Modern Screen (Jan - Nov 1940)

7 GET in THEIR HAIR ! By Elizabeth Oldf geld INTRODUCING ANOTHER HOLLYWOOD HEADACHE— THE PROBLEMS CAUSED BY TOURISTS 'TIS SAID all roads lead to Hollywood. Certainly the Chamber of Commerce of Southern California has been trying for years to persuade the people back East that this is so. And their efforts have been successful. Tourists, lured by folders showing movie stars skiing at Lake Arrowhead or basking in the warm sunshine of Palm Springs, have nocked to the movie capital at the rate of one and a half million yearly. Ninety-five per cent of the visitors have the same idea; they want to visit the picture studios, the Brown Derby and shake hands with their favorite star. About forty per cent seeking admittance to the studios try, sans credentials, to crash the gates by posing as exhibitors, newspapermen or stage players. Fifty per cent come armed with letters or telegrams from important people in their home towns. The remaining ten per cent are "biggies." These may be distinguished or titled foreigners, members of the President's Cabinet, Senators, diplomats or Chief G-Man J. Edgar Hoover who goes for theatrical folk in a big way. They arrive in Hollywood following an editorial bombardment of the Hays Office (the clearing house for the moving picture industry) and the newspapers. As a matter of fact such important personages could step off the train and get anything they wanted, but most of them insist upon coming heralded. . Anyway, by the time they arrive, film folk are prepared to show 'cm > Cary Grant in action and to feed , ~~\*, them at the Commissary where they may marvel at Anita Louise eating roast beef and potatoes just like ordinary folk. The stars do their bit by throwing parties or inviting the guests for the week-end. In fact everybody from the producer down tries to sell them Hollywood. The visitors return to Washington convinced that everything about Hollywood is wonderful and that its people are the most hospitable in the world. And they are right! For everybody in che moving picture industry is a super-salesman bent on selling moving pictures not only to "biggies" but to the v.; public at large. Per ./Jv? haps it is this cooperation that has made the industry the fourth largest in the United States with estimated gross box office receipts of one billion — count 'em — dollars a year! Statistics show that 300 persons apply daily, to the moving picture studios for permission to enter the sacred portals. Actually, only thirty make the grade, for visitors, regardless of their importance, are costly. According to efficiency ex perts, four visitors on the set cost the studio hundreds of dollars in time and re-takes (filming the picture over again). Why this should be, will be explained later. First, we will go into a bit of motion picture history. In the pie-slinging days when Hollywood Boulevard was flanked by daisy fields, when sound was unheard of and when moving picture actors were looked upon as freaks, producers welcomed visitors to the sets. They even built balconies around the stages, so that the tourists might get a good look at the funny folk who banged each other on the head with night sticks or flung themselves in front of railroad trains. Every bus-load of sightseers was doubly welcome, not only because the people served as unofficial press agents, but because the twentyfive cents admission fee they paid was a boon to the shoe-string producer. The actors also welcomed the visitors. Most of them were former stage players accustomed to the response of an audience, and the boos and laughs of the sightseers put them on their mettle. The barkers (who beat Rudy Vallee to the punch on the megaphone idea) would shout explanations of what the actors were doing and why. It was swell while it lasted, but it didn't last long. As the full-length picture replaced the one-reel comedy, actors and directors found that too many tourists {Continued on page 101) 6 MODERN SCREEN