"White Pants Willie" 1932 DAVIS, Elmer
$450
DAVIS, Elmer
[301] pp.
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
1932
7 5/8" x 5 3/8"
Jacket design by Arthur Hawkins Jr.
VG/ VG
With tongue in cheek, Elmer Davis here revives a tale of those bold and happy far-off days of the Florida land bonanza. It tells a light story of that time before the beginning of the current Great Havoc when wealth was easy to get-or at least to impersonate. Men were slick in those years, and plots written about them by popular novelists were slicker. So it is that one may, in reading this ephemeral saga, relive not only a fragment of the prosperity epoch that so many chroniclers of yesterday are busy disinterring but have, as well, a glance at what sort of stuff the magazines were publishing. For the fact that Mr. Davis first copyrighted this story in 1924 is sufficient indication that he did not really have to go back to write his "historical novel," as he calls it in an urbane preface. It seems to have been already written, waiting only for the arrival of this year of clarified perspectives to be presented in book form.
And it is an amusing story, this portrait of a young man who by reason of having bought himself a pair of resplendent white flannel trousers presently made his way from a small Illinois town that sneered at them to Palm Beach, where they—and he—were properly appreciated. The career of Willie Bascom, reminding one of the hero of "Skinner's Dress Suit," who also prospered exceedingly through sartorial distinction, pleasingly shows what clothes and audacity can accomplish. Willie did not at once become a millionaire in Florida, but he won a millionaire's daughter, and he had a gratifying number of adventures in the process.
White Pants Willie is a 1927 American comedy film directed by Charles Hines and written by Howard J. Green. It is based on the 1924 novel White Pants Willie by Elmer Davis. The film stars Johnny Hines, Leila Hyams, Henry A. Barrows, Ruth Dwyer, Walter Long and Margaret Seddon. The film was released on July 24, 1927, by First National Pictures