"Perils of Pauline", 1914 -- cliff-hanger or not?

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Sat Feb 8 21:28:35 UTC 2014


At 2/8/2014 03:45 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>More than once I have seen a sequence where Pauline was indeed hanging by
>her fingernails from the edge of a cliff.
>
>I don't know whether it was at the end of an episode or not.
>
>Have I already suggested the possibility that the early use of
>"cliff-hanger" to refer to Western serials came not directly from "The
>Perils of Pauline" but from some copy-cat scene in a more modern adventure?

Yes you did -- or at least a 1934/35 vintage cat.  Right now I'm not
concerned with the etymology of "cliff-hanger", but about who's right
about the 1814 serial (left hanging at the end of episodes, or not).

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