticipating Upstairs, Downstairs (1971) and the more recent Downton Abbey, Cavalcade looked at life through the eyes of upper class Londoners — Jane and Robert Marryot, their children and close friends — and the Marryot’s servants. It was a calamitous ride that included both the Boer War and World War I among other historic events. Critic John Mosher thought it a memorable picture despite its mawkishness.
IT’S A SCARY WORLD OUT THERE…This Fox theater card promised audiences epic thrills with a cast of thousands. (IMDB)AGING GRACEFULLY…Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook portrayed upper class Londoners Jane and Robert Marryot through three tumultuous decades in Cavalcade. (IMDB)
The first decades of the 20th century would claim the lives of both Marryot sons — Joe would perish in World War I, and Edward would make the unfortunate decision to take his bride on a honeymoon cruise…
ONE-WAY TICKET…Edward Marryot (John Warburton) and his childhood sweetheart Edith Harris (Margaret Lindsay) are thrilled to be celebrating their honeymoon on a “big boat.” When the couple walk away from the railing, the opposite side of the life preserver is revealed in a dramatic camera shot.
After World War I the film hastily moved on to the Jazz Age, where the social order was going to hell…
CRY WOLF…A creepy older dude puts the moves on a young blonde (portrayed by Betty Grable in an uncredited role) during a Jazz Age scene of a wild party that included glimpses of flirting gay couples. Cavalcade was one of the first films to use the words “damn” and “hell.” (IMDB)
Cavalcade is considered by some critics to be one of the worst films to receive an Academy Award (it actually won three — Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Art Direction). If you are interested in learning more about Cavalcade or about pre-Code films in general, visit the excellent pre-code.com website.
* * *
Sad Songs
George White was famed for his lavish Scandals revues, especially during the Roaring Twenties — leggy showgirls and wisecracking comedians shared the stage with some of the era’s top singers and dancers. White’s Music Hall Varieties seemed to have all of the same elements as his Scandals, but something seemed amiss to Robert Benchley — an unnamed sadness that he chalked up to those depressing times:
THE SHOW MUST GO ON…Even during the Depression George White did what he could to keep the old Roaring Twenties spark alive. Clockwise from top left: White auditioning dancers for his Scandals;Bert Lahr preparing for a stage show in the 1930s (Lahr’s son, John, would later become the New Yorker drama critic); the Howard Brothers, Eugene and Willie, in 1936; and a young Eleanor Powell ready to do some toe-tapping circa 1932. (PBS/NYPL/Wikipedia)
* * *
Journey of the Mind
Louise Bogan (1897–1970) was poetry editor at the New Yorker for nearly 40 years (1931–1970) and in 1945 was the first woman to be appointed Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress. For the Jan. 14 issue she wrote “Journey Around My Room,” which begins with her recollection of a childhood train ride. Here are some excerpts:
POET LAUREATE…Louise Bogan in 1937. She was poetry editor at the New Yorker for nearly 40 years and was named U.S. Poet Laureate in 1945. (Library of Congress)
* * *
Silent Cal Silenced
Many folks were surprised by the sudden passing of former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge. He was just 60 when he succumbed to coronary thrombosis at his Northampton home, “The Beeches.” During the New Yorker’s first years Coolidge was the butt of many jokes…beginning with this Miguel Covarrubias cartoon in the magazine’s fourth issue (March 14, 1925)…
E.B. White offered this eulogy of sorts…
THRIFTY IDYLL…Calvin and Grace Coolidge outside their newly acquired home, “The Beeches,” Northampton, summer 1930. (Leslie Jones Collection)
…and mused about the state of politics in 1933, proving that some things never change…
Last time we learned Lewis Mumford’s views about the new artwork displayed in the RKO Roxy Theatre and in Radio City Music Hall. In the Jan. 14 issue he turned his attentions to the actual buildings, giving them an average grade and preferring the Music Hall over the Roxy (he disliked the oversized chandelier/electrolier). Mumford was decidedly not a fan of the Rockefeller Center development, evident in his closing lines:
SHOWPLACES…Lewis Mumford gave Radio City Music Hall (top) and the RKO Roxy some muted nods, but found the Roxy’s electrolier distracting.
