Freedom to Read Week: Father Harrigan Moves to Protect Ontario's Girls Against 'Love' Comics

The Calgary Herald, 18 August 1950

Ah, "love" comics... much better than "sex comics", the term Father Harrigan and the OCPTA had been using. There had been such unfortunate headlines:

The Globe & Mail, 12 April 1950

The Globe & Mail, 18 January 1950

Father B.W. Harrigan turns the first sod for the Holy Rosary Parish Hall and School, Burlington, Ontario, c.April 1950.

Much Ado About Anne

A friend asks why I've not weighed in on the Anne of Green Gables cover controversy. To be frank, I feel I've said all I have to say about wretched print on demand product – but more than this is the simple fact that the controversy is a media creation. I won't play along.

Let's be clear, hardly anyone noticed Blonde Anne until Greg Quill brought it to readers' attention in the Toronto Star. What he presented wasn't news but an invitation:

Remember when Anne of Green Gables leaned back on the barnyard fence, ran a hand through her shimmering blond hair and tossed off a sexy pout? You don’t? 

Then join dozens of other outraged readers of the 1908 Canadian classic who have let Amazon.com know that the most recent edition of L.M. Montgomery’s coming-of-age text got it all wrong in the cover art department.

A few hundred answered the call, littering Amazon's site with "customer reviews" that were just as silly and ill-informed as the cover being criticized.

The offending volume has since been removed from sale, the image has been scrubbed from Amazon's site, yet the outrage continues.

There have been other ridiculous print on demand Montgomerys – Rila of Ingelside [sic] is a favourite – but this depiction of our dear Anne seems to have offended so very personally. Where, one wonders, was the outrage over Toddler Anne...

Tough Anne...

Witness Protection Program Anne Edith...

or Goth Anne?

Of course, what really troubles those who've taken offence isn't the depiction of Anne as blonde or buxom, but as a sexual being. Best not acknowledge that the girl introduced in the opening pages of Anne of Green Gables is a college graduate by novel's end. In Anne of the Island, third in the offending three-novel set, Anne becomes engaged to Gilbert Blythe. They'll go on to marry and have seven children together.

Yep, Anne and Gilbert did it seven times.

At least.

Which isn't to say that I don't think the cover sucks.

Jazz Age Castaways in a Lost Film

Following Friday's post:

Released under the title Half a Bride, White Hands was the third of five Arthur Stringer novels to be adapted to the screen. I mean "adapted" in the strictest Hollywood sense. There's a Mr Winslow who lives in certain comfort with a daughter named Patience, but it's there that similarities between book and film end.

The American Film Institute provides this synopsis:

Thrill-seeker Patience Winslow hears a radio program on companionate marriage and enters into a trial marriage. It is never consummated, however, because her father breaks up the ill-advised union by kidnapping her and taking her aboard his private yacht. She escapes from the yacht in a launch, but Edmunds, captain of the yacht, jumps overboard after her. A storm arises and they are cast ashore. During the weeks of privation that precede their rescue, Patience learns to love her fellow castaway. Her previous marriage annulled, she marries, with parental enthusiasm.

Yes, but was it any good?

Hard to say. IMDb records ratings by eleven anonymous people who claim to have seen Half a Bride – four rate it 10 out of 10 – but Silent Era lists it's survival status as "unknown", while film historian Arne Andersen places it on his list of lost films. Who ya gonna believe?

Reviews of the day fairly rave:

"...a sure cure for jaded movie appetites."

– Rochester Evening Journal

"...a clever, entertaining picture."

– Evening Independent

"...a frank and entertaining treatment of the now important marriage problem... gives to the screen one of the greatest epics of all times.

– San Jose News

Montreal's Gazette not only provides the lone dissenting voice but the most detailed description of the film:

The Gazette, 10 September 1928

Whether Half a Bride was ever truly important is a question best left to academics studying trial marriage. I suspect not.

The beautiful Esther Ralston has faded from public memory; the trajectories of her career and fame aren't dissimilar to those of Arthur Stringer. Yet, Half a Bride lives on in print, if not film, due to the casting of rising co-star Gary Cooper as Captain Edmunds.

The movie poster doesn't do Esther Ralston justice, as this promotional photo for the film indicates.

Reviews tell us that the island on which Patience and Edmunds become stranded is located just off our West Coast. So, what's with the palm trees?

I don't suppose we'll ever know.

Related post:

Curing the Flapper; or, Tough Love in the Jazz Age