Life, 1927-05-12 · page 30 of 43
Life — May 12, 1927 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page mixes **advertising with literary satire** typical of *Life* magazine's format. The **Dentyne gum advertisement** uses a smiling woman's photograph to promote teeth-whitening—straightforward early 20th-century marketing appealing to vanity and social acceptance. The **barber-shop satire** by W.W. Scott mocks **advertising hyperbole itself**. A customer recites absurdly inflated claims about shaving products—"billions of bubbles," "velvety smoothness," "guaranteed" results—satirizing how advertisements pile on pseudo-scientific jargon and exaggerated promises to sell mundane products. The joke is that real people absorbed this language and now parrot it back. The **"Hard-Boiled Virgin" review** by Arthur Guiterman dismisses Frances Newman's Mencken-praised novel as affected, pretentious, and sexually provocative without substance. "Hard-boiled" refers to the book's tough, cynical tone; Guiterman sarcastically defends his own "virginal disgust" at such naughty literature. The **cartoon** (bottom right) shows a burglar caught mid-robbery, casually asking permission to steal—British humor about working-class criminality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
28 Chew G Life ENTYNE and smile/ smile. They should be gleaming, sparkling white behind your lips. Men and women who value clean, white teeth now chew delicious Dentyne—the gum that makes teeth white and beautiful. EEPS THE EE H WHI The Composite Advertisement Reader Visits the Barber Shop “ AM I next? Well, then, what are the facts in this shaving busi- ness? Here I am with a tough, wiry beard and a moist, tender skin full of tiny ridges and irregularities, and I want the thrill of a close shave with a sense of showe h exhilara- tion, a radical advance in comfort and economy, and a glorious after- feel of skin satisfaction hitherto un- known which will tone up my face and leave it cool, clean, tingling, and velvet-smooth, and I'll never go back to ordinary methods, for a new light has dawned upon my shaving prob- lems, I know what dermutation means, and I demand that you try the modern way to drench the base of my beard with billions of bubbles of amazing smallness made from the bulky, super-saturated lather of that improved and luxurious soap which breaks up the oil film, multiplies itself two hundred and fifty times, and is guaranteed to take the fight out of the stiffest stubble by holding each hair erect for cutting and ren- dering it soft and pliable so that thousands of men once wedded to rival soaps have shifted to this new creation. You will, of course, use no brush, but just the tips of the fingers and a razor of velvety smoothness whose preéminence is an accepted fact, and finish up with a dash of an- tiseptic lotion made by the same company and an invisible tale powder with man-style fragrance, and as a favor to you I'll accept a ten-day free trial of your ability, failing which I'll get a bottle of hair tonic and grow a set of permanent whisk- ers. What about it?” W. W. Scott. Rhymed Reviews The Hard-Boiled Virgin By Frances Newman. Boni & Liveright, FAIL to find the Golden Fleece. A Tidal Wave, or Cosmic Urge jn This Mencken-boosted masterpiece Of mordant wit, “The Hard-Boiled Virgin.” It may be “civilized” —(a pet Encomium, already dated), It may be “devastating, It leaves one soul undevs Though critics bid the rank and file Adore it from its first initial, The vastly overrated style Is bad, obscure and artificial. It may reveal, for all I care, Atlan chivalry and fashion; I hardly have a yawn to spare For Katharine’s feeble puffs of passion. I do not mind how far she thrust Her charms on lovers meek or! haughty, But keep my virginal disgust For books that toil at being>} naughty. I, too, can call a spade a spade, Though Nature made me mild and gentle, And loathe a stark undress parade Of symptoms, physical and mental. I rate this Katharine Faraday ‘ At fourteen cents with twelve sub-F} tracted; I don't believe she wrote a play That actors ever acted. The type of egg that men discard— Though hens, or ostrich’s, or lin- net's, She wasn’t boiled so very hard, But, say, from four to seven min- utes. Arthur Guiterman. Burglar: weit, Now Ye'Re PERE, GUV'NoR, YER MIGHT AS WELL ‘EP CARRY THE STUFF OUT TO THIF CAL —Gaiety (London). comicbooks.com