Life, 1928-12-07 · page 28 of 64
Life — December 7, 1928 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon:** A couple seeks privacy for romance in the city. The humor derives from their escalating desperation—trying taxis (too expensive), doorways (embarrassing), friends' apartments (friends won't leave), parks (witnessing other couples' indiscretions), and finally a railroad station. It satirizes the practical obstacles young engaged couples faced in finding private spaces during the era when dating norms required discretion. **Bottom Cartoons:** Three identical panels show a man at a desk surrounded by money, progressively becoming more disheveled. The caption "Behind the Scenes of a Great Industry: Writing the Libretto of a Successful Musical Comedy" suggests that creating popular entertainment is lucrative but exhausting work—the writer literally works himself ragged handling profits. It's satire on artistic labor versus financial reward in commercial theater. **Side Note:** A brief joke mocks early "talking pictures" (talkies) for poor audio quality—you could hear cattle rustling in a Western film.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
esata LU PE LALA ela “Thank you, Peters. That wreath in the window gives just the right touch of Christmas cheer.” Formuta ror Prospertry — Load a| “Was that Western talkie any good?” man with “Conveniences,” then work him} “Sure. You could even hear the cattle | to death paying for them. rustling.” Love Conquers All 7 Kennetn and I are very much in love, though we can’t get married for a long time. We became engaged one night when there wasn’t anything else to do, and, of course, that necessitated finding some place in which to kiss each other and find out What It’s All About. Ken lives at a club and I live at home, so we were driven out into the cold, heartless city to find a proper place for our devotions. At first we tried taxicabs, but that was too expensive. Then we tried doorways for awhile. We pretended not to notice passers-by who gave us inquisitive looks, or tenants who were always going in or taking the dog out. However, one night as I looked adoringly into Kenneth’s eyes and mur- mured, “What makes you so wonderful?” I unthinkingly leaned against six or seven bells at once. On our way home we tore up our list of doorways. We began dropping into our friends’ apartments for bridge, and then casually suggesting that they go to a movie, that we didn’t play bridge very well, and that they shouldn't bother about entertaining us. But when even our best friends refused to be ousted out of their apartments in this fashion, we became desperate. Bus tops, movies, and even the dim corners of our favorite speakeasies were most unsatisfactory. We went to the park, but we saw there so many horrible ex- amples of how shameless love can make people that we almost broke our engage- ment. Then came that momentous evening when we strolled through the great rail- road station... . . In the lines which form in front of the Benno tHe Scenes or a Great INpustRY Writing the Libretto of a Successful Musical Com: Poge 42 — edy comicbooks.com