* * *
Parting Thoughts
Alexander Woollcott shared some final recollections of his visit to Moscow, in which he likens the Russians’ freedom under Josef Stalin to the freedom of a spirited schoolboy who desires to sit in the back of the classroom…
* * *
From Our Advertisers
Bonwit Teller employed some modern typesetting, wryly using the word DULL — offset in large san-serif letters — to draw attention to their “Chardonize” fabric, which was essentially artificial silk…
…nothing subtle about this next advertisement…don one of these bathing suits and millionaires will bow before you, or rather, to borrow this ad’s odd metaphor, “fall like wheat before locusts”…
…we get a similar but far more muted pitch from Coty…so does this mean one out of every six desirable bachelors want to be seen with her? Not exactly knocking them down like locusts…
…now here’s a couple of self-assured souls who are neither troubled by hungry locusts nor face powders…they own a Cadillac, and wow, that is really quite the automobile, not like the Caddies you see today that are half-plastic and blend in with the rest of the shapeless blobs we call cars these days…
…the folks who pushed Chesterfield cigarettes were back with another ad aimed at their fastest growing demographic…note the sly reference to women’s suffrage…but that’s not why this woman smokes; she smokes because it gives her pleasure, and come to think of it, why should men have all the fun?…
…the Cunard Line suggested that you might run into some big-time celebrities on one of their ships, including actress Norma Shearer and banker/arts patron Otto Kahn (bottom of left-land page); or on the opposite page Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne among others…
…by contrast, the French Line employed the artistry of James Thurber to entice travelers onto the high seas…
…which gives us a nice segue into our cartoons, beginning with this spot by Thurber referencing the National Auto Show…
…Al Frueh offered up another of his famed sequential works…
…Gardner Rea with his usual perspective on the absurd…
…Douglas Ryan plied the familiar waters of the harem trope…
…and Robert Day showed us that even the smallest consolation can still satisfy…
Two weeks had passed since the “Black Tuesday” collapse of share prices on the New York Stock Exchange, but the New Yorker went about business as usual, E.B. White opening his “Notes and Comment” with a complaint — not about the economy — but about a marketing ploy that had New York University shilling magazines on behalf of Funk & Wagnalls.
Nov. 16, 1929 cover by Peter Arno. No doubt Arno drew inspiration from his own domestic situation (with wife and New Yorker columnist Lois Long and their infant daughter Patricia Arno).
White mocked the contents of a letter from NYU that promised a “free” education to subscribers of Funk & Wagnalls’ middlebrow Literary Digest.
EASY-CHAIR EDUCATION…Founded in 1890 by Isaac Funk (of Funk & Wagnalls fame), the Literary Digest offered readers condensed articles from various American and European publications. The weekly magazine surpassed the one million circulation mark in 1927, but declined precipitously in 1936 after its famed (and usually reliable) presidential poll picked Alf Landon over FDR. It folded in 1938. (Pinterest)
White detailed how NYU’s director of public information promised untold riches to potential Literary Digest subscribers…
YOU CAN BE FAMOUS, FOR JUST PENNIES A DAY…E.B. White mocked an NYU letter that promoted its “hook-up” with the Literary Digest, wryly suggesting that recognition in NYU’s Hall of Fame for Great Americans was within reach of magazine subscribers. The photo above (circa 1935) shows the Hall of Fame’s colonnade, which half-encircled the university library (both designed by Stanford White) and housed 98 bronze busts. A financially strapped NYU sold its University Heights Campus, along with the Hall of Fame and library, to the City University of New York in 1973. (WPA photo via boweryboyshistory.com)
…and the not so subtle revelation that the “free” education came with a price:
Here’s Julian De Miskey’s illustration that accompanied White’s “Notes”…
* * *
The Lighter Side of Bankruptcy
Evidence of the recent stock market crash was scant in the Nov. 16 issue, save for this blurb from Howard Brubaker…
…and this short piece by Margaret Fishback, who took a characteristically lighthearted approach to the devastating news:
Fishback (1900-1985), a widely published poet and prose author from the late 1920s to the 1960s, was also a successful advertising copywriter for Macy’s and a number of other companies.
