“Cross Word Puzzle Mama, You Puzzle Me,” courtesy of Mary Mallory.
Recording of “Cross Word Puzzle Mama.”
Note: This is an encore post from 2014.
The 1920s were a decade of fads. Everything from mah jongg, radio, bridge, golf, solitaire and dance steps exploded into popularity before being replaced by the next big thing. Though around for about a decade, crossword puzzles shot to fame when Simon and Schuster introduced a crossword puzzle book in 1924.
Various forms of puzzles existed for centuries before the crossword puzzle. Frances Hansen writes in “The Crossword Obsession” that Greeks inscribed word squares into statues in 6th century B. C. Acrostics, anagrams and riddles puzzled people for decades as well, a form of study for learning vocabulary, word origins and the like. Will Shortz, crossword puzzle editor of the New York Times, notes that word square puzzles became popular in the 1870s, though existing since 1859. In 1896, the San Francisco Call ran a regular section called “cross-word puzzle,” similar to Mensa mind puzzles and quizzes today.
Mary Mallory’s “Hollywoodland: Tales Lost and Found” is available for the Kindle.
I thought I’d start with a little history as to production numbers and still codes and explain why Larry has to hide them in the movie star mystery photo postings. Studios and production companies shot production and publicity photographs from early on as both reference for that and future productions and to help promote the films.
ladailymirror.com 