Entertainment in the 1920s

Popular Entertainment

Vaudeville was a form of live theater that was popular in the United States between the 1880s and 1930s, similar to the music hall shows in Britain. Vaudeville performances were collections of shorter acts that included a variety of entertainment forms, including music, dancing, acrobatics, comedy skits, ventriloquists, juggling, and short plays. These vaudeville performances helped to inspire and promote popular music of the time and the early movie industry. Some early radio and movie actors who later became famous had their start in vaudeville or came from families of vaudeville performers, such as the Marx Brothers and Fred Astaire. Fred Astaire and his sister Adele had a musical brother and sister vaudeville act when they were children and later became Broadway performers.

Music and Radio

Culturally, this was the era of jazz music. During World War I, African American musicians who went overseas introduced their styles of music to Europe. As those styles took hold and became increasingly popular, it created an international Jazz Age during the 1920s (Harlem Hellfighters: The black soldiers who brought jazz to Europe). Home radio was a new invention, and it quickly became a popular form of media. Aside from broadcasting music, radio stations soon realized that they could make a variety of different radio programs. Radio shows soon came in great variety.

Some of the most famous musicians from the 1920s were Al Jolson, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Gene Austin, Jimmie Rodgers, Eddie Cantor, Irving Kaufman, and Bessie Smith. It's worth pointing out here that, while racism and prejudice were on the rise during this period of American history, many of the popular musicians and song writers of the era were black (such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Bessie Smith) or Jewish (such as Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Irving Kaufman, and Irving Berlin). The African American origins of jazz are well-known, but a number of the Jewish musicians and song writers had fathers who were cantors in the synagogues, something that influenced their sons, even when their sons turned to the more popular styles of music. Al Jolson directly references this in his movie The Jazz Singer, which was the first feature-length sound movie. That movie features Jolson in blackface, which is controversial, more so in modern times than in the 1920s, because of the racist associations. However, the entertainment from this period draws an interesting parallel between the lives of African American entertainers and Jewish entertainers in the 1920s. The two groups were often in a similar position in life, and in the early 20th century, they discovered that they could collaborate on projects. It wasn't a perfect association. Jewish people were still white, which gave them some advantages over black entertainers, and some Jewish people had prejudices against blacks as well. Still, both groups were minorities, the subject of prejudice and discrimination, and in spite of that, their contributions to popular culture and popularity as entertainers made them famous and gave them a lasting legacy. Even people who otherwise wouldn't have associated with them were drawn to their forms of music. Their styles were the ones that were later considered iconic of this period of history, and their names are the ones that come to mind when people discuss 1920s music.

A number of popular songs from this time were performed in vaudville acts or Broadway musicals before being recorded on phonograph (or gramophone) records or broadcasted on the radio. Among the popular songs of the 1920s:

• California, Here I Come! (1921) - The recording I chose is the iconic 1924 version with Al Jolson, but the song was actually written for an earlier Broadway show.
• Yes! We Have No Bananas (1923) - One of the songwriters later explained that this song was based on a real experience he had at a fruit stand, where the owner had a habit of starting every sentence with "yes," even if he was actually saying "no." The song is considered iconic, and it had a resurgeance in popularity during World War II when Britain began rationing food. Some shop owners began putting "Yes, we have no bananas" signs in their windows. It was true.
• Old King Tut (1923) - Performed by Billy Jones and Ernie Hare. This song was a direct reference to the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb in November 1922. (Some people might remember this from a dance scene in the modern tv show Boardwalk Empire.) The song also makes other pop culture references from the 1920s, like Valentino's silent movie, The Sheik.
• Yes Sir That's My Baby (1925)
• I'm Sitting on Top of the World (1925) - Used in one of the early talkie movies, The Singing Fool in 1928, which is the rendition that I chose.
• Heebie Jeebies (1926) - Scat style song by Louis Armstrong.
• Masculine Women! Feminine Men! (1926) - It's not really about transgender issues. This song is about the changes in fashions and attitudes in the 1920s. For example, shorter skirts meant that it was becoming more common for women to shave their legs, something they wouldn't have done when long skirts were the standard. The shorter haircuts that were in style for women looked more like boys' haircuts to peole not used to seeing women in short hair. Some of the lines between the habits of men and women were beginning to blur. This song pokes fun at the changing fashions and people who were finding it hard to cope with them.
• Me and My Shadow (1927) - He's just lonely.
• My Blue Heaven (1927) - "What makes the world go round? Nothing but love. ... Just Molly and me, and baby makes three ..."
• I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover (1927) - It's about time he noticed her.
• Ol' Man River (1927) - Written for the Broadway musical Showboat.
• Positively Absolutely! (1927) - One of the ending songs in the Phryne Fisher mystery series. "Does she love me? Positively! Do I love her? Absolutely! Positively, absolutely and how!"
• Makin' Whoopee (1928) - The innuendos are obvious. It's about the problems of marital infidelity. Everything is fine until a guy strays, and then he finds himself in divorce court.
• You're the Cream in My Coffee (1928)
• Sonny Boy (1928) - A sad song written for an early talkie movie, The Singing Fool. The singer's son is dying. In the Jeeves and Wooster television series, there's an episode where several people in a row sing this song in a talent show until the audience throws food and riots.
• Ain't Misbehavin' (1929) - Written for a Broadway play.
• Singin' in the Rain (1929)
• Tiptoe Through the Tulips (1929)

