Motion Picture Magazine/Classic and Similar 1 1

[Professor K]

Hey everyone, I couldn't find anything on the board about old Hollywood type magazines. If this is the wrong section to post I guess it could be moved where it belongs. 

So I've been looking at these old movie mags and really liking them. Mainly silent era issues. I'm kind of a silent screen fan so maybe that's why I think they are neat. Usually the covers portray one of the silent screen beauties that were popular at the time or sometimes a man. Just wondering if anyone here collects them or likes them.

Here a few  examples that are not mine. I have none.

[OtherEric]

On 10/14/2023 at 5:23 PM, Professor K said:

 

Whoever has that one needs to return it to the Library of Congress, assuming it's not the LoC.

I've got at least one pulp (an issue of Operator #5) with a similar LoC stamp, I keep wondering if I should contact them about it or not.  Does anybody know if they deliberately let items go at some point?

[waaaghboss]

On 10/14/2023 at 5:34 PM, OtherEric said:

Whoever has that one needs to return it to the Library of Congress, assuming it's not the LoC.

I've got at least one pulp (an issue of Operator #5) with a similar LoC stamp, I keep wondering if I should contact them about it or not.  Does anybody know if they deliberately let items go at some point?

They let them go, if memory serves they originally would get two copies of a book, but to downsize they just kept the covers after a certain point.  

[waaaghboss]

Looks like they transitioned to microfilm, and later tried getting repos of the covers.

https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2013/09/saving-pulp-fiction/

[waaaghboss]

I only have a couple.  This mag has first published work by Seabury Quinn, a critique on how law being misportrayed in movies is harmful in 1917.

This one is a curiosity that is movie adjacent I picked up a while back.  

Eltinge was famous for vauldvile cross dressing performances, and eventually made it jnto the silent films, where he was one of the highest paid actors of them time.  He faded into obscurity by the time the depression hit.  This is one of the magazines he produced, which has some interesting photo techniques de rhe tome and was largely used to sell beauty products.  I imagine it's somewhat scarce.  

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Eltinge

Edited October 15, 2023 by waaaghboss

[waaaghboss]

And my LOC book 😀

[Darwination]

Nice thread, Prof. K! Love the movie magazines even if I don't have a ton of them in my collection (outside of maybe Film Fun but I'm thinking the downmarket ones aren't quite what we are talking about). 

Many of the film mags remain in great shape because of good production values as well as film and glamour collectors treating them well all these years.  Prices are higher than a lot of mass market magazines but not too high if you know what I mean.

OE/Waughboss (GROOOOO) - Those LOC stamps do pop up from time to time.  My impression is that they aren't stolen or anything and often the copies submitted for copyright (versus "walking"out of the Library).  As for pulps in the LOC, they were converted to microfilm at some point in the 80s, but many of the covers (and back covers) were saved and are in plastic.  I was pretty mad upon this discovery but have been talked down from the ledge in that this was a space saving / preservation measure, as most of the mags had begun to stink and that separating the covers from the pulp keeps them in better shape.  As for general periodicals, I think the physical copy remains.  I do wish they'd kept the original pages for the future, though, as a nice scan beats the pants off microfilm any day.

One of my LOC stamped issues

LOC stamp in the suds.

The cover (and the rest of the issue) all cleaned up with some info on the artist and publication here:

http://darwinscans.blogspot.com/2023/03/beer-v01n01-june-1932-worth-carnahan-pt.html

Also, a nice repository of motion picture mag scans, these people are doing work just like us pulpsters, comic scanners, etc.:

https://mediahistoryproject.org/collections/fan-magazines/

But a couple from my collection (and I'd like more - Earl Christy, Henry Clive, Zoe Mozert, and Rolf Armstrong are just a few of the American masters that worked in the genre):

Marland Stone (having trouble finding the raw scan of my copy, believe I have it pressing between a few big books on a bookshelf smh):

Zoe Mozert.  This one's like a cross between a pulp and movie mag.  Movie "adaptations" many, many pictures, no illustrations iirc:

Mozert was friends with Lombard, as she loved her portraits done by Zoe.

I've got a very small gallery of Zoe stuff up at Flickr (not my scans):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/197841258@N07/galleries/72157721802758997

 

 

Edited October 15, 2023 by Darwination

[Professor K]

On 10/15/2023 at 12:45 PM, Darwination said:

Nice thread, Prof. K! Love the movie magazines even if I don't have a ton of them in my collection (outside of maybe Film Fun but I'm thinking the downmarket ones aren't quite what we are talking about). 

Many of the film mags remain in great shape because of good production values as well as film and glamour collectors treating them well all these years.  Prices are higher than a lot of mass market magazines but not too high if you know what I mean.

