Hi, I heard there are some enormous veggies around here. We've been looking at this image for a few years, and while it's often said to feature U.S. actress Anita Page, there's an amazing amount of disagreement about that. Many sites say this is actually an actress named Marie Hopkins. The debate is a fascinating microcosm of internet behavior. We've seen people called stupid over their opinion. Well, we'll try to weigh in, and hopefully not in a stupid way, about whether this is Page or Hopkins.
Some sites, splitting the difference, essentially claim both, saying this is Marie Hopkins posed as Anita Page, or Marie Hopkins posing under the pseudonym Anita Page. Here's the problem with that: there's no Marie Hopkins listed in cinema or stage databases. There's a Miriam Hopkins, from the right period, but even so, this is probably not her. For clues toward an answer we're turning to the pros—i.e. professional brick and mortar galleries. Black & Whites Gallery is no longer around, but from its London locale during the 1980s and into the 1990s it staged shows by renowned photographers such as Richard Sawdon Smith and David Leslie Anthony. That gives it at least something resembling reputability, because when galleries with actual street addresses sell art with mistaken attributions or under false pretenses, it has a way of turning into a reputational problem that's hard to shake among the habitués of the gallery scene. This is not nearly as true of online sellers.
So for the record: Black & Whites Gallery, once located at 50-52 Monmouth Street, London, sold limited lithographs of this image and identified the subject as the actress Anita Page, shot by Clarence Sinclair Bull in 1929. Is that 100% definitive? Maybe not, but it's getting into the neighborhood. You can see a previous Page here.
Even southern girls get the blues. You know we like to share these pulp style covers certain publishing houses cooked up for reprints of serious pieces of literature. Today, it’s William Faulkner’s turn, and the subject is his 1931 novel Sanctuary, which Signet released in 1950 with this cover. Sanctuary was Faulkner’s fifth book and first success, but he wasn’t particularly fond of it, dismissing it as commercial claptrap written purely for financial reasons. If that was truly his intention, it seems like leaving out all the depravity and violence would have been a better way to go about it. In any case, critics did not consider the book lightweight in the least, and a central rape scene involving a corncob understandably generated quite a bit of controversy. When the book was adapted into a 1933 movie entitled The Story of Temple Drake starring Miriam Hopkins, the corncob was removed, but the film still caused a stir and helped bring about the introduction of the Hays Code—the censorship doctrine that predated the establishment of the MPAA. In 1961 Sanctuary was adapted again, and this time not only was the corncob removed, but a sizeable chunk of Faulkner’s original plot. Despite his professed distaste for commercialism, Faulkner had by then worked on dozens of movie projects. He had written screenplays for To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, and also had become a sought after script doctor, massaging projects like Mildred Pierce, The Southerner and Gunga Din. We have a small collection of posters from some of his projects below. If you’ve neglected to see any of these films, we highly recommend them and, of course, his novels are well worth a read.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1933—The Gestapo Is Formed
The Geheime Staatspolizei, aka Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established. It begins under the administration of SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police, but by 1939 is administered by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or Reich Main Security Office, and is a feared entity in every corner of Germany and beyond. 1937—Guernica Is Bombed
In Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Guernica is bombed by the German Luftwaffe, resulting in widespread destruction and casualties. The Basque government reports 1,654 people killed, while later research suggests far fewer deaths, but regardless, Guernica is viewed as an example of terror bombing and other countries learn that Nazi Germany is committed to that tactic. The bombing also becomes inspiration for Pablo Picasso, resulting in a protest painting that is not only his most famous work, but one the most important pieces of art ever produced. 1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission.
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It's easy. We have an uploader that makes it a snap. Use it to submit your art, text, header, and subhead. Your post can be funny, serious, or anything in between, as long as it's vintage pulp. You'll get a byline and experience the fleeting pride of free authorship. We'll edit your post for typos, but the rest is up to you. Click here to give us your best shot.
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