Swimming at the Creek

If you grew up in a small rural town like I did,  you'd know that a creek lies somewhere betwixt and between a river and a brook.  Of course, how that's perceived varies with where you're from.  In western Pennsylvania, where I'm grew up, rivers mean the Allegheny or the Ohio and this stream would fall into the creek category.  In Nevada, people would probably see it as a good sized river.  In any case, it looks like a good place to cool off on a hot summers day.  I used to swim in Roaring Run and Crooked Creek.  And sometimes, I'd just wade in Hilty's Hollow.

No names, dates or location on the print.  There is a processor's mark, "Fox Tone Print, FOX CO. SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS"  That doesn't mean much.  Fox was a regional lab with a large mail order business.

Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties

I'm not going to write much about Mack Sennett.  He was born in Canada in 1880 and died, within my lifetime, in 1960.  He was early cinema's King of Comedy, the producer or director of hundreds of one and two reel shorts.  He also either ran, or was a partner, in several studios, most notably, Keystone, Triangle, with Thomas Ince and D. W. Griffith, and, of course, The Mack Sennett Studios.  There are plenty of articles on the web, as well as the better source, well written books, out there for those who want to know more.

This post is about the Mack Sennett bathing beauties.  Smart business man that he was, Sennett saw the relationship between pretty girls and ticket sales, so in 1915, he recruited his first troop of bathing beauties.  It wasn't hard to find  pretty young women, on the beaches of California,  willing to be filmed or photographed wearing a skimpy bathing suit. (In 1915, the above image was skimpy.  Things do change, after all.)  But while the bathing beauties were about box office, they weren't about stardom.  Sennett did his best to keep them as anonymous as possible.  They weren't credited, and were often replaced by someone prettier or more willing to do anything for a laugh.  Many of them would get their featured bits, or  what even could be considered an actual part, but only a few got out of  the background and into the limelight.

Juanita Hansen, 1895-1961, had the lead or a major supporting role in dozens of silent films, but a problem with alcohol and cocaine addiction ended her career in 1923.  Eventually, she got sober and had a second act as an anti drug and alcohol activist.

Claire Anderson, 1891-1964, made 73 movies, many as one of the bathing beauties, and many as credited lead.  Her last film was in 1926.

Marie Prevost, 1898-1937, was the first of the beauties to become a major star, with the lead in several films directed by  Ernst Lubitsch.   After her mother died in a car accident, and an unhappy love affair with Howard Hughes, she sank into a deep depression and, like Juanita Hansen, developed a drug and alcohol problem.  Her last film was in 1936.  She died a year latter from the long term damage caused by alcoholism, and acute malnutrition.  At her death, her estate was worth less than $300.  If Joan Crawford hadn't paid for her funeral, it would have fallen to Los Angeles county to bury her as an indigent.

Phyllis Haver, 1899-1960, married millionaire William Seeman in 1930, and retired form the screen, but not before starring as Roxie Hart in the first film version of Chicago, in 1927.  Divorced in the mid forties, Haver would die of an accidental barbiturate overdose.

Carole Lombard, 1908-1942.  The greatest of the bathing beauties, Lombard, was one of the great film comedians of the sound era.  She starred in a number of genuine film classics including, Twentieth Century, My Man Godfrey, Nothing Sacred, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and the Lubitsch classic, To Be Or Not To Be.  After America's entry into World War 2, she returned to her native Indiana on a war bond tour.  Her plane back to Los Angeles crashed, killing all on board, including her mother and agent.   Her husband, Clark Gable, joined the army not long after her funeral.

And finally, I've never understood the appeal of the six degrees of Kevin Bacon game, but....Kevin Bacon appeared with Colin Firth in Where the Truth Lies, Colin Firth costarred with Claire Bloom in The King's Speech, Claire Bloom was Charlie Chaplin's leading lady in Limelight, and Chaplin had a supporting role in Mabel's Strange Predicament, directed by and starring Mabel Normand, produced by Mack Sennett, .

The Family That Swims Together....

....stays together.  But who took the picture?

Bad Decision on the Beach

Who thought this photo was a good idea?  Well, that's one of the nice things about film.  Our momentary lapses in judgement don't go away with the press of a delete button.  So here it is, for all to see.  A young woman allowing herself to be ridden on the beach.

The German American Collection, The Album 16

This is it for the album, and only one more image from the entire collection to go. As already noted, the front cover of the album is missing and it's impossible to tell, with it's pages bound together with a ribbon, if any pages have been removed. Still, this page does seem like a good ending to me. Germany had just gone through a devastating war, for which it was partly responsible, as well as a period of hyperinflation. Between war deaths, a world wide Spanish flu pandemic which killed even more people, and a collapsed economy, there wasn't much to inspire happiness, but somehow or another, there was fun to be had. Germany, in the twenties, had one of the richest cultural movements in history. The Bauhaus, German expressionism, theater, song, and an incredibly rich cinema. And just a decade or so after these photos were taken, it would all be gone as the madness of Nazism took over. And after that another world war. It's very probable that at lest some of the people in these photos died in the slaughter.