Note: Fans of old Looney Tunes cartoons might notice that a number of popular 1920s songs were used in the cartoons, and some of the parodies of old musicians were 1920s musicians, like Eddie Cantor. Eddie Cantor was also portrayed as a character in the tv show Boardwalk Empire.

Among the radio programs that people listened to during the 1920s were:

• The Happiness Boys - One of the earliest radio shows. Billy Jones and Ernie Hare started recording comical novelty songs (like Old King Tut, mentioned above) for phonograph records, and when radio became a popular form of entertainment, they got their own radio show where they sang novelty songs about contemporary events and popular culture.
• House of Myths (1926-1929) - Humorous renditions of Greek myths.
• Amos 'n' Andy (1928-1960) - A comedy show based on minstrel shows. It was later turned into a tv show with black actors, but the original radio show had white actors who pretended to be black. (When you only hear the characters and not see them, actors could get away with that.) The radio show is now considered controversial because of its portrayals of black people, especially because they were being done by white actors. The controversy also extends to the tv show although the cast of the tv show was almost entirely black. The main characters, Amos and Andy, were farm workers who decided to move to Chicago to find more opportunities in the big city. They have adventures with the people they meet there and various money-making schemes they get into. One of the other characters, the Kingfish, was known for using "Holy mackerel!" as a catchphrase. In the show's first incarnation, the main characters were called Sam and Henry.
  (Note: The show not only helped to popularize the phrase "Holy mackerel!" as a mild oath, but I've occasionally heard people use a variant that probably originated with this show: "Holy mackel andy!" or "Holy mackelandy!" I first heard this an as child and didn't understand what a "mackelandy" was, but I think it's a shortening of "Holy mackerel, Andy!" This advertisement for the tv show in an old issue of Popular Mechanics actually shows that phrase in writing. I haven't heard anyone say it for years, and it may be almost extinct now that the show is no longer mainstream. I suspect that it came from my grandparents' generation, something that they picked up from this radio show or the tv version and used as a substitute for swearing until the children and grandchildren were old enough that it didn't matter anymore. I wouldn't recommend using this version of the phrase anymore because that style of humor is in poor taste, but if you happen to hear someone say it, this is probably what it comes from, and that person might not even be aware of it if they learned it from their grandparents and not from the show itself.)
• Mystery House (1929-1951) - A suspense drama show.
• Uncle Don - One of the earliest children's programs. Uncle Don Carney would arrive in an imaginary autogyro and sing songs and tell stories.

For a more extensive list of 1920s radio programs, see Wikipedia's list of 1920s American Radio Programs.

You can listen to old radio programs for free online at Old World Radio, OTR.Network Library, and Old Time Radio on Internet Archive.

Radio stations and their programs made their money through advertising, much like television shows would later. Radio shows were sponsored by different companies, which provided fnding for the shows and used them for advertising purposes. Some of the radio programs were even named after the sponsoring company, like The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour and The Palmolive Hour. Those titles don't sound very exciting and don't tell you what to expect from the program itself, but basically, they were musical variety shows. The host of the show would tell listeners who their sponsor was at the beginning and end of the show, talk about the quality of the sponsor's products, and give their slogan or advertising jingle. Shows also had intermissions, where the sponsor's product would be advertised again. There would be no advertisements for any other type of product besides the show's sponsor. When radio programs were targeted at children, they often had fan clubs for the shows. When kids joined the fan clubs for their favorite shows, they would be sent membership cards and promotional materials.

