Asides: Covers, Cards, and Cocoa

Here is another grouping of recent and not so recent postcard and magazine acquisitions from our favorite era, guaranteed to brighten your day. There are no new faces, but what alluring faces they are.

Click on the images for a larger view.

New Movie 1931 quarterly - Artist: Jules Erbit
This quarterly has photos of the stars, brief bios and autographs. There are 62 actors and actresses pictured.

Screenland magazine, February 1933 - Artist: Charles Sheldon

Photoplay, September 1934 - Artist: Earl Christy

Screenland magazine, August 1934 - Artist: Charles Sheldon

Love that clutch, and the shoes match.

The house she had built in Los Angeles was modeled after the White House, quite a step up from a childhood spent in poverty.

Elegant and alluring as usual.

Anita and Ramon appeared together in 1929's The Flying Fleet.

La Jana's card is one of the "jumbo" cards that the Ross company produced. It's about 25% larger than a standard postcard. La Jana of course, still kept her outfits small.

Yes, yes, yet another postcard of my girl Edwina Booth.

This is an example of a handtinted (painted) card. Tinted cards were not infrequent, but sold for a bit more. This particular card is also oversize, though not from Ross.

Nothing better on a cool evening that a nice mug of cocoa shared with Billie or Bebe.

Asides - Covers and Cards

Time to share a few recent acquisitions, including the covers from three issues of Motion Picture magazine. Motion Picture was one of the earliest film publications, dating back to at least 1916. All the issues featured in this post are from the late twenties. Next we have a couple of postcards, and finally four small cigarette cards from the Will's 1928 series.

Click on the images for a larger view

All three of these covers were created by artist Marland Stone. Marland's birthdate is unknown, but he died in 1975 after a very successful career as an illustrator and artist.

Motion Picture, March 1928 - Joan Crawford

Motion Picture, August 1928 - Norma Shearer

Motion Picture, June 1929 - Mary Duncan

A young Peggy Shannon in happier days

What can you say - taken during the filming of Shanghai Express

These cigarette cards are four from a series of 25 entitled Cinema Stars. The artwork harkens back to an earlier style than any cards subsequently produced by Will's or the other cigarette firms. Quite beautiful. Remember these are only about 1.5x3 inches and when viewed larger, lose some of their charm.

Clara Bow and Norma Talmadge

Pola Negri and Billie Dove

Asides - Now you see it, now you don't

Beauty marks were highly regarded during the 18th century and creating false ones became common. They were often in fanciful shapes such as hearts and stars. And while many people today, famous and not so famous, have beauty marks (think Cindy Crawford and some woman I saw in the mall a couple of weeks ago), they were a well used device by a number of actresses in the twenties and thirties. They often moved around the face to suit the whim of the wearer or a role being played. Here are a few images of actresses we have already covered, with and sans beauty marks. Two of the leading actresses of the day, Jean Harlow and Clara Bow, aren't featured here because firstly, I haven't covered Jean yet and secondly, they both had so many beauty marks in so many different facial locations, they would require their own separate beauty mark post. Click the images for a larger view.

Greta Nissen unadorned in the center, but well marked for her role in The Lucky Lady (1926) opposite Lionel Barrymore.

I'm pretty sure that Gloria Swanson's beauty mark was natural, but there are as many pictures of her without a mark as with.

I've only seen one image of Joan Crawford with a beauty mark
and it was part of the makeup for Rain.

I guess Anita Page or her publicist thought she should have at least
one picture of her sporting a beauty mark.

Pola Negri had one of those moving beauty marks.

Alice Terry, wears two marks for what I believe was her role as
Aline de Kercadiou in Scaramouche (1923).

So if beauty marks are to your liking, go out and get one today, they were all the rage way back when.

Pola Negri

Pola Negri

Pola, on screen from 1914 to 1943, with one appearance in 1964, was in 62 films. She was engaged to Charlie Chaplin before she met and seduced Rudolph Valentino. Negri was Adolf Hitler's favorite actress and falsely rumored to be his lover for a short while (pre-war), despite the fact that she was supposedly part Jewish. Among her lover Rudolph Valentino's last words were, "Pola - if she does not come in time, tell her I think of her." She died in 1987 at age 93.

Pola Negri - What do you think? Allure?