Click Magazine

Articles from Click Magazine

The Nazi School System
(Click Magazine, 1940)

German school children in Bad Wilsnack as elsewhere look like American kids, study the same arithmetic, discuss the same current events in a regular ‘press period’. But they sneer at democracy and tolerance, deliver serious, bitter impassioned orations in regular Fuhrer style against liberty and freedom…Youth is not youth, but a servant of the state.

The Four Million Dollar Epic
(Click Magazine, 1940)

Many a movie of the deep South has come out of Hollywood studded with ‘you-alls’ and trailing jasmine blossoms. Never before, however, has any studio had Gone with the Wind, already the most heavily publicized picture of the era, which, at long last, makes its film debut…For over two and a half years casting difficulties had beset the producers of Gone With The Wind. Most difficult was the part of Scarlet O’hara, green-eyed vixen around whom the 1,307 page novel revolves. With every leading lady in Hollywood under consideration, the studios tested and re-tested Norma Shearer, Miriam Hopkins, and Paulette Goddard. Even the 56,000,000 people reported by the Gallup poll to be waiting to see the picture began to get tired…


Another great Hollywood movie from 1939 was The Grapes of Wrathclick here to read about it…

The Visual Accuracy of the ‘Gone with the Wind’
(Click Magazine, 1939)

This page from Click Magazine contrasts three Civil War photographs by Matthew Brady (1822 – 1896) with three production stills snapped on the sets of Gone with the Wind. The editors refused to weigh-in on the slowly building case regarding Hollywood’s questionable abilities to portray historic events with any degree of accuracy, preferring instead to praise the filmmakers as to how carefully they checked details.


The Matthew Brady images provided on the attached page only serves to condemn the otherwise flawless work of Gone with the Wind costume designer Walter Plunkett (1902 – 1982) who historians and reënactors have slandered through the years for failing to fully grasp the look of the era.

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The Visual Accuracy of the ‘Gone with the Wind’
(Click Magazine, 1939)

This page from Click Magazine contrasts three Civil War photographs by Matthew Brady (1822 – 1896) with three production stills snapped on the sets of Gone with the Wind. The editors refused to weigh-in on the slowly building case regarding Hollywood’s questionable abilities to portray historic events with any degree of accuracy, preferring instead to praise the filmmakers as to how carefully they checked details.


The Matthew Brady images provided on the attached page only serves to condemn the otherwise flawless work of Gone with the Wind costume designer Walter Plunkett (1902 – 1982) who historians and reënactors have slandered through the years for failing to fully grasp the look of the era.

Stuck in Nassau
(Click Magazine, 1941)

This Click Magazine article concerns the diplomatic posting to Nassau, Bahamas that was the lot of the Duke of Windsor shortly after the outbreak of World War Two. The Duke and Duchess had gleefully met Adolf Hitler some two years earlier and, following that error, were overheard on a few occasions making defeatist statements concerning the British war effort. Wishing to keep him in a spot where he could do no damage yet still be monitored, the British Foreign Office granted him the title of Royal Governor and posted him to Nassau.
Illustrated by four seldom-seen color photographs that, no doubt, the two were simply delighted to pose for, the interview makes clear just how bored the Windsors were on that hot, sticky island paradise, where they remained until 1945.

Tears in the Dark of the Theater
(Click Magazine, 1944)

Even the broad-shouldered, steely-hard men who toil daily over this website cry like little girls when exposed to the 1944 home front movie, Since You Went Awaystyle=border:none; for our money it was the best movie Hollywood ever produced about the war years.


That said, we invite you to take a gander at the attached photo-essay from CLICK MAGAZINE in which a spy camera using infrared film was used to capture the weeping masses sobbing in the dark of the theater as they watched that remarkable movie.

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Nose-Bobbing
(Click Magazine, 1938)

In the parlance of today it is politely called Rhinoplasty but back in the day, the verb bob was in use – which meant to cut short and no matter what you call the procedure, you’ll see that the gent pictured in this photo-essay needed a nose-job PRONTO!

African-American Fighter Pilots
(Click Magazine, 1943)

A three page photo-essay found on the yellowing pages of a 1943 issue of Click Magazine introduced American readers to the flying Black Panthers of the U.S. Army Air Force; a fighter squadron composed entirely of African American pilots, trained at the new $2000,000 airfield in Tuskegee, Ala.. The four paragraphs that tell their story are accompanied by eight portraits of the pilots and snap-shots of the assorted ground crew, mechanics and orderlies – all Black.

