Pink Pills for Pale People

We caught the one-night-only screening of Samuel Fuller's rarely shown and unavailable-on-video Park Row, put on by the Union Cinematheque this past Friday night. The movie takes place in the 1880s in New York at the center of a battle between two rival newspapers, and the publishers who run them. The movie is pretty idealistic, and occasionally a little hokey, but you can tell that Fuller really believed in the power of the press and the importance of keeping it free. It is also very engaging, moving, and occassionally hilarious. I think anyone who has studied or practiced journalism should try to see this movie -- and if you are a printing geek like me, you will love it for the detailed look at setting type, running the press, and the fact that Ottmar Mergenthaler, the inventor of the Linotype machine, is actually a character in this film.

But beyond all that, there is a scene early in the movie where all the newspaper men are in this bar having a drink. A guy walks in wearing a sandwich board advertising "Pink Pills for Pale People." Something about this sign really made me giggle. I figured it was a slogan made up by Fuller, or the set designer, or some prop guy. Today the internet told me that, no, Dr. Williams Pink Pills for Pale People was a totally real tonic "proven" to cure "St. Vitus' Dance, locomotor ataxia, partial paralyxia, seistica, neuralgia rheumatism, nervous headache, the after-effects of la grippe, palpitation of the heart, pale and sallow complexions, [and] all forms of weakness in male or female."

And if the second picture here is any sign, apparently the slogan nicely translated into French (I think that's French, anyway, although the text below it looks possibly Swedish or Dutch...).

Pale people, pink it up!