Stage Magazine

Articles from Stage Magazine

Mickey Mouse: Goodwill Ambassador (Stage Magazine, 1935)

Seven years after his film debut in Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse continued to pack the theaters of the world. Prior to the release of Disney’s animated film,William Tell, STAGE MAGAZINE correspondent Katherine Best was rightfully in awe over the world-wide popularity the rodent was enjoying and at the time this essay appeared in print, he had already been seen in over sixty cartoons.

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Social Issues in Movies (Stage Magazine, 1938)

Aren’t you tired of Hollywood’s socio-political rantings?

•Nuclear power…………….They’re against it (The China Syndrome).
•Antisemitism……………….They’re against it (Gentleman’s Agreement).

•Alcoholism………………….They’re against it (Lost Weekend).
•Racial segregation………..They’re against it, but in 1915 they were for it (Birth of a Nation).

One glance at this 1939 article and you’ll be able to blame it all on the poet Archibald McLeish (1892 – 1982) who clearly advocated for political posturing in American movies.

No doubt, McLeish must have been very happy when Warner Brothers released Confessions of a Nazi Spy in April of 1939; it was the first Hollywood film to take a swipe at the Nazi war machine.

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When Prestige was Thrust Upon Hollywood’s ”Cameramen” (Stage Magazine, 1937)

Shortly before this article went to press, that particular member of the Hollywood film crew called the director of photography (DP) was treated a wee-bit better than other crew members were likely to be treated (but not that much better). Granted, the director and producer knew his name and his body of work – but his screen credit was still mixed among all the other names of the crew (if listed at all) – and this article points out that much of that changed in the Thirties.

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Anticipating the Television Juggernaut (Stage Magazine, 1939)

This 1939 article was written by a wise old sage who probably hadn’t spent much time with a television set but recognized fully the tremor that it was likely to cause in the world of pop-culture:

Of all the brats, legitimate and otherwise, sired of the entertainment business, the youngest, television, looks as if it would be the hardest to raise and to housebreak…


Click here to read about the early Christian broadcasts of televangelist Oral Roberts…

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New York City Bars at Four in the Morning… (Stage Magazine, 1937)

Tickled by the New York laws that prohibited bars from serving spirits between the hours of 4:00 to 8:00 a.m., this correspondent for Stage Magazine, Stanley Walker, sallied forth into the pre-dawn darkness of a 1937 Manhattan wondering what kind of gin mills violate such dictates. He described well what those hours mean for most of humanity and then begins his catalog of establishments, both high and low, that cater to night crawlers.

For something a shade rougher, more informal, smokier: Nick’s Tavern, at 140 Seventh Avenue South [the building went the way of Penn Station long ago], dark and smoky, with good food and carrying on in the artistic traditions of the old speakeasies.


Click here to read about the arrest and conviction of New York’s high society bootleggers.

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A Word on New York Waiters (Stage Magazine, 1939)

Waiters are to New York City what lobbyists are to Washington and celebrated illustrator, author and all-around foodie Ludwig Bemelmans (1898 – 1962) had some thoughts on this very diverse group:

New York is full of waiters, Chinese, American, Congo, French, Italian and German waiters, Jewish and Christian waiters, Vegetarian and Greek waiters, many good waiters, many bad waiters.

Click here to read an article by Benny Goodman concerning the arrival of Swing on Park Ave.

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Remembering Alma Gluck (Stage Magazine, 1938)

Marking the occasion of the untimely death of American soprano Alma Gluck (born Reba Feinsohn; 1884 – 1938), music critic Samuel Chotzinoff wrote this essay in which he recalled witnessing the first meeting between Gluck and her (second) husband Efrem Zimbalist, Sr. (1890 – 1985) at the absolute height of her fame in 1911. The remembrance continues as Chotzinoff labels that era as being the ‘golden age of vocalists’ and recalls many of the finest qualities of her talent.

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American Playwright Lillian Hellman (Stage Magazine, 1939)

The attached profile of playwright Lillian Hellman (1905 – 1984) is accompanied by a rare photo of the thirty-four year old American writer, snapped shortly after the opening of her play, The Little Foxes:

Four seasons ago when ‘The Children’s Hour’ was produced, that labeling which is the destiny of every important new playwright began. Second Ibsen…American Strindberg…1934 Chekhov…the rumors ran. In this finest example of Miss Hellman’s highly individual contribution to the current theater, the Ibsen heritage seems most likely to win out.

In 1945 Hellman wrote about much of what she had seen on the W.W. II Soviet front; click here to read it

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More Peer Adoration for Walt Disney (Stage Magazine, 1938)

The attached article was first seen during a time when a Palm Award, granted by the editors of Stage Magazine, was a reliable form of social currency and would actually serve the highly favored recipients in such a grand manner as to allow them brief respites at dining tables found at swank watering holes as New York’s Twenty-One Club and El Morocco.

Today, a Palm Award, plus four dollars, will get you a medium-sized cappuccino at Starbucks. Walt Disney was awarded a Palm in 1938 for his achievement in producing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

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The Birth of Donald Duck (Stage Magazine, 1935)

The introduction of Donald Duck in Silly Symphony Number Thirteen had’em rolling in the isles, to be sure – and if you don’t think so, here’s proof from STAGE MAGAZINE’s Helen G. Thompson:

If you didn’t see him in The Orphan’s Benefit, you missed the performance of the generation. Like Bergner’s show, it ran for Donald the whole gamut of his emotions. Voted the toughest duck of the season, Long Island included, and now crashing Europe, a breathless American public awaits his acclaim. Will his fare be raspberries or chuckle-berries? Donald says whatever the decision, he’ll fight.

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