20th Century-Fox Dynamo (September 2, 1939)

4A STUDIO SPECIAL | Six Associate Producers Helpin g Make Screen History! Nunnally Johnson Harry Joe Brown Raymond Griffith Kenneth Macgowan Gene Markey John Stone LOWDOWN ON SCREEN’S MARCH TO THE EAST M OVIETONE CITY—As far as the movies are con- cerned, the Wild West is moving eastward. Time was when Hollywood boasted that it could reproduce any type of territory, virgin or otherwise, right in its own backyard. But they are finding more and more that they have to take companies on location east of Hollywood in order to accomplish that now. The fron- tier seems to have hit the Pacific Ocean and is now taking a bounce back in the direction of the Atlantic. Two years ago this company first started prepara- tions for the production of the Technicolor film, “Drums Along The Mohawk,” which co-stars Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda. The story deals with the Revo- lutionary War days in the Mohawk Valley of New York State which, in those days, was the Western frontier. W HAT the studio needed in the way of background was fallow, tree-covered land, forests and streams, and large expanses of territory that looked as though it had been untouched by man. The files of the loca- tion department, which are continually kept up to date, revealed that the nearest place that answered that de- scription was somewhere in Utah. Accordingly, more than 300 people under Director John Ford entrained for Cedar City, Utah. Beside all of the necessary technical crew, hairdressers, wardrobe people, makeup men and representatives of every studio department, there were such players as Claudette Colbert, Henry Fonda, John Carradine, Eddie Collins, Roger Imhof, Kay Linaker, Ward Bond and about 65 other actors and actresses. • W HEN the train pulled into the Cedar City station, the entire company was unloaded and put into busses and cars and shipped 40 miles away on top of a mountain. That was the last they saw of any town until a month later when they came down the mountain again to catch the train home. The type of country they found at an elevation of 11,000 feet where they camped up in the Wasatch Range fitted the script requirements perfectly. It was all very good land, but wild and absolutely untouched by man. It was than that most of them realized why these outdoor scenes for “Drums Along The Mohawk” could not have been filmed closer to Hollywood. • T HE strange part about all of this is that the motion picture industry was originally located in Holly- wood for the very reason why a lot of them have to leave it every now and then. The original film pro- ducers found on the Pacific Coast an ideal spot for every type of production. First, there was the sun- shine all year round. If they wanted snow scenes they had only to go up in the mountains not very far from Hollywood. There were large stretches of coun- try of every type, from verdant valleys to arid deserts, which were readymade sets for the asking all within a few hours drive. - T HAT was the age of the outdoor picture—the West- ern, mainly, which still enjoys great popularity to this day. There was also the San Fernando Valley, just over the Hollywood hills, which offered still fur- ther variety. In this countryside for many years motion picture producers have pictured the frontier lands of every age. If it weren’t for a little bit of rain at an unpropitious moment, Arizona might now be the motion picture center of the world. That was when Cecil B. De Mille and Jesse Lasky first trekked West from New York to enter the picture business. • W ITH them was their original production group, most of whom had never been West, including their first star, Dustin Farnum. Their original intention had been to get off and start their company some- where in the neighborhood of Flagstaff, Arizona, which sounded like a good enough place in which to film such a picture as “The Squaw Man.” When the train j got to Flagstaff, the troupe disembarked. There was a drizzling rain, and it was cold and gloomy. Having J just come from busy New York, this wide stretch of Nature bathed in gloom didn’t strike them very well, and after a hasty consultation they decided to get on the train and keep going until they hit a more likely place. • T HEY didn’t get off until they got to the end of the line at Los Angeles, and in that vicinity, which was saturated in sunshine, they found the type of wild country they needed for their film. The first studio which they established was at what is now one of the busiest intersections in Hollywood. At that time it was an orange grove which was reached by a rutted road lined with pepper trees. The motion picture industry grew in the ensuing years, and with its growth came hordes of tourists and new settlers. Thousands of new homes were built. New farms were cultivated. New paved roads went in, and many small settlements grew up into good sized towns. • T ITTLE by little, movie producers found that they had to travel farther and farther to get the right type of scenery for their rugged frontier pictures. Not many years ago, a good deal of “Drums Along The Mohawk” might have been filmed up in the San Ber- nardino mountains around Big Bear and Arrowhead lakes. But now these places have become well visited summer resorts. Although there is a lot of beautiful natural scenery there, it isn’t now in big enough stretches to fill the demand that the present script requires. O NE of the most peripatetic directors is Henry King who, in years of service, is one of the oldest in the game. Getting ready to film "Little Old New York” for 20th Century-Fox, King traveled to New York State to film scenes on the upper Hudson River. Last year he took an entire troupe to Missouri to film most of the production of “Jesse Jamse.” “Fifteen or 20 years ago we would never have thought of making such trips,” King said. "For that type of scenic background we would have stuck close to the