They undoubtedly will reach a combat area this summer. One squadron, the 99th, has arrived overseas already. [These] pilots, whose insignia is a flame-spewing black panther, are rarin’ to join them. They want to roar a personal answer to the Axis ‘race superiority’ lies.

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Goodbye to the Pompadour
(Click Magazine, 1944)

A late-breaking news report from the fashion editors at Click Magazine announced that the pompadour hairstyle has been given the brush-off: grab your combs, girls, because parts are back in style…

During the Second World War, hair dye was not simply used by women;click here to read about the men who needed it.

Were Churchill and Stalin Hipsters?
(Click Magazine, 1942)

Illustrated with pictures of Winston Churchill’s weird zipper suit and Joseph Stalin’s all purpose costume, 1940s fashion critic Elizabeth Hawes (1903 – 1971) taunts the Great-American-Male and challenges him to respond in kind by wearing copies of these comfortable threads:

Today’s business clothes were worked out by the winners of the Industrial Revolution, whose descendants are the big tycoons of our day…Aspirants to leadership and success normally copy the clothes of existent leaders. Isn’t it about time the most of you changed your suits?

Elizabeth Hawes wrote more on the topic of W.W. II fashions…

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The Hostess Gown Made a Splash on the Home Front
(Click Magazine, 1944)

There can be no doubt that the fashion-craving lasses of the Thirties and Forties had a tough time of it! Coming of age during the the Great Depression, they spent too much time window-shopping as a result of the all too widespread economic deprivations that were the order of the day – only to be greeted on the other end by the fabric rationing that accompanied the Second World War. They had some good news in the form of a swanky garment that was called Hostess Gowns which were seen as ultra-feminine and tailored in the finer fabrics of the day:

Top-notch fashion stores are finding a new wartime boom in luxury hostess gowns and pajamas; new styles for home reflect the latest dress fashion trends. Ruffles, waistline draping, beads, sequins and marabou add luxury; a number of dressy models might also be taken for dinner gowns…

The Pin-On Hairdo: White Trash Triumph
(Click Mahazine, 1943)

In light of the fact that we are patriots, we like to think that these hairdos were not as wide-spread on the home front as the journalist implies.


Michel, of the Helena Rubinstein salons, has been fingered as the one responsible for the two-tone pin-On hairdo, a look that was entirely reliant upon the false hair industry in order to achieve the preferred look. Three color images are provided as well as six how-to images.


During the Second World War, hair dye was not simply used by women; click here to read about the men who needed it.


Click here to read a 1961 article about Jacqueline Kennedy’s influence on American fashion.

When Fashion and Uniforms Meet…(Click Magazine, 1942)

When the general appearance of women’s uniforms prescribed for voluntary war work by various charitable organizations were deemed unfashionable, uncomfortable or simply embarrassing, the well-known fashion stylist and costume designer Irene (Irene Lentz, 1900 – 1962) stepped up to the plate designing an all-purpose green wool suit, topped-off by a beret:

The noted Hollywood stylist, Irene, performed a real service for defense when she designed her all-around defense suit. Of sturdy gabardine, worn with long cotton service socks and plastic shoes, it is nevertheless as attractive as any civilian suit, and more practical than most. In this outfit, women war workers will not feel self-conscious and ill at ease.

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W.W. II Button Restrictions and Button Decorations
(Click Magazine, 1943)

A well-illustrated article from the home front fashion-filled pages of Click Magazine that served to document the contradictory days when wartime button-rationing coincided with a wide-spread yen for decorating with buttons:

In a frantic bid for individuality, fad-loving women are rediscovering the decorative button. Buttons are no longer just a practical devices for holding clothes together. They pep-up simplified silhouettes and restyle dated fashions.

W.W. II Button Restrictions and Button Decorations
(Click Magazine, 1943)

A well-illustrated article from the home front fashion-filled pages of Click Magazine that served to document the contradictory days when wartime button-rationing coincided with a wide-spread yen for decorating with buttons:

In a frantic bid for individuality, fad-loving women are rediscovering the decorative button. Buttons are no longer just a practical devices for holding clothes together. They pep-up simplified silhouettes and restyle dated fashions.

W.W. II Button Restrictions and Button Decorations
(Click Magazine, 1943)

A well-illustrated article from the home front fashion-filled pages of Click Magazine that served to document the contradictory days when wartime button-rationing coincided with a wide-spread yen for decorating with buttons:

In a frantic bid for individuality, fad-loving women are rediscovering the decorative button. Buttons are no longer just a practical devices for holding clothes together. They pep-up simplified silhouettes and restyle dated fashions.

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