Life, 1929-05-03 · page 19 of 44
Life — May 3, 1929 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains brief satirical news items from various locations and one cartoon. The cartoon depicts two shabby men calling a child to "come to mummy" and "daddy," with the child responding that they've "traded, we've gotten for nothing, I'm with yesterday." The caption states: "If they looked the way they sound in the talkies." This satirizes early talking pictures (talkies). The joke suggests that if actors in sound films appeared as disheveled and disreputable as their voices sound, audiences would be horrified—implying that early sound technology made actors' voices sound rough, poor quality, or otherwise unattractive compared to their actual appearance. The scattered news items above mock various absurdities: tax avoidance, Bible-reading while wading, film propaganda, dress thievery, and questionable barber efficiency—typical Life magazine humor mocking contemporary society.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LONDON-—Ignorance is no excuse for not paying income tax. One man, on receiving his forms, sent the follow- ing note to Mr. Churchill: —“Dear Sir —I return your forms herewith, as I do not wish to join the Income Tax. I am already insured.” BELFAST, Ireland—Mrs. Mary Mann, 100, appeared in court to prose- cute her 75-year-old son for abusive language. LONDON—Sir Arthur Keith re- cently made the statement that we have ten times as much brain as we need; that very few people use fifty per cent, and many people but ten per cent of their brains, BAYSWATER, Eng—The man who waded into the sea at Lancing and out again, while reading a Bible, was yesterday identified at Shoreham Infirmary as Mr. E. Brooks, of Park- place. WEST LONDON, England—A cardboard box, twelve inches square, was brought into court recently as an exhibit in a charge of shoplifting. It contained forty-three.svomen’s dresses. HAVANA—A local barber shaves his customers in slightly more. than one minute. He uses two razors—one in each hand—and finishes the job in four strokes. ALN Sse iq ROME—Premier Mussolini has seen and heard the first talking film made in Italy. The film depicted the Duce addressing an assembly of 25,000 Al- pine troops in the Colosseum. The premier declared himself —_ greatly pleased with the picture. LONDON—A man isn’t drunk if he can stand on one leg, says a Pre- toria magistrate, who discharged a man held for intoxication when the con- stable testified that the prisoner had stood perfectly still on one leg when brought to the station. “I do not know the official test for drunkenness,” said the judge, “but it seems that if a man can stand on one leg without assistance, he is not drunk.” thf “fy JHTEVE THLADE, (VE WAITED FOR THITH CHANTA THINTH YETHTERDAY Hf] a5 If they looked the way they sound in the talkies. comicbooks.com