Tuesday’s ad is for Beer, from 1956. From the late 1800s until the 1960s, poster art really came into its own, and in
Archives for February 26, 2019
Beer Checkers in 1937’s “Love Is News”
Today, February 26, 1937, saw the release of a fairly forgettable film called “Love Is News,” starring Tyrone Power, Loretta Young, and Don Ameche. According to its IMDb page, the romantic comedy is described simply. “Financier’s daughter spars with newspaper reporter: he by writing about her, she by announcing their engagement.”
And that would probably be the end of it except for one tiny detail in the story. Early in the film, a cub reporter is sent to a local reporter’s bar to get the newspaper’s ace reporter to cover a story. When the film switches to the bar, there are several reporters all gathered around two men on the floor playing checkers with mugs of beer and shots of whiskey (probably) and it’s a pretty funny game, and scene. I think I tended to think of drinking games as a more modern thing, but of course they’re probably as old as civilization itself.
Here’s the entire film posted with Czech subtitles (which you can disable) but it’s in English. The beer checkers scene starts at about