Judge, 1920-01-24 · page 6 of 36
Judge — January 24, 1920 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Judge Magazine Page This page critiques silent film conventions and their absurdities. The main cartoon depicts a nearly-nude male statue labeled "RUM" being dressed by a woman in formal attire—satirizing how filmmakers add clothes to classical sculptures to avoid censorship while depicting nudity elsewhere. The article mocks Hollywood's hypocritical standards: films show violence, drunkenness, and scantily-clad women, yet censor classical art. It ridicules specific movie tropes—heroes and heroines appearing only at golf's first tee, exaggerated proportions in paintings, unrealistic food scenes (grapefruit, milk, biscuits). The bottom illustration shows golfers, illustrating the text's point about golf-course scenes being oddly common in films. The satire targets Hollywood's arbitrary moral standards and lazy, repetitive filmmaking formulas.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
dAPKe mTEOUIERY Frac In Turee Montus Tuts Fisuexsoy or Tuirty was tHE Race or Fasuton ano Dip Aut His Scutrinc 1x a Dress Surr Ancex with a flaming revolver. He is shooting after them as they exit from gate. The Ancex suddenly stops and yells after them—Subtitle: “And what's more, the rent will be still higher next year!” And there you are—the Garden of Eden made understandable! ‘There are, fortunately, a few notable exceptions to the hopelessly banal motion picture. Some of these are intensely satisfying, artistically, and dramatically, but they are few, darned few, when you stop to think of the miles of celluloid Mr. Eastman lays every season! Another so-called tradition is the classifica tion of movies. They are in many cases mis- labeled. enid Bennett—God bless her!- appeared at the Rialto in New York some time ago in a light-farcical comedy called “ Frills and Feathers.” It was billed in bulbs over the doorway as an Ince Drama! There wasn’t a speck of drama in it. Happy Hooligan was produced by the Educational Films! Mack Sennett’s nude nature studies are called come- dies. So are the abnormalities of his imitators They are mere Primitive Burlesques. The movie public and the exhibitor have seen these films so often, always under the label * Comedies,” that they believe the label true. So it is logical that when a moving picture comes before them in which no one is hit on the head with a plaster vase, or a cross- eyed gentleman does not standin front of a gushing water-hose in his dress- clothes, or no young lady with ‘Sis Hopkins” pigtails is ed in the interim, they will not believe it a comedy. If not comedy what the dickens is it? It must be a dramatic, 4 scenic, or an educational film— there isn’t any more!” (As Jack Barrymore's sister says!) The second national game in America (Passing the Buck is first) is “Getting Away With It.” That man or woman is watered and dined, and made much of, who gets av with something, in other words suc- cessfully commercializes gold bricks! When the hero and heroine have to appear on the golf links, they show up at the first tee, drive off and that’s all. They are seen no more on the course. WHY? I'll tell you: the director teaches them to drive off the first tee and let it goatthat. Golfin camera land is a beautifully simple game—one hys- terical peck at the ball, and it’s all over. That’s enough to get away with it! Food in movie high life is grape- fruit, in low life milk and uneeda- biscuits! Why? That has always been the tradition, mes enfants! It gets away with it! Did you ever sce any other food on the screen? Artists in the movies always have their canvases turned away from the camera. Thank Heaven for little things! And when the finished painting /S shown- glory be to Tintoretto and Bud Fisher! It’s generally a portrait of a woman twelve sizes larger than gigan- tic, like the huge nuts of stars they three-sheet in the nickel-odeons! And when the hero is a sculptor, his conception of his dream girl looks like one of Rube Gold- berg’s newel post figures holding an clectric lamp! First Golfer—It’s a wonder Jones wouldn't pad his legs T other On He de comicbooks.com