Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1927 - Feb 1928)

24 Along "The Trail of '98" The company lived in a de luxe train while on location, and after the day's work in the bitter cold, were thawed out by a dinner as elaborate as any served in the best hotels. culty. At just what moment should the girl's feelings change ? Should she be rebellious or resigned ? Should the boy turn at the door? Should he be the more anxious to escape because of her sorrow? Eventually, the scene is logically worked out. This method is a lot more trouble than accepting the script as law, but it usually produces a good film. Every effort is being made to make "The. Trail of '98" as authentic as possible. Mr. Brown interviewed dozens of men who had participated in the gold rush from beginning to end, in an effort to find the best technical expert available. He finally chose Frank Smith, whose knowledge of the Klondike at that period is complete. Smith, with a department under him, supervised the building and dressing of the sets that were replicas of real buildings in Dawson City, the center of the gold rush. Mr. Brown himself devoted weeks to intensive research work to be sure that every technical detail would be correct — details ranging from historical dates down to the sort of tobacco favored by the prospectors. Alany of the little human incidents in the picture are based on actual occurrences — relatively unimportant but very touching incidents which the director discovered in his study of old newspapers of the pei"iod. Because he has been so exacting, the atmosphere of the film will doubtless surprise you. One detail, in particular, is interesting. Don't look for the well-known movie dance-hall girls effervescing in spangles and tulle skirts. You will see the inevitable dance-hall girls, to be sure, because they really did exist, but they will be wearing street dresses. This detail is the result of what Mr. Brown learned from one Gracie Robinson, now a little grayhaired lad} of conservative demeanor, who was one of Dawson City's favorite dance-hall queens. Miss Robinson was discovered by Russell Simpson as Ole, the Swede, one of the sour doughs. Frank Smith. Mr. Brown invited her to the studio, and learned from her all he could about those almost mythical creatures who danced luider shoAvers of gold nuggets thrown to them by the holidaying miners. Miss Robinson spent three months going up the Yukon through blinding storms and raging currents to Dawson Citv. She lived in a wooden shack, trailed cheerily through Avater up to her waist, stumbled over gulleys filled in by dead horses to form a passage, danced a hundred and twenty-five dances in one night, and saw on every side of her such stark drama as dramatic critics would brand "hokum." When Mr. Brown showed her the types and costumes chosen for the dance-hall girls in the film, Miss Robinson immediately objected to the costumes. "But we never wore things like that," she said. "Don't forget how far north we were — we would have frozen to death in those costumes. We danced just in our street dresses." A couple of miles from the M.-G.-M. studio, at the foot of a sunny green hill, was erected a long street of rude wooden buildings. It was covered with mock snow, populated with fui^-clad sour doughs and speeding dog teams, and called Dawson City. After several weeks of work on it, the entire thing was burned to the ground, to show you the famous fire that wiped out Dawson City. The big thrill of the picture will, of course, be the journe} through Chilkoot Pass — that desperate trek through blinding snow over the mountain to the gold. The director's original plan was to go directly to the Klondike for these scenes, but this he found to be impracticable. So, dispatching a group of technicians and camera men to Alaska for authentic shots, he took his company into a bleak wilderness in Colorado. Continued on page 98