How sex scandals, a coin dud and a president’s death created a spectacular failure

This is the story of the greatest failure you’ve never heard of. From start to finish, it was the living embodiment of Murphy’s Law: if anything can go wrong, it will. Little wonder that its organizers tried to erase this fiasco from public memory. But the time has come to revisit the utterly disastrous 1923 World’s Fair.

Hollywood had a huge PR problem on its hands in 1922. The infant movie industry was under attack on every front. Continue reading →