Saturday, January 30, 2010

From Richard Reynolds #1


!cid_X_MA1_1264877164@aol, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.


Here's Blacaman on Hagenbeck-Wallace in 1938.

That's good sized gator.

Note how the blues are packed but the grandstand seats are virtually empty, a scene re-played on circuses everywhere in that disastrous season.

As is well known, 1938 was disastrous for the economy, wiping out the slow progress we had made out of the depths of the Great Depression. Beginning in 1937 a combination of federal polices wreaked havoc - -new taxes, new increases in required bank reserves, and increased labor costs resulted in severe contraction in the economy. Unemployment rose from 14.3% in 1937 to 19.1% in 1938. That did it for circuses which depended on discretionary spending.

We started 1938 with six railroad shows but by 1939 there were only two.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great photo of a rarely seen feature attraction. Did Tahar do about the same sort of presentation as Blacaman?

Chic Silber said...

Tahar was after my time but I

believe he worked several reptiles

at the same time on the ring mat

Anonymous said...

Mr Reynolds, thanks so much for this pic; it's the best one I've seen of Blacaman. I'm sure many of the bloggers will remember the great bit he did in the W C Fields movie (I think the title is correct) "Never Give A Sucker An Even Break" , with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.

I remember Tahar jumping into a tank of water and wrestling with a gator, did Blacaman do that also.

Paul Gutheil

Anonymous said...

I hastily correct myself...the movie is "You Can't Cheat An Honest Man" !

Paul Gutheil

Anonymous said...

There's a chapter about animal hypnotism acts in Hans Brick's book. According to him, crocodiles will become momentarily immobile and stunned after emerging from darkness into the spotlight. He used this to give the illusion of hypnotism, having the crocs brought into the ring in coffin shaped boxes.
He also says that aligators do not react the same way and relates a story of a guy who substituted aligators for his crocs that died during a South American tour, with disasterous results.
I wonder if thius is a Nile croc or an aligator.

Anonymous said...

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man is up on YouTube in 8 segments. Blacaman is mentioned in the opening credits. Here is one segment with him and his lions (right at the end of the video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6hEuXCIKJA

Jim A. said...

I vote that it's an American alligator but I didn't get a close view. In my somewhat limited experience but hearing lots of reptile keepers, alligators are normally much more tractible than crocodiles (and in the US, easier to obtain). I'll review my copy of Hans Bricks book but it might be that someone replaced a crocodile with a black caiman. Caiman are found in South America and have an agressive reputation.