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TARGET FOR RELIGIOUS FANATICS 273
were displayed in the writing departments reminding the staff that " Your audience reaches full mental bloom at the age of twelve — write accordingly."
It probably is not true, but the legend is at least symptomatic of the feeling in the studios during that era.
Yet, if silent-film Hollywood had its faults, its scandals, its booms, and depressions, at least it was always forceful and hardworking. While other countries dallied spasmodically with the making of movies, Hollywood made it a business even if its artistic successes were only a fraction of its vast output.
There are many reasons for this. Those who work in the Californian sunshine surrounded by luxury are apt to run to seed early. And so many tragedies have engulfed the " big names " of the screen that it has often been hinted by the superstitious that there is a jinx on the locality, while its religious opponents are not reluctant to ascribe some of its misfortunes to a heavenly judgment.
Certainly, Carl Laemmle's Universal City was almost swept away by floods on its opening day, stars have taken their own lives, and there have been spectacular financial crashes amongst the big shots, but surely the quotient runs no higher than in any other community living in high gear and geographically situated in a spot where earthquakes and tornadoes are to be expected — that is, if there is a comparable community.
When, in March, 1938, the floods came again to Hollywood the "judgment on wickedness " rebuke was heard as never before.
Floods swept over thirty thousand square miles of Californian soil, killing one hundred and twenty-four people and rendering nearly nine thousand homeless. The cause was four days of ceaseless rain which caused two hundred landslides and burst many dams and river banks. The police were ordered to shoot looters at sight. Streets were barricaded in nearby Los Angeles to keep hungry refugees from swarming into the city and consuming the remaining food supplies. Radio amateurs were the sole means of communication with the outside world for two or three days. The Red Cross found itself with ten thousand cases of sickness and hunger on its hands.
Railway lines were cut. People were drowned in their cars, gas mains burst into flame. Trees, mud and refuse were swept down the streets in big waves which tore away the flimsier bungalows for ever, and wrecked sets built on the studio lots. (A prop whale from Warner Brothers floated awe-inspiringly in the main streets for days.)