1936

Articles from 1936

Newsreels at the Movies (Stage Magazine, 1936)

The journalist who wrote this 1938 piece saw much good in theater newsreels, believing that the newsreel encourages a keener sense of the present and imprisons it for history. He doesn’t refer to any of the prominent newsreel production houses of the day, such as Fox Movietone, Hearst Metrotone, Warner-Pathe or News of the Day but rather prefers instead to wax poetic about the general good that newsreels perform and the services rendered. This newsreel advocate presented the reader with a long, amusing list of kings, dictators and presidents and what they thought of having their images recorded.


Click here to read articles about Marilyn Monroe.

Women Drivers Vindicated (Literary Digest, 1936)

Attached is a magazine article concerning the on-going debate regarding women drivers and the continuing balderdash as to which of the genders is the better driver: the issue was decided in 1936 and the men lost:

…according to the report of a university professor who took the trouble to find out. Armed with statistics, he asserts that the female of the motoring species is not nearly so deadly as the male.

American W.W. I Cemeteries and French Gratitude (American Legion Monthly, 1936)

Eighteen years after the last shot was fired in World War I, Americans collectively wondered, as they began to think about all the empty chairs that were setting at so many family dinner tables, Do the French care about all that we sacrificed? Do they still remember that we were there? In response to this question, an American veteran who remained behind in France, submitted the attached article to The American Legion Monthly and answered with a resounding Yes on all six pages:

…I can assure you that the real France, the France of a thousand and one villages in which we were billeted; the France of Lorraine peasants, of Picardy craftsmen, of Burgundy winegrowers – remembers, with gratitude, the A.E.F. and its contribution to the Allied victory.

The article is accompanied by eight photographs of assembled Frenchmen decorating American grave sites.

Click here to read about the foreign-born soldiers who served in the American Army of the First World War.

‘Thanks, America”: French Gratitude (American Legion Monthly, 1936)

Almost twenty years after the First World War reached it’s bloody conclusion, Americans collectively wondered as they began to think about all the empty chairs assembled around so many family dinner tables, Do the French care at all that we sacrificed so much? Do they still remember that we were there? In response to this question, an American veteran who remained in France, submitted the attached article to The American Legion Monthly and answered those questions with a resounding YES.


Click here to read an article by a grateful Frenchman who was full of praise for the bold and forward-thinking manner in which America entered the First World War.

‘Thanks, America”: French Gratitude (American Legion Monthly, 1936)

Almost twenty years after the First World War reached it’s bloody conclusion, Americans collectively wondered as they began to think about all the empty chairs assembled around so many family dinner tables, Do the French care at all that we sacrificed so much? Do they still remember that we were there? In response to this question, an American veteran who remained in France, submitted the attached article to The American Legion Monthly and answered those questions with a resounding YES.


Click here to read an article by a grateful Frenchman who was full of praise for the bold and forward-thinking manner in which America entered the First World War.

This Guy Coached Astaire and Rogers (Literary Digest, 1936)

A magazine profile of RKO Studio Dance Director Hermes Pan (1909 – 1990); his work with Fred Astaire (1899 – 1987) and Ginger Rogers (1911 – 1995) and the lasting impression that African-American dance had made upon him. It is fascinating to learn what was involved in the making of an Astaire/Rogers musical and to further learn that even Bill Bojangles Robinson (1878 – 1949) was a fan of the dance team.

Astaire liked the youngster’s blunt answers. He realized the need of a critic who would talk back to a star.

This Guy Coached Astaire and Rogers (Literary Digest, 1936)

A magazine profile of RKO Studio Dance Director Hermes Pan (1909 – 1990); his work with Fred Astaire (1899 – 1987) and Ginger Rogers (1911 – 1995) and the lasting impression that African-American dance had made upon him. It is fascinating to learn what was involved in the making of an Astaire/Rogers musical and to further learn that even Bill Bojangles Robinson (1878 – 1949) was a fan of the dance team.

Astaire liked the youngster’s blunt answers. He realized the need of a critic who would talk back to a star.

MODERN TIMES (Stage Magazine, 1936)

The world, with the exception of those bright eyed youngsters under the age of five, has waited pretty breathlessly for the reappearance of a forlorn little figure in a derby, baggy trousers, and disreputable shoes. The fact that his reappearance was to be under the sinister title, Modern Times alarmed not a few of us. This hapless creature, whose name by the way, is Charlie Chaplin, had come to mean an unchangeable element to us…Disguised in current mechanistic ingenuity, veiled in lukewarm disapproval of the plight of the working man, and tinted a slight shade of Red, it remain, delightfully and irrevocably, Chaplin.

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