A WAY WITH WORDS…Margaret Fishback wrote a number of poetry and prose books, including Safe Conduct: When to Behave–and Why, a book of etiquette illustrated by the New Yorker’sHelen Hokinson. During the 1930s Fishback was reputed to be the world’s highest-paid female advertising copywriter. (necessaryfiction.com/Wikipedia)
* * *
We Stand Corrected
A correction of sorts was offered by Robert Benchley (aka “Guy Fawkes”) regarding one of his recent “Wayward Press” columns, in which the fatal crash of famed aviator Wilmer Stultz’s stunt plane was misattributed to drunkenness:
Following the above intro, Benchley included this letter from a representative of the Roosevelt Flying Corporation, John McK. Stuart, in which Stuart explained the real reason for the pilot’s fatal crash, and the source of a vicious rumor:
The cause of the crash, as reported in the New York Times, was attributed to two young men who begged for a ride on Stultz’s stunt plane, a Waco Taperwing, in the early afternoon of July 1, 1929. An investigation of the wreckage found shoes from both passengers jammed under a bar connected to the rudder, rendering it inoperable. In his letter, Stuart explained:
Apparently Stultz’s passengers had braced themselves during stunt maneuvers by jamming their feet under the rudder bar. According to the Times, after a couple of rolling stunts the plane began to climb again from about 200 feet when it rotated nose down and plunged into the ground. Both passengers were killed instantly. Stultz died shortly thereafter at a Long Island hospital.
BRIEF FLIGHT THROUGH LIFE…Clockwise, from top left, Wilmer Stultz (1900-1929) in undated photo; coverage of the fatal crash in the July 2, 1929 New York Times; Stultz, Amelia Earhart, and Lou Gordon feted in front of City Hall, New York City, following their successful flight across the Atlantic in June 1928. Stultz was the pilot of the Fokker Trimotor “Friendship,” aboard which Earhart became the first woman passenger to cross the Atlantic by airplane. Gordon served as the flight’s on-board mechanic. (Boston Public Library/New York Times/Amazon)
* * *
Cowardly Attack
The acclaimed English playwright and composer Noël Coward was much beloved by the New Yorker, so it pained Robert Benchley to write an unflattering review of Coward’s operetta, Bitter Sweet:
IN THE SOPRANO KEY…British musical star Evelyn Laye (1900-1996) played the leading role of Sari in Noël Coward’s Broadway production of Bitter Sweet. (From The Bygone)
* * *
Hat Shop Heroine
Another operetta — Mlle. Modiste — was getting a Broadway revival at Jolson’s 59th Street Theatre. Its star, Fritzi Scheff (1879-1954), was the subject of a short profile penned by Alison Smith. The operetta, written expressly for Scheff, premiered on Broadway in 1905 at the Knickerbocker Theatre, and enjoyed many revivals. Smith found that after nearly 25 years, Scheff still embodied the role of the hat shop girl who dreamed of being an opera singer. An excerpt:
From left, Fritzi Scheff in Mlle. Modiste (1905); Al Frueh’s caricature of Scheff for the profile; Scheff circa 1910. (Wikipedia/IMDB)
* * *
Best of Both Worlds
Although the Gothic style was quickly falling out of fashion in the age of Art Deco, architecture critic George S. Chappell found much to admire in Schultze & Weaver’s new Hotel Lexington, part of the hotel construction boom in New York’s Midtown:
STILL ATTACHED TO THE EARTH…The Lexington today, now a Marriott property, at 511 Lexington Avenue and 48th Street. (ohrllc.com)
Chappell also admired the “smart” new Stewart Building, calling it the perfect setting for “feminine luxuries”…
Sadly, the Stewart Company folded just months after the opening of its new building, an early victim of the Depression. Bonwit Teller took over the building in 1930 and stayed until 1979. It was demolished in 1980 to make way for Trump Tower.
