Life — September 28, 1928 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

LIFE - THE RADIO Blackface Picture me writing this with a breaking heart. Make it a talking picture, if you like, and listen to the sound of sobbing. For I would rather be boiled in oil than break the sad news that Moran and Mack, broadcasting on Sunday evening over the Colymbia System, are not so hot. In fact, to me, they are both cold and wet. Hard words, indeed, but facts are facts. All heroes, actors and public figures of any sort who make a sudden and unique success should be mercifully done away with as soon as that first edge begins to wear away. Only bores like Elsie Dins- more can go on forever. The Two Black Crows go before a radio public who hope to capture the first fine fervor of their early records. It can’t be done. eee Moreover, the comics are barred from repeating any of their best lines. Anyone breaking into a conversation with “What's your idea in bringing that up?” is in- stantly thrown out of the window. The Black Crows are paying the penalty of their own popularity. They would no more dare tell why white horses eat more than black horses than Ethel Barrymore would dare appear in a play containing the line, “That's all there is. There isn’t any more.” The idea at the back of the radio sketches of the Two Black Crows is a swell one, but the way it works out sounds as if a dozen Hollywood super- visors and two dozen gag-men had been putting their best brains to it. Moran and Mack are a couple of colored brethren who get mixed up in the World War. So far the doings have been confined to a small Southern town. Unfortunately, instead of remaining strictly Octavus Roy Cohen, they have permitted someone to inject a lot of the most objectionable so-called white characters that ever annoyed an audience. ry) Tue ravio is making a mistake which the movies have only just begun to out- grow. All sketches are supposed to have a love interest. The love interest of the Two Black Crows is furnished by the rivalry of Lieut. Davis and Steve Rein- hardt, a German-American, for a_half- witted girl called Mary Jane. Just to show how broadminded we are and how far we have progressed towards international peace and good will, the lieutenant is the villain and the hyphenate is the hero. You have to listen to this trio of mistakes court and scrap in old stock company fashion, while you are waiting for Moran and Mack. And there are times when the waiting isn’t worth while. One of those times, on a recent program, was when Mack, the head Black Crow, got involved in a tongue-twister about Esau saw the saw. Anyone over ten years old who can get a laugh out of one of those ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” is ereby advised to join a school for re- tarded children. By way of being constructive and help- ful, I suggest that the Black Crows go in fora minstrel show. Nobody expects new jokes in a minstrel show; in fact, if any- one ever heard one, he would have to be carried out and treated for shock. eee Once again, I apologize for letting you “Say, boy, bring along a few more sheep—I want to count myself to sleep.” Retireo Fracrove Sitter Trains His Youns Son ror THE Bu down and if you really do enjoy the new sketches of die Two Black Crows, and aren't just carried away by sentiment and dreams of old times, you are entitled to call me names. But before you fe nasty, I urge you to recall those terribk five minutes about Esau who saw the bucksaw. Agnes Smith. GARDENIA So like the waxen — strange-breathed flower, Raped from Utopian hedges, You ket me wear you for an hour, Then yellowed at the edges; And, now our brief career of love Is very much past-tensive, Gardenia-like, the chief charm of You, dear, is—you're expensive! John McColl. “Waar do you do when your deferred payments come due?” “Me? I defer paying them.” ~o.. comicbooks.com