1916 – Page 6 – Old Magazine Articles

Mary Pickford: An Appreciation (Motion Picture Magazine, 1916)

I haven’t a clue as to whether California lawyers had the Restraining Order as one of the tools in their arsenal back in 1916; but if they had, Mary Pickford might have chosen to deploy just such a legal measure in order to defend herself from this obsessed fan who wrote the following essay for the editors of MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE:

She is adorably feminine, from her curls to her toes. In Tess, Caprice, the forlorn waif of the desert island in Hearts Adrift, she is feminine in everything she does. She can storm, but she storms like a warm-hearted, human woman, not a virago; she can coquette, but it is never the cold blooded type of flirting; Mary Pickford couldn’t be cold blooded if she tried. Men of all ages, women of all types, children of both sexes respond to this wonderful little girl in a manner no other star is able to arouse. They are all good and have done some wonderful work, but Mary is child, sweetheart and friend of the whole world, and no one can ever take her place in our hearts.

Click here to read a 1923 comparison between Norma Talmadge and Mary Pickford.

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Pictures of Charlie Chaplin (Motion Picture Magazine, 1916)

Attached are five assorted photographs of Charlie Chaplin as they appeared on the sleekly printed pages of a 1916 issue of MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE.

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‘Paul Verlaine in London” (Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916)

British poet and literary critic Arthur Symons (1865 – 1945) remembered the time French poet Paul Verlaine (1844 – 1896) was his house guest.

The 1921 book review of Paul Verlaine can be read here…

‘Paul Verlaine in London” (Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916) Read More »

Constantine Brancusi (Vanity Fair, 1916)

An appreciative five paragraph essay saluting the Modernist sculptor Constantine Brancusi (1876 – 1957), accompanied by one black and white image of the artist’s work, The Doves. Much of the review concerns the poor relationship Brancusi had with Auguste Rodin (1840 – 1917) who
had been his teacher in earlier days.

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P.G. Wodehouse on the Virtues and Vices of Artists (Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916)

Written under the pen name P. Brooke-Haven, this very funny essay was in fact written by Vanity Fair’s drama critic, P.G. Wodehouse, who attempted to understand the criminal nature of artists.

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Sniper Scopes Compared (Literary Digest, 1916)

By enlarge, this article is a mildly technical piece that compares the German sniper scopes used during W.W. I to those of the British; happily, the amusing part of this essay is contained in the opening paragraph in which a British Tommy returning from the front, is quoted as exclaiming:

German snipers are better shots than the English because their rifles have telescopic sights that are illuminated at night.

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Women Win Office in 1916 (The Nation, 1916)

A brief account of the 1916 November elections in the United States and how well women candidates fared, particularly in the West where gains where strongest:

The continued election of women to minor offices may be taken as showing that suffrage has increased the number of those from whom fit choices can be made.

1924 was a very important year for American women in politics…

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The Tennis Blazer (Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916)

This article dates to a the dear, dead days when tennis balls were white and landscapers (rather than diesel machinery) were relied upon to make tennis courts; it was also a time when the abilities of a skilled tailor were required for tennis clothing. These court-side stylists would not simply monitor the drape of tennis trousers but they would anticipate the unspoken needs of their tennis dandies – and in so doing, the tennis blazer was born.

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Scenario Writers and Plagiarism (Motion Picture Magazine, 1916)

The attached is one from a series of articles that appeared in MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE penned by a Hollywood insider during the high-fashion days of silent film. The reader will be alarmed to read that even as early as 1916, plot-stealing and other forms of Hollywood plagiarism were in full swing.

A few weeks earlier, a California Representative had introduced an anti-plagiarism bill to Congress.