The Face on the Barroom Floor

Description

The Face on the Barroom Floor tells the tale of a depressed and sunken painter who binges on alcohol after his dearest Madeline deserts him because she has fallen in love with the man with the golden hair. That flaxen man appeared to be the person with dreamy eyes (as Madeline would describe him) in one of the artistic pieces of the gloomy painter. He could not believe that Madeline has absconded him because of that yellow guy. Just because he was way more good looking and appealing than the artist? The artist yells on what to drink next, will it be whiskey, rum or gin?

Hugh Antoine d’Arcy was a poet and novelist from France and a forerunner executive in the American film industry. He is famous for his 1887 verse, The Face upon the Barroom Floor, a desolate story of an artist who decides to drink after his woman leaves him for the blonde man in some of his paintings.

After graduating at England’s Ipswitch University, Hugh was a call boy and a young performer at the Theatre Royal in Bristol. In London, he was best known as a character performer. Hugh went to the United States, where he was immersed with the industry management of theatrical productions, actors and actresses, such as Mary Anderson, Ada Grey, DeWolf Hopper, Frank Mayo, Robert Mantell and James O’Neill.

Keystone Studios rendered the verse for a 1914 The Face on the Bar Room Floor introducing Charlie Chaplin, and John Ford utilized it for his motion picture, The Face on the Bar-Room Floor. It was made into a song by country music idols Tex Ritter on his 1959 Blood on the Saddle album and Hank Snow on his 1968 Tales of the Yukon album. Hugh’s lines of text were seen in a comic text when the verse was illustrated by Jack Davis and Basil Wolverton for Mad #10.
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