Not surprisingly, special effects were an important box office draw during the Silent Era. This article reports on the popularity of war movies in 1915 and explains how some of the effects were created.
The production of inaccurate war flicks with unlikely plots is a proud tradition that is alive and well in every film capitol around the globe and not likely to vanish any time soon. Today’s film critics seem to have a good deal more patience when reviewing the genre -as compared to the jaded, old ink-slinger who was charged with the task of summing up this silent film from 1918: On to Berlin.
The American-made war dramas must be giving the folks back home a swell idea of what The War isn’t like…William Fox is accused of producing On to Berlin
The Americans who fought in the Second World War had Bob Hope to entertain them, and their fathers who fought in the First had Elsie Janis (1889 – 1956). Like Hope, Janis traveled close to the front lines and told the troops jokes, and sang them songs – making it clear all the while that her sympathies and affections for the Doughboys were strong – and they, in turn, loved her right back. In the attached 1936 reminiscence Janis recalls some of her experiences from the six months in which she entertained the American Army in France; she also speaks of her roll entertaining the volunteer American Army of the 1930s, as well.
Although realist painter John Sloan (1871 – 1951) was one of the fortunate American painters to also be included in the 1913 Armory Show (he was also on the organizing committee), it did not mean that he was above ridiculing the European modernists who were enjoying the same prestige that he was.
To read an anti-Picasso review from that same period, click here.
Do you think your job is tough? Pity the pioneering gynecologists of the 16th Century…
An excellent cartoon that serves to illustrate the difficulty that the American suffragettes had to overcome in post World War I America. Following the demobilization of so many women who played vital roles during the course of the war, the next task at hand was to see to it that her fathers, brothers and uncles understood that these veterans of the war expected greater opportunity and would not reside gladly in the same world of low-expectations that saw them off at the docks in 1917
Eighty-three years ago, aircraft pilot Major Kurt Bilau (formerly of the Imperial German Air Corps) was intrigued by the abilities a properly designed propeller; he applied his curiosity to the design of a windmill in order to experiment with the possibility harnessing the power of the wind as a source of energy.
This magazine article briefly explains what a success that experiment was. Bilau’s aerodynamo was able to convert a sixteen-mile per/hour wind into an amount of energy that was measured at sixty horse power.
These days, the good works of Kurt Bilau are very actively being improved upon and his same theory is being adapted to harness the power of underwater sea currents.
Click here to read a 1947 article about the battle against air pollution.
Click here to read a 1951 article about America’s polluted rivers.
In 1918, the London-based American expatriot sculptor Jacob Epstein was living life to the fullest and enjoying all the benefits his talents had provided him. He had no intention of joining the army of his adopted country and had successfully avoided the draft since the outbreak of the war. However in 1918, conscription caught up with him. Epstein hated the idea of joining the colors, believing that the military would kill his creative soul, but this article puts a nice spin on all that.
Best known for his 1913 poem, Trees, Joyce Kilmer (1886 – 1918) served as a Sergeant in the 69th Infantry Regiment (Forty Second Division). On July 30, 1918, he took a German bullet in the head and was buried not far from where he fell.
This short piece reported of the despoiling of that grave by his fellow Americans.
A short list of the assorted difficulties that faced the Russians in the early Fifties, with two additional news paragraphs that told of additional setbacks on both sides of the iron curtain.
Three years into the Soviet experiment, the ruling Bolsheviks were finding it difficult to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the proletarian masses they so deeply loved (but refused to feed).
Additional magazine and newspaper articles about the Cold War may be read on this page.
The attached VANITY FAIR article announced that the numero uno society portrait painter of the Gilded Age, John Singer Sargent (1856 – 1925) was swearing-off portrait commissions in order to concentrate on water color. Little did he know that he would be back at it in a few years painting whole boat-loads of general officer portraits when he was named as one of the Official British War Artists.
Artist Gilbert Wilson conducted this interview with American socialist cartoonist Art Young (1866 – 1943) which appeared in DIRECTION MAGAZINE during the summer of 1938. In the fullness of time, Art Young has come to be recognized as something of a demi-god in the American poison pen pantheon of graphic satirists and no study of Twentieth Century political cartoons is complete without him:
Art Young has never adopted the policy of tearing into his foe (which is capitalism) with tooth and claw. It simply isn’t his way. He just isn’t capable of hating anyone or anything badly enough to get that angry.
Isn’t it rather the duty of a good radical, as Lenin said, ‘patiently to explain’?
In 1887 the NEW YORK TIMES reviewed the first english edition of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, click here to read it…
Among all the paintings on exhibition at the Paris Fall Salon, none is attracting so much attention as the extraordinary productions of the so-called ‘Cubist’ school. In fact, dispatches from Paris suggest that these works are easily the main feature of the exhibition.
The attached art review is a classic piece of anti-modernist criticism:
The intellectual degeneracy of the modernistic movement of to-day can easily be traced back to the moral degeneracy of the Second Empire, created by the Mephistophic traitor and despot Napoleon III…
Clive Bell (1869 – 1964) was an art critic who is remembered in our day as one of the most devoted champions of modern abstract art. In this 1921 review for THE NEW REPUBLIC, Bell explained why he held that the paintings of the André Derain (1880-1954) were so significant – writing that the Frenchman was best painter in all of France (reserving for Picasso the roll of the most influential painter in all of Europe).
Why Dada? is a thoughtful essay by Sheldon Cheney (1886 – 1980), a Dada enthusiast and founder of the American monthly THEATRE ARTS MAGAZINE. This is a fine article which attempted to explain Dada to the American public and identified several American artists who subscribed to Dada principles.
…at last years exhibitions the Futurists and Cubists joined the academicians in denouncing the Dadaists as fakers, charlatans, and ignoramuses who know nothing of the laws of art and only wish to shock the public into considering them a sensation! And the Dadaists get unlimited joy out of the situation, but hold to the center of the stage…
In our era it doesn’t seem terribly odd that a fresh, exciting and highly popular industry would begin generating new words to fill our dictionaries, and 1914 was no different. The attached article introduced the readers of THE NEW YORK TIMES to a new verb contributed by the early film industry:
The verb ‘to film’ having gained currency, it must be graciously admitted to the language. It will soon be in the ‘advanced’ dictionaries and it must be recognized. The old idea of protecting the English language from invasion is extinct. To ‘film’ means to make a picture for a ‘movie’ show’.
During the past twenty years, Hollywood provided us with a whole slew of terms, such as dramedy (a combination between a comedy and a drama) and “romcom” (romantic comedy), sitcom (situation comedy) to name only a few.
Click here to read another article about the impact of film on the English language.
