Judge — July 19, 1930 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“It's O. K. Bill, if I should slip I'll get damages from the construction company.” ~~ “O-o0-h-h! But afraid he'll bite you?” “Not at all, Madam! We breed tem with zippers on their mouths now, all ready for the manu- facturer.” aren't you JUDGE AUDGING BOOKS Turrs far only “What Price Glory?” and the war come son have justified t expense of the great d Big Parade” was mushy rover boy comedy with s-e-x. Something slop- stick called “Behind the Front” was a post-bellum atrocity and was laughed at by boobish millions. “Schweik” proved too ponderous to wade thru and the laughs when they came, were elephantine. Charles \ Arthur's “War Bugs’ was in bad taste, approaching the war from the angle of a drunken freshman at a block party. It is a relief, then, to laugh at Jacques Deval’s “Wooden Swords” a rollicking travesty around the Battle of Paris fought by French scholar-soldier. a trace of s: of Leonard aughs at the The a nearsighted There isn't crilege, ghoulish “dancing on the war graves” or boorishness to the whole of it. It is built for laughs and gets them—not little snickers or warm spots in the stomach regions— but real, thumping bellies. Soak it up my buddies and you will never have known such a swell cartooning of the life back where generals were unafraid. Shirking and inefficiency became there a religion, a higher mathematics. Deval cartoons it with the wit of a superb ironist and the skilful pencil of an Inwood. He is a professor with a Wodehouse sense of slapstick. His is a tortoise- shell w of the war. Read it and weep—with laughter, Humor continuing to sell high this k we enjoin you to don your skiis and if you can find some snow, ski direct to your nearest bookstore and gathering a copy of Sid Perelman and Quent Reynolds’ “Parlor, Bedlam and Bath,” repair to the nearest gin- i There, getting yourself into appy state of mind, fall to reading this piece of pure gaga. Vertigo is the only condition conducive to mak- ing head or sense out of it. It is the sort of thing Gertrude Stein would write if she were sober. (Failing a handy = sp sy get somebody to wind you up and spin you like a top; or take seven successive trips in a roller coaster—these will give you the same effect). And since it is needless to add, we'll add that “P. B. & B.” will provide the usual laughs to you Perelman (plus Reynolds) lovers. Also you will find amidst all the empty bottles and glasses which litter its 20 we "sa lot of pure animal passion ch ought to encourage new It is said the authors have com- missioned Cal Coolidge, a newspaper man himself, to transcribe the book in fifty words for engraving on the side of waterwagons. One wonders what he'll do with the Frank Harrissy side of the gosh dern thing. read- urprise! Another goodie’s com- Very Good Jeeves,” by a i named P. G. Wodehouse, glish Perennial, How the s to turn out the laughs year after y how his old writing arm still retains its old cunnin, he manages to get you to laugh at the most asinine plots, practical jokes and silly-billies imaginable; and why he isn't recognized as the greatest living humorist. and made King of England immediately—all this is be- yond us. There are those who cl the maestro’s stuff is rubber-stampe and dulls faster than needle bi They would! lad continu And, leaping from the sublime to the sublimer, we offer another book of humor, Swedish Dr. Axel Munde’s “Story of San Miche! Tho it is autobiography—the best since Grave's snooty but absorbing “Goodb: That"—it is written with wit, irony and self-kidding that go to make up a certain profound kind of written humor. Especially pleasing is the good Dr.’s slapping away at the dog- matic goshallmightiness of his profes- sion, His adventures with neurotic women and phoney symptomaniacs are the very essence of high comedy. There is, of course, the serious si of the work—and a full-flavored, rich side that is, too. The pure gumbo of adventure we calls it. Only when the good Dr. finds himself having chit- chats with goblins do we feel that he has gone a bit Swedish on us, but these slippings from grace are swamped by the surrounding material. There may be those who resent our reviewing this book a year late. We point in defence to the twenty-thou- sand books published last year; our single pair of eyes; and the following: hele’ will keep! Weekly murder report : Crawley’s “Valley of Creeping Men,” too in- credible; Wallace's “Green Ribbon,” five-and-ten stuff; and Tynan’s “Own- er Lies Dead,” unusually good. —Tep Suane comicbooks.com