Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald

Tis Love and Love alone

If any couple can be blamed for unrealistic Hollywood notions of true love and eternal happiness, it's Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. The two popular singers embodied an irrepressible optimism about life, love and the happy ending. Utilising their warmth, natural charm and  sweet voices, they sang and acted their way through a series of  films that played heavily upon the emotional strings of viewers.

In the 1930s, when the world was less cynical about such things, these two were a huge box office draw. Via beautifully contrived and poignant plot lines, they had audiences dabbing their eyes and leaving the theatre with an uplifting view that there might be hope for the human race after all. Even today, it's hard to resist them -at least for anyone with the remotest flicker of romantic yearning.

Rudy Vallee

Me and my Megaphone

Rudy Vallee and his megaphone

Musician, singer, screen actor, radio star and comedian Rudy Vallee was a bit hit in the 1920s, 30s and 40s - with his softly intimate voice, tousled hair and non-threatening, boyish features, he cultivated a distinctive crooner image and personality that made him stand out from the regular popular singer crowd.

'College boy' Vallee had been a bandleader and saxophonist in the 1920s, who made a name for himself by singing through his trademark megaphone, often in a university sweater and singing Ivy League ditties such as the Yale drinking song, Whiffenproof.

The Dead End Kids

Such naughtiness. Some of The Dead End Kids

In depression-era America, the Dead End Kids were a popular cinema attraction, reflecting as they did, the chutzpah and wisecracking humour-in the-face-of-adversity of New York kids who were doing it tough in the slum tenements of the 1930s.

So who were they? Essentially they were a group of actors who played a gang of wayward boys -  wisearse street kids, who oozed a kind of reprobate charm and personality.

The kids began on Broadway in 1935, in a successful play called Dead End and a couple of years later were brought to Hollywood by legendary producer Samuel Goldwyn, who saw the potential appeal of the show for a wider audience.

Real Life Brats
Goldwyn turned the play into a film, hiring an extra eight youths, in addition to the original cast,  to play an array of roles. Legend  has it they were a nightmare on the set - running amok, destroying valuable studio property and generally misbehaving. So much so, that Goldwyn, eager to offload them, sold their contract to Warner Bros. after the film's completion.

They went on to make six films under the name Dead End Kids with Warner, often working with big name stars like Bogart, Cagney, Ronal Regan and Pat O'Brien. In subsequent films, the boys were rechristened the Eastside Kids and in the 1940s, Monogram Films  made another series of films using some original cast members under the name The Bowery Boys.

All in all, the various groups of boys that began with the original concept of the Dead End Kids, made total of 89 films during a period that spanned a long, by Hollywood terms,  21 years. In the 1960s and 70s,  the Eastside Kids and the Bowery Boys films were screened on syndicated television , leading to a new legion of fans.


The Original Dead End Kids
Billy Halop
Bobby Jordan,
Huntz Hall,
Bernard Punsly
Gabriel Dell
Leo and David Gorcey

Arched Eyebrows

Marlene Dietrich

The early  20th century penchant for highly stylized, arched eyebrows began in Hollywood in the 1930s. Brows were plucked into fine, high arched feminine lines and definition was pencilled in. 1920s brows had also been thinly plucked but were markedly straighter in design.

 The fine, high arch was a dramatic look, designed to emphasize the plains of a woman's face, even if at times, it did give the wearer a rather startled, unnatural appearance.

In the 40s the trend veered toward medium thickness and a more understated look -red lips, heavy on the schtick, rather than brows, were the defining facial characteristic of that era.

A young Joan Crawford in the 1930s

Getting Thicker

Joan Crawford's look reveals a  change of brow fashion

The cult of the arched eyebrow returned with a force in the mid 20th century, only this time with a dark heaviness reminiscent of the Egyptian Queens. However, while the fineness had disappeared, the high drama remained and the brows became strong personality statements, indicating feminine power and sexuality in a new way.

The change of styles can be seen clearly in actress Joan Crawford, who in the late 40s/50s chose a distinctly heavy, dark eyebrow arch - it certainly drew the eye, even threatening to overwhelm her facial features. In the 30s however, Joan had worn the classic Hollywood fine arches of the day.

In the 60s and 70s a more natural look was beginning to predominate. Interestingly, a 2007 study  revealed that younger people prefer lower placed eyebrows with a subtle arch, while those over fifty favour a high arch.


How to Arch your Eyebrows

The Hoover Building

Image by Steve Cadman

Art Deco Building

Image by Steve Cadman

The Hoover Factory in London is one of the most iconic art deco buildings in the world, famous chiefly for its remarkable balancing act between architectural functionalism and its striking decorative features.

This is no ordinary factory as not only is the first site of the building (which is really three buildings together) an impressively striking sight in its entirety but the visitors eye is inexorably drawn to the extraordinarily imaginative and exotic detail of its parts.


Everything about this building screams art deco, from its Aztec inspired front facade, rounded towers, lines of blue and white tiles,  Egyptian pillars, stylised sunbursts and geometric shapes to it's period colour combination  of green, orange, blue and black, contrasted with a  stark white background.

Chick Henderson

Chick Henderson

British singer Chick Henderson had a warm, rich, emotional, yet manly voice, that could stir the heartstrings and get the body swaying.