BYGONE ELEGANCE…Stewart and Company’s metal and ceramic 5th Avenue entrance, detail, 1929; Stewart Millinery Shop, 1929 (image from Vogue); detail from ornamental frieze above the 8th story, 1929. The building was demolished in 1980 to make way for Trump Tower. Neither the frieze nor the ornate ironwork were saved. (Museum of the City of New York/Vogue via drivingfordeco.com)
* * *
A Survivor’s Tale
The New Yorker hailed Soviet writer Valentine Kataev’s debut novel, The Embezzlers, as “the first hearty and sane laugh that has been heard over the noise of Russian propaganda.” Published in 1926 and translated into English in 1929, the novel was a satire of bureaucracy in the new Soviet state. Remarkably, Kataev (1897-1986) was able to write challenging, satirical works throughout his long life and career without running afoul of Soviet authorities, or falling victim to Stalin’s terror campaigns:
SATIRICAL SOVIET…Valentine Kataev circa 1930. His 1926 debut novel, The Embezzlers, was a satire of Soviet bureaucracy. (russkiymir.ru)
Another title receiving a favorable review, Is Sex Necessary? — a spoof of popular sex manuals and how-to books — was co-written by the New Yorker’sJames Thurber and E.B. White, with illustrations provided by Thurber.
HE CAN DRAW, TOO…Although James Thurber had yet to publish one of his drawings in the New Yorker, the book Is Sex Necessary? featured 42 of them, including the illustration at right that demonstrated the male greeting posture, and below, the posture of a man who could not discern the difference between love and passion. (brainpickings.org)
* * *
Old News
Writer (and later screenwriter) David Boehm temporarily took over the history column “That Was New York” from playwright Russell Crouse and contributed the first in a series of articles featuring clippings from 18th century newspapers (with illustration by Julian De Miskey):
* * *
From Our Advertisers
The Depression was coming, but you wouldn’t know it by the ads that appeared in the Nov. 16 issue, which featured the latest in resort wear, and holiday fashions for the maid…
…the Jay Thorpe store assumed some readers had $1,250 to spare for this coat and muff (equivalent to about $18,000 today), while Udall and Ballou jewelers offered a brooch for $9,000 (or nearly $130,000 today)…
…Saks offered a “simple little tailored bag” for $5, although the one pictured in the ad would set you back $500 ($7,200 today)…
…in this clever ad for Kayser silk hosiery, illustrator Ian Oliver drew a shelf from negative space to allow the model some room to lean…
…makers of the Ronson cigarette lighter found a new use for their product, adapting it to serve as a perfume atomizer…I wonder how many women accidentally lit their hair on fire, or took a shot of perfume to the eyes when they wished to have a smoke…
…while you had the lighter handy, you could light up an Old Gold, and thanks to the lack of truth-in-advertising standards, you could do it believing that you were also warding off a winter cold…
…from the back pages we have these gems from Brunswick records, and Reuben’s restaurant, which featured written testimonials from famous clientele including the “It Girl” actress Clara Bow, cartoonist Harry Hershfield, and playwright Noël Coward …
…Dr. Seuss offered his latest take on the uses of Flit insecticide, here sprayed directly into a user’s face for maximum benefit…
…our cartoons come courtesy of Gardner Rea, who looked in on an act of charity…
…Reginald Marsh illustrated a new use for broadcast radio…
…Barbara Shermund put the “idle” in “idle rich”…
…Garrett Price gave us this lovely illustration of a casual reader…
…and Helen Hokinson went shopping with one of her society women…
As I noted in my previous post, Prohibition never really caught on in New York City, and instead the law gave rise to thousands of the famed (or to some, infamous) speakeasies tucked away in the nooks and crannies of Jazz Age Manhattan.
Jan. 19, 1929 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
However, there were periodic attempts to reign in the city’s lawbreaking drinkers, including U.S. attorney Emory Buckner’s padlocking of speakeasies in the mid-1920s and New York Police Commissioner Grover Whalen’s strong-arm tactics in early 1929.
