FilmIndia (Dec 1937 - Apr 1938)

SEVERE RAIN STORM IN HOLLYWOOD Studios Suffer Huge Losses Madeleine Carrol Marooned. SPECIAL BY: Mr. R. BAGAI Dramatic situations beyond the most vivid imagination of fiction writers developed in Filmland (this week) as film stars were isolated in distant homes by the worst rain storm in Hollywood history. The plight of screen players was but a minor matter compared to the millions in property damage and a loss of life still not known but producers' concern over the welfare of players and tremendous studio losses caused by inability of players to reach their companies created scenes no melodrama ever boasted. At the Walter Wanger studio. 250 players in the costumes of Spanish peasants gathered at the plaza set tor "The Adventuress" and waited five hours only to learn that the star Madeleine Carroll was marooned in her Malibu Beach home, 35 miles away and that Leo Carrillo, second male lead in the production was isolated in his Santa Monica Canyon home where a mountain stream four feet wide rose 12 feet over night, washed out a bridge and flooded the Carrillo estate on one side and the highway on the other to the extent of more than 250 yards. Arriving at the Carrillo home at 7-00 a.m. with a crew of shovel men and carpenters after trying to reach Miss Carroll, Producer Wanger assisted the actor in saving his home but a garage, an automobile, and shed were washed away and while Carrillo was chopping down a tree to use as a dam brace a man's body tumbled down the flooded creek at his feet. Rushing to his home Carrillo took a Mexican lariat from his den followed the body 60 (Our Hollywood Correspondent) downstream and finally brought the man ashore, revived him and put him to bed while police fought the elements to lend assistance. Carrillo and Wanger were without sleep for 60 hours before getting back to United Artists studios. Meanwhile Miss Carroll's telephone, gas, lights and water were shut off by the storm and she could hear of efforts to reach her only thru her automobile radio. For three days and nights the star was isolated and when ft Madeileine Carroll the U.S. Coast Guard cutter "Hermes" made three visits to the Malibu Coast 15 foot waves made approach to the shore impossible. Seven landslides on one side and four on the other made reaching Miss Carroll by the highway or beach equally impossible. Water which came from back hills in torrents completely surrounded the Malibu homes. After Tim Holt had tried to reach the star on his horss, and three Wanger studio cars could not get closer than three miles, on the morning of the fourth day Miss Carroll, assisted by George Marshall, director ot "The Goldwyn Follies" walked three miles over fallen holders and in mud up to their knees finally reaching Dan Keefe and a studio rescue party which had shoveled a path for a car across a hazardous shore line gulley. On the third day of her isolation Miss Carroll joined the families of Director Marshall, Director Frank Capra and Screenwriters George Bricker and Don Ryan and had her only warm meal after her neighbours had added their food stores to hers. Arriving on "The Adventuress" set Miss Carroll received a telephone call from her husband, Capt. Philip Astley, in London, who had heard that "all of California was under water". Three Hollywood studios were forced to shut down completely during the storm and suffered huge losses. With nearly all studio telephone and power lines effected by the storms nearly onethird of Hollywood movie technicians were forced to remain at home or sleep at the studios because they couldn't get home. All in all the real life storm scenes enacted by the film folk surpassed many of theii best screen performances and frequently actual happenings were compared with movie situations. Two expectant movie mothers experienced much of the same thrill that marked the climax of the recently released United Artists picture, "The Hurricane".