Movies

Most of the movies produced during the 1920s were silent films, but by the end of the decade, sound films were being made.

Among the most famous silent films of the 1920s were:

• The Flapper (1920) - This movie popularized the term "flapper," referring to young women in the 1920s who dressed in more daring styles and flouted social conventions. (The term may have existed before that. The exact origins are uncertain.) In the movie, a sixteen-year-old girl is sent to a boarding school by her family in order to curb her wild behavior, but she finds a way to turn the situation to her advantage and sneaks out to flirt with an older man.
• The Sheik (1921) - With Rudolph Valentino. Rudolph Valentino was a famous leading man in romantic movies of the era. Sadly, he died at age 31 in 1926. Through the rest of the decade, girls would call their boyfriends "sheiks" after this movie.
• One Exciting Night (1922) - An early old dark house style mystery. This type of film became more popular in this decade and in the 1930s.
• The Phantom of the Opera (1925) - Based on the novel. Starring Lon Chaney, an actor famous for his horror movies and impressive skills with makeup and disguise, which earned him a reputation as the "Man of a Thousand Faces." Later, his son also became a successful horror actor.
• It (1927) - With Clara Bow. The "It" in the title was basically a combination of style, attitude, personality, and sex appeal. There is no precise definition, and different girls could have "it" in different ways, but people believed that girls who had "it" were instantly recognizable, magnetically attractive, and popular. The movie and the concept of "it" had an impact on women’s attitudes and sense of style and sex appeal, promoting the image of the “It Girl" as women tried to cultivate this sense of "it."
• The Cat and the Canary (1927) - An old dark house style mystery based on a stage play. Later remade as a sound movie with Bob Hope. Other movies of the time were also based on stage plays, and this particular film was also influenced by German Expressionist horror films (described more below).

Among the silent comedy films of the 1920s, I particularly recommend the comedy films with Buster Keaton. Buster Keaton was a famous silent film actor, known for comedy movies. Some of them involved some incredible stunts, which the actor did himself, as did many other early film actors. There were professional stunt artists at this time, but many studios didn't want to have to pay extra for them and would try to get the regular actors to as many of their own stunts as possible, sometimes with serious and disastrous consequences. Buster Keaton was particularly adept at stunts, having learned how to do them at an early age in his family's vaudeville act, but even he sometimes suffered injuries, broke bones, or was knocked unconscious during stunts. His films included:

• The Haunted House (1921) - Buster Keaton plays a bank teller whose manager is corrupt. The manager is involved with a gang of criminals, and they're planning to rob the bank. Their hideout is an old house, and they've rigged it with all sorts of tricks to make it look haunted in order to scare people away (kind of like an episode of Scooby-Doo - Scooby-Doo actually makes fun of a lot of tropes from old movies like this). On the day of the robbery, Keaton's character does something that messes up the robbers' plans but leaves the bank's owner with the impression that he actually tried to rob the bank. Keaton tries to hide in the "haunted house," and chaos ensues as a troupe of actors in costume who are hiding from their angry audience after messing up a performance of Faust frighten both Keaton and the real robbers, eventually leading to the discovery of the real villains. The movie is currently on YouTube.
• Three Ages (1923)
• Our Hospitality (1923)
• Sherlock Jr. (1924)
• The Navigator (1924)
• Seven Chances (1925) - A young man is told that his uncle has left him a great deal of money, but only if he is married before a certain time on a certain day ... and that day is today. Can he convince his girlfriend to get married on extremely short notice or find a suitable substitute for before the end of the day? This is the movie with the scene where Buster Keaton is running from boulders rolling down a hill. The movie is currently on YouTube
• The General (1926)
• College (1927)
• Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928) - This is the movie with the iconic scene where the facade of a house falls on Buster Keaton, but he isn't hurt because he's standing in the right spot so that he can stand in the window of the fallen facade instead of being knocked down. This scene has been parodied and redone many times.
• The Cameraman (1928)
• Spite Marriage (1929)

This YouTube video, Buster Keaton - The Art of the Gag shows examples of Buster Keaton's stunts and explains more about how he did them.

