THE ARTS

As Shetland’s annual Film Festival ‘Screenplay’ gets underway this week together with the Book Festival ‘Wordplay’ following on closely behind, I thought we would look at how the cartoons of around 100 years ago depicted The Arts and Theatricals. The advent of sound in films was really only introduced in the mid 1920’s but by 1930 Hollywood was almost all ‘talkies’. The world of the celebrity was just about to begin as illustrated in this A. Wallis Mills (1878-1940) cartoon.

Transcript below:

FRIEND: (to Film Star), "Say, there's a bunch of guys outside waiting to be presented to you. Among 'em is a bishop, who says he married you some time since."
FILM STAR: "Gee! I'm practically certain I never married a bishop."