... or maybe not
Some gorgeous Pushkin Press poetry – over @ShinyNewBooks!
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06 November 2024
01 November 2024
Handled by the Saturday Evening Post
'Woman-handled'
Arthur Stringer
The Saturday Evening Post, volume 197, issue 44
May 2, 1925
A critic writes: "In your New Year's Day post you urged readers to start off 2024 with Arthur Stringer. It's now fall and you haven't reviewed any book by Stringer. Have you even read one?"
I haven't, but smarting from the comment I've since tackled this short story. I'd always meant to read "Woman-handled" because of "Manhandled," a longer Stringer story that appeared in the Post the previous year (11 March - 29 March, 1924). It was brought to the screen by Paramount. Gloria Swanson played the lead.
A critic writes: "In your New Year's Day post you urged readers to start off 2024 with Arthur Stringer. It's now fall and you haven't reviewed any book by Stringer. Have you even read one?"
I haven't, but smarting from the comment I've since tackled this short story. I'd always meant to read "Woman-handled" because of "Manhandled," a longer Stringer story that appeared in the Post the previous year (11 March - 29 March, 1924). It was brought to the screen by Paramount. Gloria Swanson played the lead.
The James H. Crank illustration the Saturday Evening Post chose to introduce "Woman-handled" is an odd in that it depicts the climax.
The opening scene is urban. It's set in New York's Waldorf Astoria, where novelist Baran Bowerman, author of The Passionate Year, has just concluded the third of three talks to various ladies social groups. Amongst the rapt-eyed, fawning female readers he encounters sporty young horsewoman Glenna van Gelder, who ribs him for accepting these sorts of engagements with their pink carnations, hothouse violets, and macaroons.
"Why you're eating it up!" she says. "You love it! And if I don’t get out of the way of this adoring army they're
going to trample me down.”
Baran Bowerman is drawn to Glenna van Gelder. The attraction has nothing to do with alliteration, rather that she is so different than the delicate women who typically attend his talks. Later, whilst walking down Fifth Avenue, Glenna's ribbing turns to mockery:
Baran Bowerman is drawn to Glenna van Gelder. The attraction has nothing to do with alliteration, rather that she is so different than the delicate women who typically attend his talks. Later, whilst walking down Fifth Avenue, Glenna's ribbing turns to mockery:
"You’re smothered in women... You're drowned in them. You’re like that Duke of Clarence who tumbled right into his vat of wine. You're so tangled up with petticoats you can’t breathe.”She later warns Baran that he's being "effeminized without knowing it."
The handsome young author laughed, but his laugh was a defensive one. “Oh, I can still breathe,’’ he protested, with barricading lightness. ‘‘And there’s always safety, remember, in numbers.”
“Is there?” asked the solemn-eyed girl at his side. “Isn’t there danger of getting your soul clogged up with talcum powder?”
“I can’t see that it’s left any knock in the engine,” averred the pink-cheeked author. "I still have my two- hour work-out with my trainer every day.”
“I know stout ladies who do the same.”
From this point on Stringer's story becomes rather silly. The next morning they meet in Central Park, where Baran seeks to demonstrate his non-existent equestrian skills. This in turn leads to fisticuffs – not with Glenna van Gelder, you understand, rather with her riding partner. The novelist next makes for the west in order to toughen himself up. Interestingly, it is the Canadian west, not the American. More interesting still, is the arrival of a "movin' picture outfit," making a western.
My critic, a friend, will be pleased to learn that I've invested a further fifty-five minutes of life viewing Womanhandled, the Hollywood adaptation of "Woman-handled."
It was worth it.
More in next week's post.
31 October 2024
This Harlequin Halloween, a Dick in a Box
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| If the Coffin Fits Day Keen [Gunard Hjerstedt] Toronto: Harlequin, 1952 |
Central City specialized in vice, legal gambling and easy divorces.Teen-age "B" girls in low-cut evening gowns drank with the suckers. If the sucker's bank account was substantial enough, he would be drugged and "found" in a hotel room with a scantily clad bit of Jail Bait. This badger game served the dual purpose of enslaving the girl and exacting a considerable income from the victim. Free-lance crime was not tolerated in Central City; all such activities were conducted on a highly organized basis headed by the anonymous "Mr. Big".When Tom Doyle, Chicago Investigator, accepted a blind case in Central City, he ran head on into Mr. Big's organization. Doyle was greeted on his arrival by the Karney twins, who pistol-whipped him into a pulpy mass of bruised flesh and gently invited him to leave their fair city...Doyle soon learned that the solution depended on getting Mr. Big. Many people were murdered to prevent Doyle from accomplishing this, and before the case was over, Tom had cause to wonder - IF THE COFFIN FITS.
So,be careful this Halloween fellas. Sure, those teen-age "B" girls are now in their eighties and nineties, but who's to say they aren't still on the lookout for suckers.
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