Hollywood home base, particularly for the ‘Jesse James’ type of background. Now, when I travel around the countryside I find busy automobile highways where once there were only cowpaths, and on plains and hills where we once filmed scenes of the great outdoors are towns, hot dog stands and filling stations. It is no wonder that we have to go eastward to utilize those places that were over- looked when the frontier pushed West.” • A NOTHER consequence that this situation has given -Cl. r i S e to is the use of story material that places great outdoor action scenes in Eastern locales as against the Western of former years. At the present time, three great action pictures of the Revolutionary War are being made. In “Drums Along The Mo- hawk” the raiding Indians are not shown in their usual movie habitat of Arizona, Texas or California, but in New York State. M-G-M is also using this conflict in the Atlantic seaboard states in “Northwest Passage,” while RKO is doing the same with “Al- leghany Frontier.” • T HE “great outdoors” of the East will receive further glorification when this company makes “Little Old New York.” which moves frontier life as far East as it can possibly go without taking a dunking in the Atlantic Ocean. What is now known as the mid-west had a good going over during the past year or two with several big action pictures. “Jesse James” told of the exploits of that famous desperado against a Missouri background. When Warner Bros, made “Dodge City” they used the background of Kansas at the time that it was an outpost of civilization, and Paramount’s “LTnion Pacific,” was perhaps the most Western of this group with a background of Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah, with its locations filmed in the latter State. • L OUISIANA furnished DeMille for both story back- ground and location when he filmed “The Buc- caneer,” and now he is going far East for a theme that heretofore has been strictly Western. In his new production, “The Royal Canadian Mounted,” he is planning to pass up Western Canada and place his action in the very Eastern section of Canada, includ- ing Ottawa and Montreal. Earlier in Hollywood’s history it was decidedly good economics to make pic- tures of the far Wild West because locations were so near at hand. Troupes could leave the studio every morning in cars, get in a good day’s work and return back in time for dinner. • T HERE was no need then of camping hundreds of miles from home and maintaining a large troupe on company expense. When the rapid growth of Southern California drove locations farther and farther away from home base, it naturally gave rise to the choice of other locales for outdoor stories. Los Angeles was originally desert territory before irrigation and scientific development turned it into flourishing coun- tryside. One could always drive not far from Los Angeles and find all of the desert and sagebrush that one desired for desert scenes. If billowing sand dunes were needed to emulate the Sahara or Sudan, they had only to go about fifteen miles close to the ocean around El Segundo. • N OW even that section has developed with oil derrick and beach homes, and the harder sagebrush type of desert is dotted here and there with irrigated ranches. That is why Yuma, Arizona, has come to be the great desert location for many of Hollywood’s pictures. Perhaps De Mille and Lasky were right in the first place when they picked on Arizona, but then if they had settled there the movie industry would have attracted profuse settlement in that section and wiped out many of their choice locations. It was in and around Yuma that a great deal of the desert back- ground was filmed for such productions as “Beau Geste,” “Suez,” “Under Two Flags.” The amount of movie production money that pours into that locality annually is staggering. Formerly, Hollywood used to keep it within its own community until they were driven ever Eastward in search of sites untrammelled by modern development. • W ITH the knowledge that Hollywood is spending mil- lions of dollars annually on production outside of its own community, every State in the Union is put- ting in bids for its share of this wealth. When this company brought prosperity to that section of Mis- souri which includes Noel and Pineville during the production of “Jesse James,” chambers of commerce all over the country opened their eyes wide at the $250,000 which was spent amongst the small popula- tion. And it wasn’t only the great wave of pros- perity which it brought with it, but also the world- wide publicity which attracted their attention. Then when this company distributed another $250,000 re- cently in the vicinity of Cedar City, Panguitch and Parowan, Utah, for local help and material for the filming of “Drums Along The Mohawk,” the whole country seemed to become extremely conscious of the photogenic possibilities of its local scenery. • E VERY week there pours into every studio piles of material and photographs submitted for considera- tion. These go into the files of the location depart- ment which is in a continual state of change and addition. Over the years they have found that they have had to discard much of their file material on choice locations not far from Hollywood and substitute for them corresponding countryside farther from home. If the Swiss Alps or the Mohawk Valley are needed, they have cross indexed files of photos and informa- tion which will lead them to the best approximations of these locales. It is not wasted time and effort on the part of chambers of commerce to furnish studios with this material, for it has quite often led studios to very desirable locations. In this manner, and with the moving of the Wild West eastward, the motion picture industry in America is no longer spending its money within its own Hollywood community, but is benefitting the country at large by spending millions of dollars in various communities all over the country.