BOTTOMS UP!…New York speakeasy patrons in the 1920s. New York Police Commissioner Grover Whalen estimated there were 32,000 illegal speakeasies operating in the city in 1929. (boweryboyshistory.com)
The New Yorker took issue with Whalen’s attempt to enforce Prohibition at the end of a billy club (ironically, Whalen was appointed to the post by Mayor Jimmy Walker, who openly flaunted Prohibition). The magazine also attacked the New York Telegram for conspiring with Whalen to spread rumors among the public about poison alcohol being served in the city’s speakeasies. Research chemist Beverly L. Clarke took the Telegram to task in the New Yorker’s “A Reporter at Large” column:
IN YOUR CASE, I’LL MAKE AN EXCEPTION…New York Mayor Jimmy Walker swears in Grover Whalen as New York Police Commissioner in the fall of 1928. Whalen, a product of Tammany Hall, no doubt looked the other way when the mayor, another Tammany alum, openly violated Prohibition laws. (Getty)
There is also the oft-told account of the U.S. government adding poison to alcohol to discourage illegal consumption, but in truth the government never set out to poison anyone. Rather, it was continuing a practice used long before Prohibition to “denature” alcohol, usually by adding methyl alcohol (commonly referred to as “wood alcohol”) to grain alcohol to make it unfit for human consumption. According to Snopes, adding poison to alcohol was a way to exempt producers of alcohol used in paints and solvents from having to pay the taxes levied on potable spirits. Other denaturing agents were added to grain alcohol by mid-1927, including these listed in Clarke’s article:
ACETONE, WITH A MERCURY TWIST…An assortment of confiscated, adulterated spirits from the Prohibition era. (prohibition.themobmuseum.org)
Clarke not only accused the Telegram of spreading misinformation, but also of encouraging Whalen’s ruthless enforcement of Prohibition. Whalen was famously quoted as saying, “There is plenty of law at the end of a nightstick.” Clarke continued:
Clarke concluded that it was “patently unfair to discriminate” against the city’s speakeasies on the basis of “pseudo-scientific” evidence:
Illustration by Constantin Alajalov that accompanied Clarke’s article.
* * *
He Was No Coward
The Jan. 19 issue also featured a lengthy profile of Noël Coward, written by his longtime friend Alexander Woollcott, a critic and commentator for the New Yorker and a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table.
American illustrator and portrait painter Neysa McMein with friends Noël Coward (center) and Alexander Woollcott (right).(spartacus-educational.com)
Woollcott wrote of his friend’s work ethic while taking a wry shot at the New Yorker magazine’s early days:
Abe Birnbaum provided this sketch of Coward for the profile:
By 1929 Coward was one of the world’s highest-paid writers, but he did have his setbacks, as Woollcott noted:
Woollcott was referring to Coward’s 1927 play Sirocco, which depicted free love among the posh set and was greeted with loud disapproval in London. According to Dick Richards in his 1970 book, The Wit of Noël Coward, Coward later remarked that his “first instinct was to leave England immediately, but this seemed too craven a move, and also too gratifying to my enemies, whose numbers had by then swollen in our minds to practically the entire population of the British Isles.”
* * *
Par Avion
The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent, Janet Flanner, noted that 1929 would usher in a new era in French passenger air service:
Advances in aviation in 1929 were remarkable considering the Wright Brothers first flight occurred just a little more than 25 years earlier (for those of us in 2018 who can recall 1993, that isn’t a lot of time).
And although only the wealthy could afford to fly back then, it was definitely not for the faint of heart. According to an article by Georgia Diebelius for the Daily Mail, the engine noise could be deafening in the thinly-walled cabins (sometimes little more than painted canvas). The engines of a Ford Tri-Motor, for example, reached 120 decibels on take-off, just 40 decibels below the level that would result in permanent hearing loss. Diebelius writes that because of the noise level, flight attendants had to speak to their passengers through megaphones. As for the flight itself, planes would suddenly drop hundreds of feet at a time, causing passengers to make good use of air sickness bowls placed beneath their seats. Nevertheless, passenger travel increased from just 6,000 annually in 1930 to 1.2 million by 1938.
AND WE THINK WE HAVE IT ROUGH…London chorus girls help bring a French Air Union and Golden Ray (Rayon d’Or) passenger plane onto the tarmac at Croydon, England, in 1932, inaugurating the new summer service from London to Le Touquet. (Getty)ODD DUCK…This strange-looking Dyle et Bacalan DB 70 was also designed for French passenger service in 1929, but only one was built. The design was later adapted in the 1930s as a bomber. (Collection Hugues de Suremain)
* * *
Skin As Soft As An Armadillo’s
Sampling the advertisements from Jan. 19 we have this message from Amor Skin announcing a youth treatment utilizing something called dasypodine hormones. The term “dasypodine” refers to critters related to the armadillo, so one wonders what they putting on their faces. The armadillo is known carrier of leprosy, so I don’t think I’d be using this stuff, thank you very much…
…and I include this ad for Murad cigarettes because it features artwork by A. H. Fish, renowned for depictions of members of high society. She illustrated dozens of magazine covers for The Tatler and Vanity Fair as well as hundreds of inside and spot illustrations for Condé Nast…
…another cigarette brand, Lucky Strike, convinced American silent movie star Constance Talmadge to endorse their “toasted” smoke…
…and our final advertisement, from Pan American Airliners. Could you imagine an ad for an airline today depicting a man firing a rifle at one of their airplanes?
