Life, 1923-06-14 · page 25 of 44
Life — June 14, 1923 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes Hollywood's emerging costume picture and epic film trends of the 1920s. The magazine mocks: **Exaggerated Production Claims**: Films with absurdly pretentious titles ("When Chivalry Was a Pup," "Through the Eustachian Tube with Gun and Camera") and implausibly massive budgets ($8 billion for "Rich Men's Playthings") and casts (11,000 extras). **Overwrought Melodrama**: Captions describe overwrought plot elements—jungle adventures, "struggles on the brink of the abyss," morality tales about society corruption. **Star System Hype**: References to bit players getting inflated coverage and actors like "Devil Jack" O'Doon being marketed as dashing "bad men" despite mediocre performances. The humor targets Hollywood's growing tendency toward grandiose spectacle, inflated publicity, and absurdly expensive productions designed to impress rather than entertain—a critique of early cinema's commercial excess.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIFE 23 Tense Moments trom the Silver Sheet ’s N. ew Ones COSTUME PICTURES are com- ing back, a little birdie from Hollywood whispered to ye editor. And here is a scene from “When Chivalry Was a_ Pup,” in which Director Frank Crunch has repro- | duced a bit of old-world England | with its Guelphs and Ghibellines. How'd you like to have the sal- aries of this mob of extras in one of the big battle scenes? | FLUFFY BIT OF FEMININITY though, she is, Mrs. Sydney “ McSlitch, “The Little Lady of the. Big, Game thinks nothing of penetrating the heart of the jungle, accompanied only by THE MUCH-TALKED-OF struggle on the brink of the six native wlks, or bearers, and the abyss, one of the biggest scenes from “Strangled Violets.” husband of an old school friend. This Lillian Jelling, as Lucy of Skeleton’s Gulch, battles for scene from the screen. epic, “Through the her life, and something dearer, with Old Hellfire, played Eustachian Tube with Gun and Cam- by Jack O’Doon. “Devil Jack,” as the dashing favorite era,” shows the fair huntress with a is known to thousands of fans, here adds another notable buck she winged at the waterhole. impersonation to his list ‘of screen “bad men.” > & ‘7 THE NOTORIOUS BEAUTY chorus of “Alienations of A FEATURE of i J 1923” takes part in the smashing photo-drama of New York “Rich Men's Playthings that heavy society life, “Who's Your Husband’s Lady Friend Now?” sugar spectacle which cost $8,000,000,000. which has ‘been 36 years in the making. We see them and required a cast of 11,000 souls, exclu- here in a typical society revel, in the luxurious apartment sive of camels. Looks like as if the cen- ] of a rich bachelor, showing how the modern dance craze sors must have had their backs turned has swept the “Four Hundred” and rotted it to the core. when this scene got by, eh, fans! comicbooks.com