Screen Romances Magazine June 1939 ~ Cary Grant Cover
First the Good news: The inside of this vintage magazine is in very good condition after… page17 and is chock full of vintage movie star romance, brown sepia tone photos, advertisements and storytelling! This magazine was made for story telling! This is why there is a disclaimer on the title page stating as such: “Names and stories ….are ficticious. If the name of a living person is used it is purely coincidence.” Can you imagine using a celebrities name purposely ficticously? Sound familiar?
The Bad News? Well Water damage has gotten to the 1st 16 pages of the 82 pages, including the cover. When I found this treasure, the cover was almost disintegrated, but I quickly grabbed some packing tape and managed to fairly accurately cover the cover to keep all the pieces in place. The inside cover is the opposite of this taping so doesn’t look so good either, but you can still see Mickey Rooney’s smiling face urging us to go see the latest edition of the Hardy Boys movie at the picture show!
This is the worst of it. The following 16 pages, while completely in tact and very readable, does show some water marks.
Back to the Good news…The advertisements alone make this magazine an amazing slice of a time gone by. I am shocked at some of the text. For example advertising Marchands Golden Hair Wash (apparently a peroxide for lightning hair) it reads: “Let’s take your hair down ladies and have a look at it…and at you. You were a blonde. But time darkened your hair. Now you’re a nothing. (!!now you’re a nothing?!!) You’re not as popular either!” Shocking… how demeaning! There are more too, much more crass and accusatory to make our Mothers feel inferior just to sell a product! Ok off the soap box…but I wanted to let you know that the ads are real story tellers in themselves!
The gossip and the photos are as you would imagine…mostly untrue as in today’s “rags”.
There is a 3 page spread declaring a huge grand prize of a whopping $200 and 2nd prize of $150 for the “Union Pacific Contest”. The rest of the reads are fascinating…all the way to the back cover featuring a Lucky Strike ad!
Screen Romances June 1939 measures: 28.5 x 8.5”. I am so glad I saved this bit of vintage pulp!
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