Judge, 1927-07-09 · page 32 of 36
Judge — July 9, 1927 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon mocks the Russian Ballet's physical contortions: a conductor struggles to span an impossible distance while a ballet dancer executes an exaggerated split, captioned that "a difficult lie is a simple matter to a star of the Russian Ballet." This satirizes the Russian Ballet's then-famous extreme flexibility and the public's amazement at such feats. The main article criticizes playwrights (the Hattons) who built careers on suggestive, risqué theater. As public taste evolved and audiences grew desensitized, these writers found their once-scandalous material now considered tame—even their attempt at a racier play called "Synthetic Sin" backfired by being too clean. The satire suggests these playwrights had exhausted their formula and couldn't adapt. The bottom cartoons are brief gags: a conductor's musical pun, a haunted house joke, and children joking about burying their uncle—typical period humor offering light relief between articles.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A difficult lie is @ simple matter to a star of the Russian Ballet. Judging the Shows (Continued from page'18) theater, seem also to have disap- peared from the scene. But the reason for their disappearance is easier to arrive at than in the Mayo cas With one or two ex- ceptions—the dud called, ‘Lom- bardi, Ltd.,” currently revived at the Cohan is one—these play- wrights devoted their efforts to exhibits whose chief reliance was upon suggestivencss and smut But the time came, unfortunate for the Hattons, when they found that the public had grown away from them and when the sug- gestiveness and smut they were able to dish out got to be so tame that the public refused longer to buy tickets. I don’t say that the Hattons didn’t sincerely try to keep their dirt up to the mark, for they did; but the aforesaid mark moved ahead so rapidly that they were left far behind squatting dis- mayed in the dust. A few months ago, they desperately set them- selves to be again naughty enough to please the public in a piece called “Synthetic Sin,” produced on the Pacific Coast, but my California agents report to me that the audiences found it alto- gether too clean for their taste, and registered loud complaints. —Garety One sheds a tear over the pre- dicament of these playwrights of yesterday who made money mak- ing the public blush and who now find themselves baffled when they try to turn the trick. The only way the old naughty plays of the Hattons, for example, could get customers today would be to advertise them for children’s matinées, Turn to the other blushful plays of past y imagine an audie ing jounced by “Mrs. Profession,” “The Conquerors, “The Girl with the Whooping Cough pho,” “The Turtle,” “The Demi-Virgin,” or “Damaged Goods.” Think of the day when Clyde Fitch's “The City d the town by the ears simply because at one point the Deity was as- sociated with a George White's “Ss then think back to the time when Chamion, the vaudeville trapeze performer, created a sensation by taking off her outer dress and disclosing herself in a thick pink chemise and petticoat. And keep on thin Wrong Place Conductor of Orchestra—I don’t know what's the matter with the ’cellos tonight. You seem to be quite lost. Leader of ’Cellos—I'm sorry, sir, I'm afraid are all at sea. Conductor—Th. just it! You ought to have been at B flat! —Curistian Science Monrron 28 New Tenant—Is it true that this house is haunted? Caretaker—Oh, no, si been thoroughly disinfected —Tir Br \FUNNYBOMES, Very few motorists are rolling their own. it’s all ude pays $5 for each one printed Auntie (arriving on beach)—IVell, my dears, looking for pretty pebbles? Nepurw—No, we've forgotten where we've buried Untle. —Hovnonrisr comicbooks.com