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Wurtzel
Above and at the side is, or, if you are a purist, are Jamiel Hassom. First and in his robes, as the sort of Arabian that movies require; and at the left, as he actually appeared as officer, on the side of the Allied forces, during the war
I
AM an Arab, I am also, I think, the only true Arab in Hollywood. When first I come here, they tell me, "There is one of your countrymans over there on that set of the bazaar." Quick I hurry over and begin talking Arabic, but all he can answer is a line out of the Koran. He does not know any else of my language because he is really Hindu. But that is all the same to a studio: Hindu, Turk, Syrian, Persian, Arabian — all the same thing.
Since I am here two years ago I have seen many desert pictures suppose' to be of my country. I have seen many actors playing my countrymans. The sands are the same, the palm trees are the same, the clothes of the actors are the same as Arabia. They look the same, but they do not do the same.
In America the movies have teach the people ver' many things about Arab life that is not so. They teach that Arabs are always gallop about on horseback to steal pretty ladies, or attack French forts; that they live in silk tents, with slave girls to wait on them, and kneel down in
40
^Aunt
^Arabia
Her Movie Portraits Are Poor Likenesses
As Told by
JAMIEL HASSOM
of DAMASCUS to
DOROTHY CALHOUN
the streets to bump their heads on the ground and pray at sunset. When I see an Arab picture, I am astonish'. When I see the pictures I myself have help make, I am still astonish.'
I have been technical adviser on three desert pictures. One was "Two Arabian Knights," one was "WomanWise" and one was "Fazil." If you do not know what is technical adviser, I will tell you: I axplain how things are truly in a mosque or a harem, what a sheik is like and soch things. They
listen to me politely, and then they make it some other
way. That is being a technical adviser.
THE UNTRUE ORIENT
WHEN I first begin at the studio, I talk ver' much. I am always jomp before the camera and say, "No, no; that is not the way." The assistant director says "Jamiel, I have make pictures for seven years. I know better as you," I say, "Yas, you know better as I how to make pictures; but I know better as you about my own country. The Arab womans wears much clothes, not jus' a few beads." And they say, "That may be, Jamiel, but Arabia is long ofF and Americans like to see skin, not clothes." Sometimes I say, "I be darn!" and go away from the studio. And they tell everybody, "Jamiel, he is tarrible." But no more now. Now I know that desert pictures are for Americans to see, not for Arabs. They would not dare send them to my country.
All the same, sometimes I couldn' see all of a desert picture. I mus' leave the theater. It is too tarrible. There was one called "The Desert Bride" which was suppose' to be in Damascus, my own city. They sell Betty Compson as a slave girl and the villain buys her for gold pieces. My gosh! Maybe two thousand years ago that happen in Damascus, but not now. They cell auto{Continued on page qq)