Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, August 1921 · page 32 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #23 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two satirical film reviews targeting early 1920s cinema. The first brief item mocks a melodramatic plot involving infidelity and colonial settings—an English soldier returns from abroad to find his wife (referred to dismissively as his "squaw") has become a society figure and borne a child. The absurd resolution has him joining a circus. The longer review savagely critiques director **Billie (Billy) The Mille** (likely Cecil B. DeMille), dismissing his latest film as a pretentious "photographic essay" that tells its story through captions rather than images—a fundamental directorial failure. The review mocks the film's plot concept of wife-swapping as unoriginal and cynically suggests audiences will accept anything from Mille because he understands their gullibility. The tone is contemptuous, treating the acclaimed director as an incompetent taking advantage of the public's appetite for sensational content.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
30 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang lon can of likker, returns to England to recover his squaw, he finds her a social sensation of the season and the mother of a fine little son. He tells her that it is not his son, she faints, he cries to the servant, who is handy, “You Hold My Wife,” the servant does. The English chap leaves the house and joins a circus. * * * “MIDSUMMER BADNESS” A Comedy On “Midsummer Madness” HERE are a few directors of pictures you can not depend upon for the sane, sen- sible and spirited productions. Billie The Mille is one, no longer just Sesil’s brother, but one who calls himself a director, no one knows why, but he does. Billy’s latest is a photo- graphic essay, a world beater, a sensation, but it is unbelievable. The Mille has woven a real bum story, telling it by captions and not by pictures, such as all good directors do some time in their life, we all make mistakes, and Billy has just started at the beginning of his long list. No one knows just why this picture was made, but it doesn’t make any difference to the restless public, they will stand for anything and Billy knows it. He is a wise guy. In the story there is the new idea of the neglectful husband and a guy that likes this guy’s wife, the neglectful husband likes the other guy’s wife. They should swap each other’s wife and