Donna Darling Collection – Part 35 – The Elsinore

Treasure Chest Thursday
By Don Taylor

For this week’s Treasure Chest Thursday, I’m looking at a clipping from the Donna Darling Collection concerning “The Elsinore.”

From the Donna Darling Scrapbook.

This was one of the strangest clippings in the scrapbook not only because it was cut out oddly but also had a color image included. At first, I thought the clipping went together, then I realized it was two clippings that touched each other. The first part was a standard vaudeville advertisement. Donna was playing at “The Elsinore” and was part of “5 Association Vaudeville Acts.”

• Donna Darling Revue – With Sammy Clark
• Curtis & Lawrence – in “Is That the Custom”
• Morell & Elynor – Introducing the Charleston on Rollers
• Princess Winona – Indian Prima Donna
• Zuhn & Dreis – Dementas Americanas

Donna and Sammy played at the Elsinore Theater in Salem, Oregon for one night, on 5 November 1926. A venue I knew about, thanks to Newspapers.Com.

But the other part of the clipping was an odd little man in bright orange pants with a belt that said “Wild to Go.” When I zoomed in on the photo, I could read the logo on his hat, “Red Crown Gasoline.”  I searched the internet for Red Crown Gasoline and learned it was a brand of Standard Oil[i]. It is mentioned as possibly being the first movie product placement advertisement.  The 1920 film, “The Garage” starring “Fatty” Arbuckle and Buster Keaton[ii] showed the Red Crown Gasoline several times. A search of Google Images discovered a couple images of this little man but none of this exact image. Certainly, this little man is rare, if not unique.

Sources

[i] Internet: Old Auto News (Vintage Autos and Motorcycle Advertisements) Red Crown Gasoline, et al.
[ii] Internet: Wikipedia – “The Garage (1920 film)”