![]() White, Early television, Empire State Building, Gardner Rea, Gluyas Williams, Helen Hokinson, I. Posted on JCategories advertising, celebrities, cinema, Great Depression, New Yorker cartoons, radio & television, television, The New Yorker Magazine Tags 1930s advertising, 1930s New York, Bell Labs 1930s, E.B. Next Time: The Short Life of Two-Gun Crowley… Klein, and a little bauble for the Missus… … Otto Soglow’s Little King, on the other hand, reigned with a steady hand… …and nearly apoplectic with Gluyas Williams… …among the delicate set, we got a bit risqué with Gardner Rea… …and interpreted the latest headlines in his “Graphic Section”… ![]() …on to our cartoonists, Ralph Barton rendered Albert Einstein as his latest “Hero”… …and here’s an ad for ice cube trays that exploited the popularity of the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” syndicated newspaper feature… …Salvo and other Battleship-type games were originally played on pieces of paper like this… …whether traveling by boat or train, you might have considered bringing along “Salvo,” an early version of a popular game that today we call “Battleship”… (Wikipedia)Īfter a long absence, Peter Arno’s Whoops Sisters returned to the pages of The New Yorker, not as a cartoon panel but as shills for the Cunard Line… Also pictured is Bramwell Fletcher, who portrayed Trilby’s love interest, Billee. YOU ARE GETTING VERRRY SLEEPY…in 1931’s Svengali, 17-year-old Marian Marsh played the artist’s model Trilby, who is transformed into a great opera star by the sinister hypnotist, Svengali, played by John Barrymore. Mosher, however, found redemption in another film making the rounds, Warner Brothers’ Svengali starring John Barrymore: (IMDB)ĭespite Mosher’s blah review, Paramount touted Bankhead’s portrayal of a “tarnished lady” in this ad from the same issue: MIRROR, MIRROR… Tallulah Bankhead (left) might have pondered who was the fairest in the land, but The New Yorker’s John Mosher found her to be no match for German actress Marlene Dietrich (right, in 1931’s Dishonored) when it came to screen presence. Mosher noted that lighting and staging flattering to the German actress just didn’t work with the belle from Alabama. (Pinterest/)įilm critic John Mosher wasn’t over the moon when it came to the acting of Tallulah Bankhead in Tarnished Lady, however he surmised it was likely the director’s fault for trying to exploit Bankhead’s passing resemblance to Marlene Dietrich. OVER THE MOON?…The moon gained some keen competition from telescope viewers when the Empire State Building climbed its way into the sky. …and while viewers wouldn’t actually see a giant bra atop the skyscraper, many were nevertheless interested in getting a closer look at some of the building’s details, as reported in “The Talk of the Town”… That a bra and girdle maker should become the topmost tenant at the new Empire State Building was not lost on E.B. Markey noted that his little demonstration required many millions of dollars in research and development, but he was prophetic in suggesting that such technology might come to be dreaded if it ever came into common use. ()ĭespite its gee-whiz factor, many, including the folks at Bell Labs, seemed doubtful that the technology would come into wider use or be profitable any time soon, if ever. (edn.com) SPINNING WHEELS…Whirling metal discs, pictured at left, perforated with tiny holes, cast a series of horizontal beams of light across a viewer’s face (right), which were then transmitted to a receiver. At the time, AT&T, Bell’s parent company, was doubtful about television’s moneymaking potential. (/) BUT WILL IT SELL?… Herbert Hoover, then secretary of commerce, became the world’s first television personality in 1927 when his voice and face (inset) were transmitted to an audience at Bell Laboratories in New York City. At right ( click image to enlarge), a July 1930 article in Popular Science Monthly described how the transmitting apparatus worked. (att.com) DEFINITELY NOT HI-DEF…At left, this is most likely where Morris Markey sat for the demonstration of early video phone technology. It was the birthplace of talking movies, television, radar and the vacuum tube. TECHNOLOGY’S MATERNITY WARD…The original Bell Labs building at 463 West Street in New York. was still two decades away, but what Markey saw demonstrated in 1931 was a glimpse of the future, seeing and conversing with another man three miles away via a long wire that transmitted images from a fantastic array of spinning discs and neon tubes: The next time you complain about a boring Zoom meeting, think about Morris Markey’s visit to New York’s Bell Laboratories in the spring of 1931, when he marveled at what was, perhaps, the “apotheosis” of American industry: a two-way video telephone. Legitimate Nonchalance February 21, 2024.
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