[Ads-l] Jazz Girls, 1915?

[Ben Zimmer]

On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 1:18 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> Mary was a big star by 1912 at least, though I don't know when she adopted
> the sausage curls.
>
> As a title, "Jazz Girls" may imply no more than that jazz-loving women were
> more likely to - well, you know.

Yes, like "jazz babies," those female jazz enthusiasts who the OED
informs us were "frequently regarded as somewhat dissolute"! (The
titular "jazz baby" of the 1919 song wanted to be "jazzing all the
time.")


> On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 10:19 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 9:53 AM, Christopher Philippo wrote:
> > >
> > > The date of its production is disputed, some theorizing it was made in
> > > the 1920s.  Just to throw in another wrinkle: regardless of when it was
> > > made, I would guess it is at least possible that the title cards are not
> > > the original ones.
> >
> > Good point -- there's no way of knowing when the title cards were
> > added. In Linda Williams' 1989 book _Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and
> > the "Frenzy of the Visible"_, she talks about watching a print at the
> > Kinsey Institute that had some shots inserted from a later stag film
> > ("The Casting Couch," 1924), so it's clearly tricky determining what's
> > "original" in a film like this.
> >
> > https://books.google.com/books?id=OMa96WrLnhQC&pg=PA61
> >
> > Williams says the Kinsey Institute dates the film to 1917-19, which
> > would be enough for "Jazz Girls" to make more historical sense without
> > even jumping to the '20s. (According to Wikipedia, the estimate of
> > c1923 is based on one of the girls' Mary Pickford-style hair.)

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org