Mary Pickford's films are also iconic. Mary Pickford, called "America's Sweetheart", was a famous silent film actress and eventually owned her own film company. Her style tended more toward drama than comedy, and many of her movies were based on books and classic literature. Her films included:

• Pollyanna (1920)
• Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921)
• Tess of the Storm Country (1922)
• Little Annie Rooney (1925)
• Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
• The Black Pirate (1926)
• Sparrows (1926)
• The Taming of the Shrew (1929)

German Expressionist horror films have a very distinctive style that was very influential on later movies.

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) - A hypnotist uses a sleepwalker to murder people, but the story is turned around when the man who has been investigating the crimes of Dr. Caligari turns out to be a patient in an insane asylum and the man he has been investigating turns out to be his doctor.
• The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920) - Based on a Jewish legend. It was originally part of a trilogy, but the other two films are lost.
• Nosferatu (1922) - Technically, this film was supposed to have been destroyed not long after it was made. The story is taken directly from Bram Stoker's Dracula, although the style of the vampire in the movie is very different from the story and all of the characters have different names. When the film was released, Bram Stoker's widow sued the studio for copyright infringement, bankrupting the studio and making this film both the first and last film the studio ever made. The copies of the film were supposed to be burned, but since they had already been distributed, some copies survived and the movie is now considered a classic.
• The Hands of Orlac (1924) - A pianist is in a train accident and gets a hand transplant. However, he discovers that his new hands once belonged to a murderer.
• Metropolis (1927) - It was science-fiction, not horror, but it was also an Expressionist film. In a dystopian future city called Metropolis, society is starkly divided into the wealthy and pampered sector and the oppressed workers who support their lavish lifestyle. A wealthy young man who falls in love with a woman from the worker class helps to unite their society and stop an evil plot.

This video explains the history of German Expressionist horror films, how they related to events in Germany at the time that they were made, and the way they effected the style of other horror movies afterward. Another video analyzes the style of four particular German Expressionist Horror films by F.W. Murnau, including Nosferatu.

Many of these movies are now public domain and available on the Internet.

The first feature-length sound film was The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson, presented in 1927. (Note: Al Jolson is known for using “blackface” in his acts, something that appears in that movie. His performance is kind of an odd mix of promoting black styles of music and understanding of the feelings behind them while dressed up in this caricatured makeup at a time when levels of prejudice in the United States were particularly high. Life is full of mixed emotions. This video explains more about Al Jolson, his life and career, his use of blackface, and how it was viewed by minorities during the 1920s. It also explains a little more about the advent of sound movies and why, although the The Jazz Singer is considered the first feature-length sound film, it isn't really the first sound film, and technically, it's not really a sound film at all because the sound was recorded separately and not directly onto the film. Life is also full of technicalities.)

Books

Among the books and stories published for adults in the 1920s:

• The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) - The first Hercule Poirot mystery novel. By Agatha Christie.
• Billy Budd (1924) - Herman Melville's final novel. A young man is impressed into the Royal Navy in 1797.
• The Great Gatsby (1925) - By F. Scott Fitzgerald. A secretive millionaire has an affair with a married woman he loved years before.
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) - By Anita Loos. The adventures and romantic dalliances of a young flapper.
• The House Without a Key (1925) - The first of the Charlie Chan mystery novels. It was unusual for its time because the hero detective of the story is Chinese and is respected for his skills in spite of racial stereotypes of the period. By Earl Derr Biggers.
• The Benson Murder Case (1926) - The first Philo Vance mystery novel, based on a real unsolved murder in 1920. By S.S. Van Dine.
• The Moon Maid (1926) - By Edgar Rice Burroughs. A fantasy novel in which The Great War continues until 1967 and Britain and the United States triumph, becoming co-rulers of the entire world. After the war ends, Earth sents a manned space craft to the moon, where they encounter the people who live there.
• Elmer Gantry (1926) - By Sinclair Lewis. A satirical novel about a young preacher who marries well and gains a large congregation in spite of the hypocrisy in the way he lives his life.
• The Call of Cthulu (1928) - By H.P. Lovecraft, published in Weird Tales magazine.
• The Sound and the Fury (1929) - By William Faulkner. A novel about the downfall of a wealthy Southern family.
• Cimarron (1929) - By Edna Ferber. About a family building their lives in Oklahoma around the turn of the century.