Henderson was just 31 when he died in 1944 as the result of torpedo wounds sustained during WW2 but in his short career had managed to garner a significant fanbase in the UK and recorded some highly acclaimed tracks, including his greatest hit Begin the Beguine, recorded with Joe Loss and his band.

Rumour has it Chick was unassuming, witty, charming and entirely lovable. Born Henderson Rowntree in the North of England in 1912, Henerson had enjoyed singing throughout his boyhood and as a young man, he auditioned for and was signed up by bandleader Harry Leader. Chick's first recording appeared in 1985 on the Eclipse label -Zing went the Strings of my Heart and he joined the Joe Loss Band in the same year, after being heard and admired on radio.

Chick went on to make over 250 recordings, many of them great songs, such as That Lovely Weekend, Starlight Serenade and Bewteen a Kiss and a Sigh - and in fact Chick Henderson was the only recording artist in the 1930s to have a hit record (Begin the Beguine) that sold over a million copies.

For more comprehensive info on Chick, visit the Chick Henderson Appreciation Society

With Plenty of Money and You...

Pencil Thin Moustache

The one and only

Suavo

Anyone addicted to old black and white films from the 1930s will know that the pencil thin moustache was a very popular fashion accessory for the stylish male. It was a short but intense fad that disappeared as the decades shifted gear and so far as I'm aware, never returned again..at least not in any great numbers, though I did notice Brad Pitt had kind of one for a while.

Pondering on this pencil thin question, it occurred to me that all the childish crushes I had on old actors (and there were a few), sported one of these archaic moustaches. Let's see, there was Don Ameche, who when I was eight or nine, thought was the bees knees - he was just so darn pleasant and had a great smile, as well as a carefree attitude. Yes, he was a serious crush.

George Brent..charm and wit

After Don, who, disloyal worshipper that I am, faded from view, I moved on to George Brent who was older and more mature but then so was I. When I was in my late teens, George seemed to me the epitome of sophisticated good humour, helped along in no small way I'm sure, by his defining pencil thin moustache. I wondered, with a certain wistful sadness, why there weren't men like George around anymore?

In my twenties, I discovered Errol Flynn, a fellow Australian and as elegant a rake as you'll find in a 30s film. Someone gave me a Leading Men of Hollywood book for my birthday and when the page fell open on a full glossy print of Errol's handsome yet sensitive face, well I'm afraid George had to move out of the way.  I just can't imagine Errol without his pencil thin moustache, so integral a part of his facial features was it. In fact, I wonder if it's even possible to be a swashbuckler without one. Which reminds me...why don't men swashbuckle anymore?

Oh my

More recently, I've begun to have *feelings* for the charming and urbane William Powell, after watching some old Thin Man series where he sparred with Myrna Loy. The dog was pretty cute too..but no moustache.

Ok, a moustache yes,..but not pencil thin

I mean really, how debonair can you get?

Strangely enough and despite all these nostalgic black and white yearnings for men gone by, I don't think I'd like to see pencil thin moustaches on men today. It just wouldn't be right somehow...the pencil thin moustache belongs in the 30s, to an era that just can't be recaptured.

The Handle Bar Moustache

Of Men and Monocles
Cravats for Men
More Men's fashion

Al Bowlly and Ray Noble

,

My father was a great fan of music of the 1930's, an appreciation buoyed by a great collection of vinyls, as well as old 78's and as a result I grew up listening to music by the greats, such as Fats Waller, The Mills Brothers, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie and Duke Ellington. With unfailing regularity, every saturday, morning Dad would rustle through his collection and dance around the lounge room floor to the music of his choice, always uplifted by the melodies. Many a saturday morning I would awake bleary-eyed to the cheerful, sometimes too cheerful, strains of George Gershwin's Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries.

Ray Noble

One of my favourites from this vintage musical treasure trove was  singer and jazz guitarist Al Bowlly. Bowlly was a prodigious artist, making more than 1,000 recordings between 1927 and 1941 and his sweet, warm but nonetheless strong voice appealed to a wide range of listeners. In the 1930 he teamed up very successfully with fellow Englishman, (another of my favourites), Ray Noble and his Ray Noble Orchestra and it proved to be a great boon to both careers.

The Songs

Love is the sweetest thing, The Very Thought of You, You're So Desirable, The Touch of Your Lips, Goodnight Sweetheart, Isle of Capri are just some of the songs British bandleader Ray Noble has left to the world. Noble too, was immensely popular in his day and his beautiful tunes are still used in various productions, more than seventy years after their inception; notably in a cat food advertisement, as the theme for a British television series and in the films of Woody Allen, a fellow 30's music fan.

Perhaps the most striking feature of a Ray Noble song, besides its warmth and simplicity, is its 'humanness'.  Bowlly and Noble seem to have been able to tap into something basic and uncomplicated about human love and extract the essence, which is perhaps why they are still enjoyed, despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that the peculiarly sweet innocence of the lyrics jars with the more aggressive tendencies of modern song. There is nothing convoluted or pretentious about a  Noble song; his lyrics are timeless, evocative and utterly relatable. These songs, enhanced by the sweet vocals of Al Bowlly, have been a consistent thread in my life and a musical backdrop to many old memories of childhood. They always add a little Springtime to my heart....