International photographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

rugged promontories and cedar thickets. It was simpler to combine them all in one, once the idea of revolving the mountain was conceived. It was also far more effective, because the tumbling stream and a rock-ribbed ploughing field are always there as background or foreground perspective for the various faces of the mountain. Art Director Hughes had many conferences with Hal B. Wallis and Jesse L. Lasky, producers of the picture, and with Howard Hawks, the director. Then he perfected his sketches of the entire setting, followed them with a small scale model, complete in every detail. Then blueprints were made and handed over to Construction Foreman Henry Fuhrman, and three daily shifts of 75 men each began the physical task of bringing mountains to a Hollywood sound stage. It was a job that required ten full 24-hour days. The circular table upon which the revolving promontory rests is 35 feet in diameter. The promontory itself rises to a peak 40 feet above the stage floor. Total weight of this mountain is 60 tons. Across the stream that skirts the base of the moving mountain another rocky promontory rises. This peak is stationary, anchored by steel and concrete to the stage floor. So are other ledges and cliffs, and so is the hillside slope that Cooper will laboriously plough, following a plodding mule. That will be real ploughing, too, as a coating of dirt eighteen inches deep has been placed on the hillside field. The mountain stream wanders and tumbles a distance of 200 winding feet. Its bed has been cemented, to hold the water tbat will be fed continuously from a high tank, caught in a low one and pumped back for use again. Real mountain boulders have been strewn along the bed, and real grass springs from the sod that has been set by the stream. In all, two tons of boulders were brought to the set for artful distribution. The man-made mountains are creations of timber, cloth, plaster moulding, rock and soil. The timber supports are so constructed as to give the contours of a real mountain. Over them is placed a sheeting of heavv cloth. Then the moulded plaster "skins" — casts made from moulds taken of real rocks, clefts and sections of mountain terrain — are placed. There are 600 of those "skins," each covering an average of 40 square feet, on the mountains of Hollywood's "little Three Forks of the Wolf." Finally came the soil, the patches of grass-growing sod, the shrubs and the trees. Real trees, 121 of them, were brought to the huge sound stage, which fortunately is the largest in Hollywood, and were hoisted to new anchorages on the rocky slopes of the mountains and the floor of the valley. Some of them are pine and oak, but 75 of them are cedars. The cedars are the predominant trees of the Three Forks of the Wolf, and that meant difficulty for the studio. There are few cedars in the Southern California mountains. It was necessary to bring these trees from the northern sections of the state. Just to be on the safe side, Art Director Hughes provided some "spare parts" for his revolving and stationary mountains. Ten pieces — sheer precipices, jagged peaks, a minor promontory or two — were constructed. Mounted on casters so they can be swiftly moved into any desired place, they stand at a far end of the huge stage, ready for an emergency call to action. news From tNe sTudios "Oomph" Measured Scientifically Motion picture studios can save themselves a lot of money by having the sex appeal exuded by their potential "oomph" girls measured scientifically, according to dispatches received at Warner Bros, from San Francisco. The assertion was made by Dr. Joseph W. Catton, noted psychiatrist and professor of clinical medicine at Stanford University. He said "that certain something" was susceptible to scientific measurement in a lecture to a San Francisco State College psychology class. In expounding his thesis. Dr. Catton suggested the term "manpower" as the measure of the appeal of a maid for a man, for he said it could be measured as accurately as engine horsepower. Explaining how it is done, he said: "One by one, the members of a representative cross-section of the movie-going public are shown a photograph of, say, Marlene Dietrich. "The meter recording of the emotional reactions of the average fan to the name and the picture of Miss Dietrich are scored in units of 'manpower' on devices we have to show the psycho-galvanic change, and the responses of pulse, blood pressure and respiration. "Next a group of suggestions is made, such as: " 'You and Miss Dietrich are picnicking together.' ' 'You are riding along together in a coupe.' ; 'You are dancing with Miss Dietrich.' ' 'You are kissing Miss Dietrich good night.' "Units of credit should be given for 'no reaction,' 'mild reaction,' 'strong reaction,' on the metered responses. There is your measure of 'manpower.' "If a motion picture company were to apply the tests to a random 100 men and thus determine the actress with the greatest number of 'manpower' units, this might avoid making large investments in abortive careers of many young girls who are merely beautiful." Dr. Catton evidently picked a good example, for after his lecture, the psychology class conducted a number of such tests with the names and photographs of Hollywood's leading exponents of allure and reported that Marlene Dietrich's "manpower" rating was 96, the highest score. Ann Sheridan, the original "oomph" girl, was second with 95, and the next three were Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth and Lana Turner. Make-up Replaces Tights on Sonja Streamlining experiments have added another new trick to Sonja Henie's skating technique and incidentally saves her over $100 a day during the three-week period during which she will film skating sequences for her current 20th Century-Fox picture, "Sun Valley." Sonja has found that by discarding the hip-length silk tights which she has always worn, and substituting body make-up on her legs, it gives her more freedom of action and increases her skating and spinning speed. So in this picture tights are out in favor of make-up. The tights which she has always worn before cost her $35 a pair, and during a day's filming on the rink she wore out an average of three pairs a day. Being made of over-length silk stockings, a couple of hours of activity in them starts a run which makes them useless after that. Now there won't be any "run" trouble, and Sonja will also save time by not having to make changeovers. Sonja also recently discovered that by wearing tight shorts, without any skirt, she could increase the speed of her spin to three times what it would be with a tiny short skirt on. These streamlining effects are going into "Sun Valley" to provide Sonja Henie skating fans with more sensational effects to try and copy. International Photographer for May, 1941 27