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1929
The MOTION PICTURE ALMANAC
147
© Spence Airplane Photos
An airplane view of Hollywood, the center of motion picture production The street in the center of the view is Hollywood boulevard, a street as ividely \nown as Fifth avenue, Michigan boulevard or the Rue de la Paix. Hollywood and 7\[ew' Tor/( form the two focal points of the fourth largest industry.
HOLLYWOOD
By DOUGLAS HODGES
HOLLYWOOD, CAL.
Despite llic sagacious rcmonstrations from columnists, Fannie Hursts and motion picture producers to "stay away from Hnllj-wood," 10,1100 persons have found 1,000 reasons to prove to their own satisfaction why they beheve these sages are unsagacious.
Ten thousand people are here who are becoming wealthy because "they came to Hollywood." One hundred thousand others who came have failed to become opulent but have taken away with thcni a wealth of knowledge. There are 1,000 things to be learned on a good visit to Hollywood.
You will learn that a studio looks something like a small farm occupied with a half dozen or more "airplane hangars." The "hangars" are in fact stages where nine-tenths of all shooting takes place.
You will learn that scenarios are written by nearly every literate person living
west of the Great Divide and east of Santa Monica. They are, incidentally, such a drug on the film market that only (me out of 16,000 is ever read by a production executive ; and only one out of 68,000 that are written ever rates a note from the scenario editor who reads it.
I, who have, by the grace of God, never written a scenario nor ever written one line of a scenario, know why they are written. People feel the urge to write. Self expression is a normal and a God given instinct. That particular form of self expression is more lucrati\c than writing a letter home to mother. It is, in fact, so lucrative for some that wealth comes apparently easily. Scenario writing: appeals to most people as the most convenient method of reaching wealth through the motion picture industry.
But, although many good scenarios are written by laymen, one in about 100,000 is ever accepted by a film company.
Most of the others are returned unread and unopened.
Some day I am going to write a scenario about a woman who coveted the riches of her neighbor and thus coveting them induced her husband to slay the neighbor. Of course you may know the plot of Macbeth, and if you do you know my story. And when I have finished the scenario I will have a complete plan of selling it.
First of all, I shall show it to Simon De Fries and ask him how" he likes it. I shall then rewrite it three times. Next, I shall present each of eight scenario editors whom I know with a Lincoln coach and present each of eight editors' wives with strings of Tift'any's best pearls. Then, it will be a good time for me to submit my scenario for the editors' approval.
But in case that death has visited each of these eight scenario editors by the time