[Ads-l] cliffhanger (UNCLASSIFIED)

Fri Apr 15 16:12:17 UTC 2016

Great work, Bill! The 1919 cite is excellent.

Following your lead and searching thru Lantern, I found a possible
explanation for the November 15, 1930 Variety date (which was a
Saturday). A wrapper was regularly placed around the Weekly edition of
Variety, and the wrapper was generated on Saturdays.

Some of the content from Nov 15. was also summarized and placed in the
Nov 19 issue. I downloaded page 4 of the November 19, 1930 issue of
Variety that was accessible through Lantern and found the following
column titled "Hollywood Bulletins" that contained a pertinent
description in its first paragraph:

http://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/variety100-1930-11_0155

[Begin excerpt]
Briefly rewritten extracts from "Variety's" Hollywood Bulletin,
printed each Saturday in Hollywood, and placed as a wrapper upon the
regular weekly "Variety".
[End excerpt]

The Nov. 15 item containing the phrase "when cliff hanging was an art"
was probably about Grace Cunard based on the raw match data. The Nov
19 issue does have a "rewritten extract" mentioning Grace Cunard, but
it does not use the key phrase.

[Begin excerpt]
Grace Cunard queen of serials long ago, is back in 'em, doing a mother
part in U's "Heroes of the Flame."
[End excerpt]

For completeness: Below is the raw match information supplied by the
ProQuest Variety database for the Nov. 5 match.

[Begin excerpt]
Keywords:
the municipal court, say merchants Delegations of Hollywood mer chants
and business men have asked the municipal jurists for it and that body
will vote on the mat ter this week. Queen of Serials Does Comeback,
But as Mother Grace Cunard. known as the queen of serials when cliff
hanging was an art, is in em again. She's playing
Published Date: November 15th, 1930
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 10:05 AM, Mullins, Bill CIV (US)
<william.d.mullins18.civ at mail.mil> wrote:
> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
>
>> ----
>> I found matches in the Variety database for related terms that occurred a bit earlier. Follow the link to see more contextual details. These
>> matches should be verified by examining the scanned pages before being used in publications. I have not seen the scanned pages.
>>
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2014-March/131546.html
>>
>> {Begin excerpt]
>> "cliff-hanging heroines" Sept 3 1930
>> "when cliff hanging was an art" Nov 15, 1930 [End excerpt]
>>
>
> Sept 3 1930 cite (see col 1):
> http://ia902509.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/2/items/variety100-1930-09/variety100-1930-09_jp2.zip&file=variety100-1930-09_jp2/variety100-1930-09_0001.jp2
>
> I am not able to find the Nov 15 1930 cite in the Lantern database (front end search for Variety in Internet Archive), and suspect it may be in error, as the closest-dated issue of Variety it holds is Nov 19, 1930, not Nov 15, 1930.  But possibly Lantern only holds the weekly edition, and Garson's cite is from a Daily edition.
>
> An earlier relevant citation, from the first two stanzas of "Chasing the Serial", a poem by Harry J. Smalley:
>
> _Film Fun_ Oct 1919 p 7
>
> "I am a trav'ling-man —with fervor undiminished
> The motion-pictures daily I do see.
> But hereafter I shall view a play that's finished
> Right then and there—no serials for me!
>
> In Kalamazoo I saw the op'ning spasm,
> It ended with the Hero on a cliff
> Hanging by his finger-tips above a chasm—
> The Villain sneaking up to land a biff!"
> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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