I include this comic by Alice Harvey for its reference to the song, “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby,” made popular by Broadway’s hit musical revue Blackbirds of 1928. The song continues to be recorded to this day, and was even included on a 2014 collaborative album, Cheek to Cheek, by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga.
And finally, a different perspective on Manhattan’s changing skyline, courtesy of Reginald Marsh:
From the 1920s to the 1950s the husband-wife acting team of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were the most celebrated couple on the Broadway stage, and even today many rank them as the greatest acting team in the history of American theatre.
April 28, 1928 cover by Julian de Miskey.
Lunt (1892-1977) and Fontanne (1887-1983) were so inseparable as a team that it was virtually impossible to write about just one of them, as Timothy Vane discovered when he contributed this profile of Lunt to the April 28, 1928 issue of the New Yorker:
INSEPARABLE…The Lunts in the 1920s, as photographed by Nickolas Muray. In 1999 the U.S. Postal Service paid tribute to them with a first- class stamp. (Conde Nast/USPS)
Vane described the couple’s tireless comings and goings, in which even a vacation abroad entailed preparations for future performances:
OLD FRIENDS…Noel Coward (left) Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in Coward’s 1932 play Design For Living. A close friend of Lunt and Fontanne, Coward enjoys a relaxing moment (right) at the couple’s “Ten Chimneys” estate in Lunt’s home state of Wisconsin. (Playbill/tenchimneys.org)IT REALLY HAS TEN CHIMNEYS…At left, the main house at Lunt and Fontanne’s “Ten Chimneys.” At right, the estate’s ‘Falu-Red’ Cottage. The estate was named a National Historic Landmark in 2003. (tenchimneys.org)
Although it was long rumored that Lunt and Fontanne had a lavender marriage, the couple were truly inseparable during their 55-year union.
According to the Ten Chimneys Foundation, by the mid 1920s Lunt and Fontanne were the two most popular, critically acclaimed, and highest-paid stage actors in the country. Lunt and Fontanne also believed that creating great theatre with broad impact was far more important than money, so at the height of their careers they took enormous pay cuts to sign on with The Theatre Guild—a new company dedicated to performing avant-garde work by writers such as Ibsen and Shaw. Because they took such large cuts in salary, they were able to stipulate in their contracts that they only act together, rather than in separate plays. From 1928 until they retired in 1960, the Lunts never appeared on stage separately.
And Then There Were Hearst & Davies
Another famed duo of the 1920s, Marion Davies (1897-1961) and William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951), were perhaps a less successful partnership, and particularly so for Davies, who traded a promising career as a comedic actress for a romantic (and scandalous) relationship with the famed newspaper tycoon.
Davies was emerging as a talented film comedian when Hearst took over her career—financing her films, promoting her through his media empire, and, most critically, pressuring studios to cast her in historical dramas which were not her forté. This is why she is remembered today as Hearst’s mistress and the hostess of lavish events for the Hollywood elite at San Simeon, and not for her acting chops, which were considerable when she was given the chance. When Hearst did allow her to show her comedic side in The Patsy, even the New Yorker’s irascible critic “O.C.” took notice and offered rare praise:
SHOWING HER FUN SIDE…Left, publicity photo of Marion Davies, late 1920s. At right, Patricia Harrington (Marion Davies) vies for the attentions of her mother, Ma Harrington (Marie Dressler) and sister Grace Harrington (Jane Winton) in King Vidor’s 1928 hit comedy The Patsy. The film was co-produced by William Randolph Hearst along with Davies and Vidor.(cinemaartscentre.org)
A 2012 review of The Patsy by the Cinema Arts Center (Long Island, NY), noted that “Davies radiates comic charm, highlighted by her dead-on impersonations of the three cinema divas, in this audience pleaser…Gloriously fun and frothy, The Patsy was the biggest hit of Davies’ career.”
