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pREhisTomc hollywood
The veterans of every successful industry are wont to foregather and live over again its early days. Much of this history would make excellent reading for the public; but alas, these inconsiderate old birds seldom can, or will, put into writing the words they so eloquently utter.
Feeling that something should be done about it, that the deserving layman should have that which he deserves, your art editor has galvanized his more or less nimble imagination into depicting a conception of what might have been when the movingpicture industry was in a state of nebula, and its capitol yet unnamed.
Doubtless a reserved seat up where the television studio is being erected would I have afforded a grand view of stage and setting for the ever-moving drama: The far-flung Cahuenga Valley, lush with tropical green, its glittering but treacherous
lakelets, its teeming life of species long since vanished.
It is easy to fancy this a vast stage, its creatures the actors: heavy villains, light comedians, slothful clowns, leading men and women, directors, script-girls, cameracrews, and extras, without end. The "Hoover" Dam then undreamed of, its sets lighted by Nature's lamps.
Where Highland, Melrose, La Brea and Sunset reek with superheated traffic, the Chaplins, the Pickfords, the Clark Gables and the Marlene Dietrichs of that day strutted their stuff.
On the towers and minarets, neon-signs, and fire-escapes roosted gigantic, gaunt and smelly birds of prey. Giant sloths nonchallantly bedded themselves down for the night on Hollywood Boulevard, halting big, red cars, and necessitating detouring on foot by exasperated passengers.
Sabre-toothed tigers lurked behind fireplugs; and, loafing on corners, laughinghyenas ribaldry added insult to injury. Those were trying days, yet tempered with comedy.
But, out on Wilshire Boulevard was real tragedy, no acting there. Ever and anon throughout the centuries, the La Brea asphalt pits sucked down their unsuspecting victims; young and old, mammoths and pygmies, birds, animals and creeping things.
At the first agonized shriek of alarm, we imagine, came futile rescue crews, came the cameramen with their microphones, came news and stillmen, came hordes of extras, came sympathizers and idle onlookers. Useless words of advice flew like curlews. But, the only comfort the wretched victim could get out of it, was the hope his neatly polished bones would look swell when mounted in the Los Angeles Museum, for unborn generations to marvel at, and doubt.
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