1930s Car Design: If You Could Only Cook

"Hands up, yous mugs!"

 The Movie
Another enjoyable Jean Arthur flick.  In If You Could Only Cook (directed by William Seiter, 1935), Jean's down-on-her luck at the start of the picture but manages to sit on a lucky park bench.  She catches the eye of a fellow (played by Herbert Marshall) wandering the park, who is, unbeknownst to her, a prominent car designer-engineer.  Beknownst to us, he is also about to get married, but has taken a brief holiday from his job and tiresome fiancee.  He doesn't correct Jean when she assumes he is in the same dire straits that she is, and she persuades him to act as husband-butler to her wife-cook-maid so they can both become employed.  The house in which they find themselves employed turns out to be run by a gang of toffs...  Overall, it's no masterpiece, but a fun movie with some great art-deco and Depression-era details.

Car Design Leaps Forward in the 1930s

Herbert Marshall is a car designer (so famous his picture is frequently in the paper - ?!), and his draft designs figure in several plot points.  At right he is sitting with his buddy in a cab, and out the back window you can see the transitioning cars of the early 30s - boxy, narrow wheels, like a stagecoach with an engine up front.  His design, shown below, is a forerunner of more rounded, wide-tire designs to come.

Interestingly, most of the advances in auto-design didn't come from the Big Three (Chrysler, Ford, GM) who had already established themselves as auto-making giants.  Instead most of the advance came from smaller, independent automakers who used their unique designs as a selling point. Independent automakers were also hit hard by the Depression, a point made in the movie when one of Marshall's character's new designs is rejected for being too far out of the box.  Cars remained rather utilitarian throughout the 1930s (although there were some gorgeous luxury cars being made, just look up the Bugatti Type 57 if you need proof).  Streamlining of cars was a big trend during the decade.  Towards the end of the decade shiny trim and bells and whistles were added to attract nervous buyers.

 Links and Sources:

Art Deco and British Car Design: The Airline Cars of the 1930s by Barrie Down
The Development of 1930s Cars

The WWII Housing Shortage: The More The Merrier

The Movie:

I love this movie (directed by George Stevens, 1943) and have watched it more times than I ought to lately. The plot of the movie starts with Jean Arthur's character advertising to take in a lodger in her small Washington, D.C., apartment to help with the war effort.  The lodger, a meddling (and hilarious) old gentleman perfectly played by Charles Coburn, proceeds to rent out half of his half of the apartment to a 'high-type, clean-cut, nice young fellow' (played by Joel McCrea) in order to play matchmaker.  Antics ensue, including a few steeplechases through the apartment that shouldn't be missed.  Coburn won a Best Supporting Actor for his work in this film and the movie was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.  In short, this movie is delightful.  However, I've always assumed that the major premise - housing in certain areas during WWII so scarce that strangers had to bunk in apartment lobbies - was exaggerated...

You Think You're Being Novel, But...
After some quick research, I found that apparently the situation was not much exaggerated, and I am pretty obviously not the first person to have thought the housing crisis (in Washington DC in particular) was of interest!  Journal articles and books have since been written on the topic, and it was a subject that was mined frequently at the time for comedy and conflict.  Take for example this Jack Benny sketch described by Frank Krutnik in his article on the subject for The Journal of American Culture:

"Benny and his sidekick spend several weeks tramping round Washington in a fruitless search for accommodation.  When they do finally find a hotel with a vacancy, the owner tells them:  'For 25 cents, you can sleep all night in the cloakroom.  For 50 cents you can sleep all night in the jukebox... And for one dollar you can ride in the revolving door and sleep like a top.'  The sketch ends with the manager selling Benny a brick for $10; he throws it through the window, and is then carted off by the police for a restful night in the cells."  -Critical Accommodations: Washington, Hollywood, and the World War II Housing Shortage, 19 November, 2007.

The needs of war put the population of the US in flux, with more people needed in certain areas than there was space to accommodate them.  Washington, as the central command, was hardest hit.  Other areas that were centers of munitions and war machinery fabrication, such as Seattle and Portland, also found themselves in the same condition.  New housing was built in many areas to accommodate the influx of people, but until that housing was made available, people had to make do.  Even when new housing was put up, the restrictions on war-related materials were so great that units were often made using less than half the usual amount of materials. Rural areas were also hard hit, with large factories being built in areas with only a small population base.  As would be expected in a situation with many demands and scarce resources, prices rose and the number of people per house rose as well.

Not Just Housing

Not just housing, but a lot of other general things changed for residents of Washington during the war.  Another running joke in The More The Merrier takes its cues from the sex ratio of Washington at the time, estimated as 'eight girls for every fellow'.

'Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!'

The Movie:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036172/

Links and Sources:
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/life_11.html
http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/exhibits/ww2/services/house.htm
David Brinkley of TV news fame was a teen in Washington when the war was on, and wrote a book 'Washington Goes to War' that details the changes brought to Washington by an all-consuming war, part of which was the housing shortage.  Again, I wish I could personally recommend it, but haven't read it yet.  This blog is turning in to a list of books I wish I had more time to read!  Amazon link:  http://www.amazon.com/Washington-Goes-War-David-Brinkley/dp/0517382113/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t