Life, 1928-11-09 · page 42 of 52
Life — November 9, 1928 — page 42: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece mocks the overwrought conventions of early 20th-century detective fiction and mystery plays. Written as a mock "platform" by readers of detective stories, it ridicules the genre's reliance on melodramatic clichés: **The satire targets:** - Exotic murder weapons (imported spiders, centipedes, Gila monsters) when simple methods work fine - Obligatory "gloomy old mansions" with ancient servants - Stock "Oriental villain" plots involving mysterious flowers and threats to White civilization - Absurd accumulating scares (headless corpses, skeleton arms, exploding phones) - Comic relief servants who only shriek - Coincidental escaped convicts/asylum patients that complicate plots pointlessly **The joke:** Rather than praising these beloved tropes, the "fans" comically demand their abolition, claiming they're wasteful, implausible, and tired. This inverts expectations—fans typically celebrate genre conventions, not condemn them. The piece lampoons both the stories' ridiculousness and readers' appetite for such material. The page also advertises Foot-Joy shoes and Rolls Razors.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Shoe thati Different OOT-JOY shoe wearers grow constantly in numbers because there are no de serters from the ranks. Once the solid comfort of the Foot-Joy support is experi- enced, no other shoe will do. The foundation is correctly designed to support all of a man’s weight from heel to toe, overcoming all nerve, muscle and arch strain—consequently no 5 o'clock tiredness. Foot-Joy shoes are smartly styled for all occasions—street, sport and evening wear. Write for illustrated catalogue. FIELD & FLINT CO., Brockton, Mass. The obove tatement, is true of Poot-Jey Shese for Women. Wri formation. Name... Address .. LIFE The Crime Fans’ Platform We, the readers of detective stories, and the habitual playgoers at crook and mys- tery shows, being assembled in national convention, publish this as our unchang- ing p:atform for all time. 3 We point with pride to the achieve- ments of Edgar ‘Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins. We view with alarm the outrageous ex- travagance which marks the conduct of authors and playwrights in importing venomous spiders from Malacca, hideous centipedes from Senegambia, or Gila monsters from somewhere or other, for the purpose of sicking them on common- place persons who are to be murdered. Such persons can be murdered with exactly as much finality by bashing them over the head with a baseball bat, or slitting their weasands with a bread knife. We demand the total abolition of the gloomy old family mansion, in whose Epaebbed rooms dwells the last of the Updegraffs or the Van Peysters, attended by one tottering old servant. We are opposed to tottering old servants, anyhow. We pledge ourselves, if our platform is accepted, to work against the custom of introducing into novels some insidious Oriental who is plotting the destruction of the White Race. Since the schemes of the Orientals always begin with the mur- der of a grocer in London or the kid- naping of an assistant Chief of the Bureau of Entomology in Washington; since they usually overcome their victims by means of the deadly fragrance of the Koo-koo flower; and since they are always baffled in the end, we denounce the prac- tice as a foolish waste of the taxpayers’ money. When the detective and his friend enter the suspected house, and when four re- volver shots and two hollow groans ring out from an upper room, when a head- less corpse comes rolling down the stair- case, when a skeleton arm snatches at the detective from behind a curtain, and when the telephone, on being picked up by the detective’s friend, blows up with a bang, emitting a noxious vapor, then the detective’s friend shall nog say, in a low, tense voice: “Higgins, ther: about this house We promise to use our utmost en- deavors to suppress: a) Comic servants whose only pur- pose in life is to screech. 6) Tree branches which scrape against window-panes. c) Convicts who escape from prison, or homicidal maniacs who break away from asylums on the night the crime is committed, and have no object except to mess up the plot. is something sinister We pledge ourselves that the law shall it a painful and lingering punishment upon the next dramatist to employ a claw- Tike hand which reaches in from some- — life is so simple —siter you own a ROLLS RALZO THE ONE BLADE SAFETY Universally accepted by American Gentlemen as the ultimate in safety razors, A Rolls Razor is simplicity itself—just ose safety blade and its handle in a compact metal case containing the strop and hone The blade, of finest Shetheld steel, is of the old straight razor type and hollow gro Properly bandied it will give a lifetine of perfect shaves __ Stropped in its case before shaving—boaed in its case when necessary, the blade. kept ever keen, shaves flat to the face—not ai right angles. It cuts the hair—does not pull il ext A toilet requisite that any man will tate pride in possessing. Not just another kind of Safety Razor It's actually another kind of shave A British Importation Imperial No. 1 Silver plate im leathered container $15. Imperial No. 2 Nickel plate in cardboard container $10. We recommend Imperial Rolls Shaving Soap for a superior shave. Packed in hygienic indestructible $1.50. For Sale at The Better Shops Descriptive Folder Sent on Request LEE & SCHIFFER, Ine. 17 East 4th Street, N.Y. © 1.8, Distributors bow! where and grabs at the heroine while she is trying to go to sleep, or at the assistany detective when he approaches the book case, or at the Negro servant as he i bringing in a tray of cocktails. We shall set our faces against the fol lowing reprehensible customs: 1. To allow the hero to walk alon and unarmed into a den of crooks, 4 there promptly get beaned, and put ov altogether ie six hours. ; 2. Having done this, to allow him wake up and discover a beautiful girl “bending over him.” 3. To allow harmless people, wi comicbooks.com wi i po sk