One of the actresses parodied in The Patsy by Davies, Pola Negri, did not fare so well in O.C.’s crosshairs in her “stilted” Three Sinners.
PSSST…LIGHTEN UP, WILL YA?…Warner Baxter and Pola Negri in Three Sinners (1928). (Paramount)
* * *
Another Bad Girl
Not well known today, but after 1928 Viña Delmar (1903-1990) was practically a household name thanks to her breakthrough novel, Bad Girl, which she published at the tender age of 23. A cautionary tale about premarital sex and married life among the proles, the book was banned in Boston but was also the April 1928 selection by the Literary Guild. It was one the year’s best sellers.
On the heels of Bad Girl, in 1929 Delmar published two more books with risqué titles, Kept Woman and Loose Ladies. She would write a total of 23 novels between 1928 and 1976, and with her husband, Eugene, would write or adapt 18 plays that were produced as films. Among those was the screenplay to the acclaimed screwball comedy, The Awful Truth, for which she was nominated for a 1937 Academy Award.
BAD GIRL, GOOD SALES…Clockwise, from upper left: a screenshot of Delmar from the trailer for 1934’s Sadie McKee, a film starring Joan Crawford based on Delmar’s 1933 short story “Pretty Sadie McKee”; an ad for Bad Girl in the April 28, 1928 New Yorker; original jacket cover for Bad Girl; a 1930 advertisement for the film Dance Hall, based on a 1929 Delmar short story. (Wikipedia/New Yorker/Amazon/immortalephemera.com)
* * *
And finally, our cartoon from April 28, 1928, courtesy Peter Arno:
The writer Michael Arlen was back in pages of The New Yorker on the occasion of his second visit to the U.S. The magazine also heralded his first visit in March 1925, when he was liberally feted by various literary hangers-on and assorted socialites.
This time around Arlen was the guest of Charles Dillingham, “being at the moment deeply engaged in his host’s forthcoming presentation of Mr. Cyril Maude in “The Charming People.” And, between times, casting watchful eyes on “The Green Hat,” whose New York premiere next week comes just in the nick of time to save many of Mr. Arlen’s admirers from collapses fomented by anguished anticipation.”
With Arlen’s return, and with new works by the “youngster” Noel Coward (he was 26), ‘The Talk of the Town” noted that the fall theater season “will have a distinctly British flavor.”
The young Noel Coward. (Victoria & Albert Museum)
“Talk” called Coward “the rage of the London dramatic season,” in anticipation of his upcoming New York presentations:
Babe Ruth also returned to “Talk” with another tale of mischief:
It was also reported that Charlie Chaplin was still playing the melancholy, holed up in his room at the Ritz with his telephone disconnected:
French tennis star Rene Lacoste was the subject in “Profiles.” John Tunis wrote, “The French are supposed to be a volatile people. Rene Lacoste us about as volatile as Swiss cheese. His is the most perfect self-control imaginable; both on the court and off, his is the demeanor of a real champion…he will go a very long way.”
Rene Lacoste was one of “The Four Musketeers” with Jean Borotra, Jacques Brugnon, and Henri Cochet, French tennis stars who dominated the game in the 1920s and early 1930s. He won seven Grand Slam singles titles at the French, American, and British championships, and was the World’s No. 1 player for both 1926 and 1927. Today he is still known worldwide as the creator of the Lacoste tennis shirt, which he introduced in 1929. (Biography.com)
“Moving Pictures” announced the arrival of the German film Siegfried at the Century Theatre. An advertisement in the magazine proclaimed that a “Symphonic Orchestra of 60 musicians from the Metropolitan Opera Co. render a special score compiled with Wagner’s Immortal Music…”
Still from 1924’s Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (UFA)
In my last post I wrote about Raoul Fleischmann’s investment in The New Yorker, and how his initial $25,000 led to subsequent infusions of hundreds of thousands of dollars. No doubt in an effort to recoup some of his investment, he started placing these full-page ads in the magazine that promoted health benefits of consuming his company’s product: yeast.
A New Yorker State of Mind 