Hands of Hollywood (1929)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

The Story RESEARCH DEPARTMENT Every large studio maintains a research department. In this department are many books but, more valuable to the studio, are those working here, because they know how and where to find information. They not only delve through the books of the studio library, but they also go to public and private libraries, and send for special books. They even consult, personally or by letter, college professors, anti' quarians, historians, anthropologists, and scientists on every subject. They are searching for data — historical, technical, architectural, costume data. Their work is particularly heavy when the charming, gay'hearted "Doug" Fairbanks is about to make a picture. What kinds of swords, helmets, neck-ruffs, boots, saddles, knives, hats were used in this period? What style of architecture prevailed? How did the taverns, the shops, the inns, the stables, look? What did the people eat and drink, and how was it prepared? What was their mode of speech? What were the customs of this period? What kind of furniture, vehicles, utensils, were used in this period? What were the current intrigues, plots and gossip of that day? All these, and many more questions, must be answered by the research department. The writers, especially the continuity writers, consult the research department, before they start to write, to obtain guidance; they consult the department after they have finished a script, to verify the details of what they have written. If all this research work is done, why are mistakes made in pictures — historical anachronisms, brazen changes of famous char' acters, etc.? There are three answers to this question: First, "MISTAKES WILL HAPPEN" in any undertaking which is being carried on by human beings. Second, the drama of the story frequently necessitates deliberate changes, called "errors" by the unthinking. Stage plays and books often contain these same "errors" — dramatic license. [37]