Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, April 1923 · page 51 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #44 — page 51: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This gossip column from *Whiz Bang* (a satirical magazine) contains three Broadway/film industry items: 1. **George Melford's "You Can't Fool Your Wife"**: The joke is that the film features a "bootleggers' ball"—a reference to Prohibition-era illegal alcohol parties. The satire mocks Hollywood for staging such content during an era when alcohol was banned. 2. **Pauline Frederick's lawsuit**: The column gossips about actress Frederick's failed attempt to contest her father's will (he deliberately left her nothing). The satire is cruel, implying her three failed marriages and film career suggest she "deserves" disinheritance—with a pointed Biblical parallel: she once played Potiphar's wife, the seductress who "longed for the coat of many colors." 3. **Sessue Hayakawa's flop**: The brief mention mocks Japanese actor Hayakawa's failed stage play, using the casual slur "the Jap." The column's humor relies on schadenfreude, gossip, and ethnic stereotyping typical of 1920s entertainment journalism.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 51 Whisperings Along Broadway AT LAST the movies can boast of something new—at least to the screen. George Mel-ford has been staging—guess what?—for his forthcoming production, “You Can’t Fool Your Wife.” Nothing more or less than a boot-leggers’ ball. Boy, you should have been there, as Bert Savoy says. It was some wild affair as done at the Famous Players Long Island studios. Better watch for it in the fil-ems. *** The latest step in the strange career of Pauline Fred-erick is her unsuccessful suit to break the will of her father, a wealthy Connecticut resident. Papa cut off Pauline without a cent and deliberately specified the zero award in his will. When one recalls that Miss Frederick has three unsuccessful marriages behind her and a scin-tillating movie career, one wonders at the workings of fate. We can recall “Polly,” as she was then known, when she was a gorgeously appealing young siren in a Biblical play, “Joseph and His Brethren.” Rather appropriately she was playing Potiphar’s wife, she who longed for the coat of many colors. Just now Miss Frederick is back on the stage. *** SPEAKING of stage plays reminds us that Sessue Hayakawa, the Jap, participated in as complete a footlight flop as has ever greeted a screener. Sessue starred in a mystery