bjgreen
Image: from “Way Back When: Santa Barbara in 1917,” photo courtesy of Motion Picture News, January 12, 1918
By Betsy J. Green
In June 1917, out on Santa Cruz Island, a cast of 66 actors and actresses was filming “Sirens of the Sea,” featuring a bevy of beauties adorned with shreds of seaweed and not much else (remember, we were still in the days before movie censorship). In the words of one movie poster advertising this film, “As long as men love women, the posters of ‘Sirens of the Sea’ will crowd your theatre. The female form in all its divinity enhanced by marvelous natural scenery.” Another ad gushed, “‘Sirens of the Sea’ is the most alluring, seductive, eye-feasting picture of beautiful women ever put on any screen.”
Betsy’s Way Back When book — 1919 — is now available in local bookstores and at Amazon.com. This is the sixth book in her series of the history of Santa Barbara, one year at a time. Learn more at
