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for
Sake
Bigger and Better Orgies Mark The Spectacle Whose Expenses Know Noah Limit
By Herbert Cruikshank
C
The
ALL out the guard ! The King's Guard!" command reverberated through the length of the ornate pagan temple. It seemed to come through the smoke that curled from the lascivious lips of the evil, hideous idol to which twenty virgins had just been sacrificed.
The priests in their turreted hats and long yellow robes looked toward the throne which faced the idol from far clown at the other end of the temple. A bevy of courtezans, their soft, full mouths stained a a shameless scarlet, clustered closer to their imperial master. Brown-bellied slaves fed incense burners taller than themselves. A thousand spears glistened with each slight movement of the ancient nation's fighting men. Nearly naked dancing girls paused in their abandoned steps, flower garlands poised high in air.
"Where in hell is the King's guard ! Hey, you guys, get the hell up there by the King ! And hold your positions ! This ain't no holiday ! We're makin' a pitcher here!"
Even so. The good looking young assistant director
through
Dolores Costello and George O'Brien as they appear in "Noah's Ark"
shouted instructions
a telephone-like instrument,
and his words hurtled through
a half-dozen loud speakers skilfully concealed in the
frescoes of the temple. An assistant cameraman struck
a match on the idol's eye. A priest removed his chin
whisker to mop perspiration from his face. One of
the King's courtezans languidly refreshed her cud of
gum. And His Majesty parked the cigar against that time
when he might again discard his kingly mien.
It was all Hollywood.
Even the virgins.
Or at least that portion of it that has to do with days beyond recall. There is a modern sequence, too. For the argument of the drama is that as the ancient world was cleansed by the turbulent waters of the deluge, so the world w e kno w w a s washed free of sin in the blood of thirty million lambs who were sacrificed in the World War.
The photoplay was "Xoah's Ark." Before it is completed, Michael Curtiz. the director, will shoot three hundred thousand feet of film, while the valiant Warner Brothers' total production figures will exceed a million dollars. And this million, in the end, will be represented by the twelve thousand feet of film which will finally be shown to you.
One Set, One Quarter Million
t is said there never were such crowds assembled, that there never were such gigantic sets in the history of filmdom. If the huge proportions have been ever exceeded, it is by a matter of feet — or inches. The temple set is three hundred feet long. Its width is over seventy-five feet, and the actual height sixty feet, although it will appear more lofty through miraculous photography from'the camera genius, Hal Mohr. Even the picture people themselves are impressed. Bill Koenig, the boyishfaced studio executive, almost removed his hat in reverence as he whispered the cost of the set — a quarter million of dollars. Not drachma, or dinari — dollars — coin of the realm.
The chief electrician will tell you that it takes twentyfive thousand amperes of light to illuminate the scene. That there are over one hundred and fifty sun-arcs, beside the other lights. The sun-arcs are the largest, you (Continued on page 94)
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