Given the guns of that day, with their ridiculous non-ergonomic wooden grips and solid steel backstraps, this was quite correct! The new generation of recoil absorbing grips (Hogue Tamer, Pachmayr), has been a huge leap forward in the technology that facilitates powerful handguns.

A lot of the urban legend that has developed around handgun recoil, is the result of someone handing an unsuspecting noob a powerful handgun and saying "here, give this a try". I have a buddy who is a LEO and has to qualify regularly with his service pistol, but he won't even touch a .44 (an "intermediate" cartridge by today's standards), because of some long past bad experience!