Matthew Kerns has a detailed, illustrated appreciation of The Virginian, the 1929 film that set the standard for Hollywood westerns in the sound era, just as the novel it was based on set the standard for western fiction when it came out. The film also made a star of Gary Cooper, previously a silent movie actor. He remained a box office draw for another 30 years.
The film gained new audiences after it was restored in the 1990s. In 33 days it joins the public domain. #PublicDomainDayCountdown
Baptistin Allevi was one of America’s early celebrity chefs. Born in France, he came to the US in 1913, and oversaw the Savarin restaurants at New York’s Penn Station. His Savarin Cookbook, subtitled “Scientific Cooking for Profit”, aimed for elegance and practicality; this description notes it has recipes meant for 1 person, or for 50. That could be handy for however many you’re cooking for this holiday. It may be hard to find now, but will be free to copy in 34 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown
An odd assortment of itinerant and not-so-itinerant lodgers come together in a spa town boarding house in E. F. Benson’s Paying Guests. Some are strangers, some chafe under family ties, and some would like to form new ties. Stuckinabook’s review describes the action as “a relatively amiable, never-ending tussle for dignity.” Those traveling and lodging with others this holiday season might sympathize. The novel joins the US public domain in 35 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown
“Christendom has often achieved apparent success by ignoring the precepts of its founder.” So begins Protestant theologian H. Richard Niebuhr‘s first book, where he argues the proliferation of Christian denominations has less to do with theological difference than with attachment to class distinctions, racial hierarchy, and nationalism. A plea for unity, and for mission overcoming division, The Social Sources of Denominationalism will be free to all in 36 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown
Many of Emily Dickinson‘s poems remain under copyright more than 130 years after she died. With some of her manuscripts held by her sister, and others by her brother’s mistress, both camps filtered what they were willing to publish and how it would be presented. In 1929, Further Poems revealed more than 150 verses Emily’s late sister had withheld from print. Many are poems of love, some mystical, some perhaps more earthly. They greet the public domain in 37 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown
This year’s #PublicDomainDayCountdown features several detectives’ debuts. One of the biggest detective franchises that began in 1929 is Ellery Queen, which is both a pen name first used by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee, and the name of the detective they created. Ellery Queen’s first novel, The Roman Hat Mystery, joins the public domain in 38 days. The book was followed by many more stories, as well as films, comics, and radio and TV series. His namesake magazine also continues to this day.
The all-Technicolor movie musical Gold Diggers of Broadway was the third highest-grossing film of 1929, ran in theaters until 1939, and is now partly lost. One reel that resurfaced in the 1980s included a lavish performance of “Tip-Toe Through the Tulips”, a song introduced in that film. The song’s performers since then have included Tiny Tim on Laugh-In and various Muppets in early Sesame Street episodes. Film and song tiptoe into the public domain in 39 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown
Since its 1946 revision, “Puttin’ on the Ritz” has usually been a catchy invitation to go on the town and mix with old-school stylish dressers. But the lyrics Irving Berlin first published in 1929 instead invited listeners to gawk at Black Harlemites parading in outfits they could ill afford.
In 40 days, when it’s public domain, we can bring “Puttin’ on the Ritz” into 2025, giving it lyrics fitting our senses of style today. I’d love to hear what we all come up with. #PublicDomainDayCountdown
Before being known for characters like Walter Mitty and Charlotte the literate spider, James Thurber and E.B. White collaborated on a send-up of late-1920s New Yorker preoccupations with sex, changing gender roles, psychoanalysis, and overthinking. Is Sex Necessary? may also be the first publication of Thurber’s distinctively simple drawings, which White says he included after fishing them out of the trash and inking them in. The book joins the public domain in 41 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown
Helen Keller struggled to write the story of her life as an adult. Knowing it had to go through her close associates, she tried to balance her radical politics with broad appeals for support for blind people, omit the role of her “Teacher”‘s marital woes in her household turmoil, and weigh her words carefully on her failed attempts (reported in the press) to elope with a lover when her family objected to her marrying. Her Midstream becomes public domain in 42 days. #PublicDomainDayCountdown
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