OE/Waughboss (GROOOOO) - Those LOC stamps do pop up from time to time.  My impression is that they aren't stolen or anything and often the copies submitted for copyright (versus "walking"out of the Library).  As for pulps in the LOC, they were converted to microfilm at some point in the 80s, but many of the covers (and back covers) were saved and are in plastic.  I was pretty mad upon this discovery but have been talked down from the ledge in that this was a space saving / preservation measure, as most of the mags had begun to stink and that separating the covers from the pulp keeps them in better shape.  As for general periodicals, I think the physical copy remains.  I do wish they'd kept the original pages for the future, though, as a nice scan beats the pants off microfilm any day.

One of my LOC stamped issues

LOC stamp in the suds.

The cover (and the rest of the issue) all cleaned up with some info on the artist and publication here:

http://darwinscans.blogspot.com/2023/03/beer-v01n01-june-1932-worth-carnahan-pt.html

Also, a nice repository of motion picture mag scans, these people are doing work just like us pulpsters, comic scanners, etc.:

https://mediahistoryproject.org/collections/fan-magazines/

But a couple from my collection (and I'd like more - Earl Christy, Henry Clive, Zoe Mozert, and Rolf Armstrong are just a few of the American masters that worked in the genre):

Marland Stone (having trouble finding the raw scan of my copy, believe I have it pressing between a few big books on a bookshelf smh):

Zoe Mozert.  This one's like a cross between a pulp and movie mag.  Movie "adaptations" many, many pictures, no illustrations iirc:

Mozert was friends with Lombard, as she loved her portraits done by Zoe.

I've got a very small gallery of Zoe stuff up at Flickr (not my scans):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/197841258@N07/galleries/72157721802758997

 

 

That's really interesting stuff . And those two books are sweet! Josephine Dunn and Carol Lombard, nice. I looked at yoyr flicker page, beautufil stuff. So Zoe Mozart was an artist and a model? That one pic of her painting Jane Russell for the movie poster is really neat. 

[Darwination]

That Jane Russell painting for the Outlaw sold for 166,000.00 + in 2020, so it's got some extra cultural juice outside of its artistic merits

I don't really know that much about Mozert outside of her work.  She started in the pulps (or at least did some pulp work along with other magazine stuff), and I think her chops and market appeal improved from there

This one's May of 34 (my copy)

Fawcett scooped her up and kept her very busy into the early 40s, I believe she was the exclusive artist at points for their huge selling romance mags like True Story and True Confessions.  She also did stuff for their wilder mags as well.  This is 1937

She did earn extra money in art school as a model and later did much posing for her own works.  David Saunders in her pulp wiki theorizes she did some posing for H.J. Ward when they were both art students in Philadelphia, as many of his paintings from that period look like her   I recently noticed in an issue of True Confessions scanned by Saskia from the pulpscans group a fun entry that discloses Zoe as both artist and model for the cover as well as some bio:

Not that ish, but another Fawcett from my collection, '37

She also freelanced outside of Fawcett and did covers for The American besides cosmetics and other types advertising.  Early in the 40s, Brown and Bigelow signed her to an exclusive contract, and most of her fame is from her pin-up work on their calendars of that era.  If you search her at Heritage, she has a nice selection of surviving paintings

 

Edited October 15, 2023 by Darwination

[Pat Calhoun]

that Mystic is nice, huh waaagh...

[waaaghboss]

On 10/15/2023 at 2:50 PM, Pat Calhoun said:

that Mystic is nice, huh waaagh...

Wouldn't mind it sitting on my shelf   

I remember this issue standing out a while back when I was watching some motion pic magazines.  Would love to get it in decent grade (pic from ebay, not mine)

 

 

[Darwination]

Any chance you've got the date on this one?  I went looking to find the date but "Motion Picture Magazine" turned up 45,000 results

Leo Silke has some excellent covers c.1920

I ask, as I've been looking at this "lantern effect" on some other covers (none my copies, sadly, I'd like to own all 3):

Leo Fontan, La Vie Parisienne 1919-04-26, then two Bolles both from 35.  LVP had an ENORMOUS influence on American artists of all stripes, imo the greatest collection of girlie artists ever assembled in one magazine.

I did do a very cursory treatment of this bottom one on muh Flickr from a lower resolution image to complete a scan for a friend's coverless copy. 

Or a reprint of it at least (later Breezy covers are almost all reprints, usually lacking the lustre of the original issue)
 

 

Edited October 16, 2023 by Darwination

[waaaghboss]

January 1917.  That breezy is top notch.  

 

 

[Professor K]

Got this today. Cheap. Like half a tank of gas cheap. I'm really impressed with the condition. What do they call the side edge on a square bound book, can't think of the word? That part has some wear but the front cover is beautiful. A young Greta Garbo on the cover don't hurt either. Pages are super white throughout.   August 1929.

The book is just a little too wide for my scanner.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Professor K
grammar correction

[Ameri]

I got this Louise Brooks cover issue a few months ago

[Darwination]

Gorgeous!  I'm going to look into the artist, love the look on her face - complicated.

I'm not sure where I found this image, but it's a fave -  Brooks reading a Smart Set with a Henry Clive cover:

 

[Ameri]

Photoplay must have got the idea from this publicity still