ElectroAsylum

Blinking Books

Tender is the Night

 

This page is devoted to entertainment between roughly 1910 and 1929.

 

Scott and Zelda FitzgeraldScott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic--their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the burough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by the many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.

--The Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald of course wrote many wonderful novels in the 1920's, of which The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night are my personal favorites. Zelda: An Illustrated Life, edited by Eleonor Lanahan, reveals a great deal of the charm of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, who, like many highly-charismatic people, has been remarked upon as being very difficult to describe. A&E did a good TV biography of both of them, as well. Although many well-meaning people continue to promulgate the theory that what is perceived as emotional instability is not a prerequisite for artistic greatness, it is worth noting that Fitzgerald died young of a heart attack probably contributed to by excessive alcohol consumption, and Zelda died in 1948 in an asylum fire.

 

This month:

 

 

Harry HoudiniHarry Houdini

Master escape artist of all time, Houdini--like so many people of slight educational background who decide they want to say something--was also a fine writer. His best book is probably A Magician Among the Spirits, his exposure of famous mediums of the day. As a stage magician, Houdini felt very strongly that "psychic" phenomena were contrived stage tricks and should be admired as such, but never presented as anything more than stage tricks. In particular, he was made very angry by mediums who made money from people who wanted to communicate with dead relatives.

Try the Houdini! page.

 

Roscoe Arbuckle and Al St. JohnRoscoe Arbuckle (shown here with his nephew Al St. John, a fine comedian in his own right)

At one time the highest-paid comedian in the world, Roscoe (never called "Fatty" by anyone who knew him) Arbuckle's career came to an end after nasty speculation that he was involved in the death of actress Virginia Rappe at a weekend party-- charges of which he was later found innocent by a jury. Roscoe's 1913-1919 films perhaps best personify the entire youthful, funloving era preceding the US involvement in WWI, an era which many people later claimed everybody in the '20's was merely trying unsuccessfully to recapture.

Frame-Up! by Andy Edmonds is an excellent book about Roscoe's life and includes a filmography.

Try the Arbucklemania page.

 

Mabel NormandMabel Normand

One of the finest comediennes ever on screen, Mabel's best-known films were done from 1912 to 1920, most for Keystone Studios-- She was involved from age 16 with studio owner/producer Mack Sennett. She made many films with Roscoe Arbuckle, and, like him, the definitive end to her career occurred following a public scandal-- speculation that she was involved in the shooting death of director William Desmond Taylor, for which no charges were ever brought against anyone.

Mabel by Betty Harper Fussell is an excellent biography. It includes a filmography and also does a good job of portraying some of the survivors of '20's Hollywood.

Try the Hollywood Silents: Mabel Normand page.

 

Sergei EisensteinSergei Eisenstein

Russian director/writer Sergei Eisenstein made a number of outstanding fims, of which the most celebrated is probably Battleship Potemkin (1925), an incredibly-charged depiction of a simple incident in Odessa during the 1905 Revolution.

Eisenstein wrote several books and essays and an excellent two-volume set of memoirs. Most of his writings are out of print but are available through inter-library loan; if you read German, his memoirs--illustrated with copious photos--are still available I think from Locker Verlag in Vienna. His films, and film biographies of him, can be bought everywhere.

Try the Battleship Potemkin page.

Try the Sergei Eisenstein page.

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