Wishing You A Fine Fourth Of July

EDIT 7/13/20: New posts are on the way, folks! I had some time consuming projects to finish–am happy to get back to my regular postings! 

Happy Independence Day to my fellow U.S. readers! And lookee what I found:

Is this not one of the most glorious patriotic images you’ve ever seen? It’s an ad for Mary Pickford’s The Little American (1917), made during WWI’s Great Wave of Patriotic Fervor. And I’d like to offer a challenge to the folks who like colorizing images–see what you can do with this! (I’d like vintage-y colors, myself.)

Well, 2020 has certainly been the strangest and most offkilter of years so far–this is definitely not how I planned on welcoming the New ’20s. However, holidays always provide opportunities to reflect and to remember the many silver linings in life. It’s easy to get caught up in the emotions of the moment, but holidays can ground us in ways nothing else can. And dang it, there’s few things better than a Fourth of July BBQ with your family and friends on a steamy summer’s day. To take a slightly modified sentence from Dickens, who was writing about a completely different holiday: though the Fourth of July has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket,  I believe it has done me good, it will do me good, and I say, God bless it!

Readers, I hope all of you have a fine summer weekend, no matter where you are. And now, I’m off to light some sparklers.

 

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Bang! It’s The Fourth!

Happy Fourth of July weekend, fellow Americans! And I suppose I can wish a Happy Independence Day of sorts to the U.K. too, yes?…No? Too soon? But…but why? 

In the ’20s, as part of the “fun cheesy photos for the holidays” tradition, it was popular for actors (mainly actresses) to pose in gag photos with fireworks, some of which were comically gigantic. The June 30, 1928 Exhibitor’s Herald and Moving Picture World featured this spread, which included our Louise Fazenda:

As a chaser, here’s the always-adorable Baby Peggy (from the Exhibitor’s Herald, July 21, 1923):

And of course, no matter where you are, have a lovely weekend because everyone deserves to have a lovely weekend. More posts are on the way once we’ve all recovered from any and all festivities!

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