The German American Collection, The Album 14

Time to start the final push on the German American collection. No more interruptions! Why is this woman wearing stockings with her swimsuit?

By the Pool in Sunny Southern California

I doubt this is a public pool. It's a little free of the teaming masses looking to cool down on a sunny day. While it's possible that this could have been a private pool, because of it's size, I think I'm going with either country club or hotel. What an age when ladies dressed to sit by the water. I suspect that the women in the top picture enjoyed eying the pool boy. Click on the second to get a bigger and better look at the trio in the background. The blond starlet type is wearing a hell of a swim suit.

A Faded Beach-The Baker Family 6

What is it about the Baker family? Did they leave their photographs out in the sun or did their photo finisher not understand the concept of a proper fix and archival wash? Anyway, it's more than just the photos that have faded. The type of beach resort (Hampton Beach, New Hampshire) seen in these images are also a bit of a faded memory. While they still exist, the open beach, open to all resorts are being replaced by a more exclusive type of development. High end hotels, gambling casinos, and ocean front mansions are cutting off the general public from ocean access. Here in Los Angeles it's a constant battle with the wealthy building homes adjacent to public beaches and then doing their best to prevent the general public from crossing their land to get to the ocean. On paper it's still open to all, but when they are allowed to get away with it, those beaches become private. I've decided to break up the Baker family collection and not post them back to back. Just click on baker family in the labels section to bring them all up. More to follow.

The Pre-Steroid Era

I bet he was working on his tan. I was a comic book addict as a kid, and in the back of all the Spider Man, Fantastic Four and X-Men comics there were these ads for Charles Atlas. Atlas claimed that he was a skinny, bullied kid who took up weight lifting and the bullies left him alone after he muscled up, and for just pennies a month he could teach us all his secrets. Too, he got all the girls. Just like Arnold, and look where that got him.

Oops-A Preference For Film

If this was taken on a digital camera, the subject would have grabbed the camera and hit delete. Too embarrassing. Well, that's my contention and I'm standing by it. But, it was shot on film and she couldn't have ripped the film out of the camera without destroying all of the other vacation shots. After a bit of time goes by and it's less embarrassing and more fun. Of course, it falls into the hands of someone like me who posts it on a blog for the whole world to see. If she's still alive she might have wished she'd thrown this one away. Oops, sorry.

Fun Times

Knowing the date of a photograph is always informative, but it can also be maddening. This bit of amateur cheesecake is dated 1940, the great depression was basically over, and while war had come to Europe and Asia, the United States was still at peace. Two years latter and these two young ladies could have been war workers at an aircraft plant, WAVES stitching up wounded marines in the south Pacific, or young widows. I'd love to know what happened to them, and not knowing is both the draw and frustration of snapshot collecting.

Iowa By Canoe

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Stamped on the back, "GEPPERT STUDIOS STAMP of QUALITY DES MOINES, IOWA." Des Moines is on the Des Moines River. Is it just me, or is the blond wearing a somewhat revealing swimsuit? Fun fact, in the first decade of the twentieth century, in most states, men could be arrested for going topless at the beach.

Good Times In The Great Depression, The Town & Country Album 2

This is part two of two. Navigate back one post to see the entire album in order. Part two expands things from guests to staff. When I purchased this small album, some of the photos were missing. The seller told me that he hadn't removed any of the photos, and since some of the photos were loose and falling out, that's very possible. Of the loose images, only a few had any information written on the back. The staff photo of the women standing on the steps, written on the back, "Marty Wilson" Could be the same Martha Wilson, the presumed owner of the album. The interesting question is why the owner would have to label her own picture. The final two pictures in the album, the woman holding her folding Kodak camera is dated, "Sun. Sept. 2, 34." I think that it's likely that the young woman is Martha Wilson. The Johnston's ad on the inside of the back cover was under the last photo. I was hoping that I could get a location after a little research into company, but was unable to find any information on the actual business, but I did find a Johnston's ad on an online auction sight that listed locations in New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Oakland.

Good Times In The Great Depression, The Town & Country Album 1

This is part one of two. When two photos are on the same page, I'll show the whole page to show position. When there is only one photo per page it will be scanned in as a single image. This album is dated 1934, during the great depression. By 1934, the absolute worst of the depression had passed and things were starting to turn around. At it's nadir, there was around 30% unemployment, and at a time when the majority of women didn't work, that probably actually translated to around half of the American population out of work. But no matter how hard things get, there are always some people who do well. This small album shows some of those lucky ones for whom the good life of the roaring twenties never ended. A country club, or a rural resort? Whatever the location, these people were having a good time. Written on the inside front page of the album, "Martha Wilson" Written on the margin of the first photo, "Poppy Day"