Film Fun

What could be more fun than film? That's right "Film Fun". As long as there have been movies, there has been a magazine dedicated to highlighting and sensationalizing the "buzz".

I thought the year on this was a misprint when I picked it up in the basement of a Newtown estate sale. I studied film in college, but I didn't think things got rolling until the 1920's. Before that time I thought it was all faded and blotchy scenes from Edison's kinetoscopes. Nope, this is 2 years after the formation of Paramount Pictures, and the year before United Artists was formed. Charlie Chaplin had passed the $10,000/week salary mark and many of the covers of "Film Fun" during this time featured C.C.

10 cents a copy? If the caption on the cover is right, I think it is a funny coincidence that in 1918 you could see a moving picture or buy this magazine. Hey, it's your dime, spend it any way you want. Kinda different now, it would be like paying 12 dollars to read "People" - No thanks, 10 cents maybe.

 

I didn't quite get the cartoon below (click on any image for a little larger version) until I "googled" Yapp's Crossing and found that the illustrator was Johnny Gruelle who had been creating this cartoon for another publication since 1915. He was also the creator of Raggedy Ann & Andy.  Here he points his gentle wit towards the explosion of the film industry.

 

These next 2 pages I scanned to show the kind of audience this magazine was playing to, based on the advertisers interests.

Mommy seems anemic from lack of iron (you know, the Nuxated kind?) actually she is no doubt listless from all the movies she been seeing.

Nothing like the latest issue of "Film Fun" to take care of "Women's Aches and Ills".  Actually this magazine must have had a broad appeal because it was around for a long time.  If you would like to read more and see several other covers visit here.