It’s hard to fathom that a woman wearing trousers used to cause such a stir, but for international film star Marlene Dietrich it was an opportunity for the publicity that invariably came with defying the norms of fashion and sexuality in 1930s.
In May 1933 Dietrich was headed to Paris on a steamer, relaxing on the deck in a white pantsuit. Prior to her arrival, the Paris chief of police announced she would be arrested if she showed up in pants. However when Dietrich arrived at the Gare Saint Lazare wearing a man’s suit and overcoat, she stepped off the train, grabbed the chief of police by his arm, and walked him off the platform.
The New Yorker’s Janet Flanner reported on Dietrich’s comings and goings in her regular column “Letter From Paris”…
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Bullish On Office Space
Despite the Depression, millions of square feet of office space were being added to the massive Rockefeller Center complex, including the Palazzo d’Italia at 626 Fifth Avenue. “The Talk of the Town” reported:
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Urban Jungle
Astoria Studios in Queens was built in 1920 for Famous Players-Lasky and is still home to New York City’s only studio backlot. In 1933 it served as a tropical setting for The Emperor Jones, featuring Paul Robeson in the title role. “The Talk of the Town” looked in on the movie’s faux jungle:
Loosely based on a Eugene O’Neill play and financed with private money, the film was made outside of the Hollywood studio system and distributed by United Artists.
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From Our Advertisers
Yes, it’s advertising so we don’t expect it to be realistic, but I can guarantee no one is going to look like that after a ride to the beach in a rumble seat…
…Hupmobile enlisted humorist Irvin S. Cobb to help boost its sagging sales…
…with the return of legal beer the makers of Budweiser struck a patriotic note in promoting their “King of Bottled Beer” to thirsty New Yorkers…
…the makers of Pabst Blue Ribbon claimed the title of “Best of the Better Beers” with this ad featuring a woman who appeared on the verge of going overboard…
…if beer wasn’t your thing, you could try your hand at mixing a “30-Second Highball” per this Prohibition-themed ad…
…delving into the back pages one finds all sorts of curiosities, including this mail-order “charm school” operated by Margery Wilson…
…Wilson (1896–1986) acted in numerous silent pictures (including the 1916 D. W. Griffith epic Intolerance) and in the early 1920s was a writer, director and producer…
…it must have been a hot summer in New York with the abundance of air-conditioner ads…here’s one from Frigidaire for a unit that despite its size (and enormous cost) could cool only one room…
…this next air-conditioner ad from G-E seems poorly conceived…you would think an air-conditioned office would make the boss and his secretary a bit happier than they appear here…maybe they just got the bill from General Electric…
…we begin our cartoons with another pair of sourpusses, courtesy Mary Petty…
…George Price offered up this bit of art for the opening pages…
…William Steig headed to the country to escape summer in the city…
…William Crawford Galbraith’s bathers kept cool by examining the flotsam from distant shores…
…Charles Addams explored various themes before he launched his “Addams Family” in 1938…
…and we move on to July 29 with a terrific cover by Barbara Shermund…
…in this issue Geoffrey T. Hellman penned a profile of Egyptologist Herbert E. Winlock, who made key discoveries about the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and served as director of the Metropolitan Museum from 1932 to 1939, where he was employed his entire career. Excerpt:
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Chilling With U.S. Grant
In those days before air-conditioning was widely available or used, “The Talk of the Town” dispatched an investigator to sample indoor temperatures at various public places, finding the coolest spot at Grant’s Tomb:
…Brubaker also shared this prescient observation from American astronomer Vesto Slipher…
…Slipher (1875–1969) would live long enough to confirm his statement…the first full-disk “true color” picture of the Earth was captured by a U.S. Department of Defense satellite in September 1967:
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More From Our Advertisers
This ad was on the inside front cover of the July 29 issue, a rather jarring image following that lovely Barbara Shermund cover…
…the hugely popular P.G. Wodehouse was back with more silly antics from the British upper classes…
…while some New Yorkers could take a break from their reading and hit the dance floor atop the Waldorf-Astoria…
…and tango to the stylings of bandleader Xavier Cugat…
…this ad for the French Line, illustrated by Ruth Sigrid Grafstrom, offered a precious scene of a page-boy lighting a woman’s cigarette, a sight unimaginable today for a number of reasons…
…and we close with a cartoon by Gardner Rea, doggone it…
Next Time: The Flying Season…
A New Yorker State of Mind 