The New Movie Magazine (Dec 1929-May 1930)

A Tourists' Guide to Hollywood Hollywood in lozenge tints of Nile green, rose, saffron and azure; some severely white with green shutters and others heavily facaded in sculptured plaster with balconies of wrought-iron and brilliant awnings stretched to iron spears like a Persian's tent. The whole town resembles a movie set, and Beatrice Lillie declares she harks for a director to yell "Strike!" — with the whole set disappearing over night. It's a fabulous make-believe land with the cinema's great god Gag performing his quips in architecture. Many of these little wise-cracks you see were originated by studio art directors. Little blue Dutch windmills with revolving sails, electric-lighted, in which girls in Holland caps sell bakery products .... Giant ice cream freezers with revolving handles, gargantuan ice cream cones, igloos of plaster that glisten like ice, all offering drinks and ices to the passerby. . . . Huge oranges slitted with apertures like Hollowe'en pumpkins from which our natives drink pure orange juice . . . Opposite the Ambassador hotel the Brown Derby restaurant, inspired architecturally by Al Smith's halo . . . On Ventura highway near Universal City a huge cave of papier mache that would deceive any rock, out of which boys dart in orange coats and caps to serve you sandwiches and salads at your car. . . . The Zulu Hut, thatched with palms, the property of actor Raymond McKee, where a Zulu savage dances and jabbers French and you eat chicken with your fingers in the light of candles thrust in antique whiskey bottles . . . A Mexican ranch house in a garden of cacti, tables under the ramada where the olla swings, offering Spanish and American dishes. . . . Against the hillside The Cliff-Dwellers' Inn of adobe and eucalyptus beams. . . . An enormous tamale dispensing tamales, enchiladas and chile concarne. . . . The Tarn O'Shanter Inn with everything Scotch except the drinks. . . . Oil stations like young Tunisian mosques with minarets and shining domes of colored tile, wreathed about by shrubs and flowers. . . . and, most voluptuous of all, the openfaced markets in every conceivable fancy, some with mission bells and others with towers that serve as lighthouses to the motorist, facades jeweled with tile and counters tiered with tropic fruits, flowers and vegetables. Theaters are shows in themselves — Among the more pretentious feats of architectural magic are the theaters. The Chinese Theater is an adaptation of the pagoda temple. Trees grow from the roof and in the forecourt fountains play in tropic foliage. Cocos plumosa palms fan the sky, and the entrance is flanked by the (Continued from page 38) Chinese dogs of heaven from the Mingdynasty. In the pavement are the sacred prints of hands and feet indented by Doug and Mary, Norma Talmadge, Gloria Swanson, Pola Negri, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer and other gods and goddesses. Inside the foyer incense burns and oriental images nod their heads and puff their cigarettes in ivory holders — so life-like you are liable to request a program of them instead of from the ushers who are identically garbed in Chinese vestments. In the Egyptian Theater Cleopatra would feel at home enjoying the lovemaking of Chevalier instead of Caesar. Its forecourt is lined on one side by shops and on the other by bamboo, strelitzia, bananas and vines scrolling a wall. White and slightly ruffled, the Carthay Circle Theater resembles a swan with its long-necked tower, rose-crested at night when a searchlight sweeps the hills to the sea. These are the most spectacular theaters but there are many others along the boulevard. Let's Eat! The most gracious building in Hollywood was built by the late Fred Thomson, horse-man star, and his wife, Frances Marion, scenarioist. It stands in a veil of peppers on Sunset boulevard and is called the Court of the Olive. Entering its Castilian massiveness through a pointed arch you come into a patio of grass-grown bricks centered by a well over which an iron bucket drips. Geraniums in glazed pots edge the ste] that lead to the offices above and in front of the shops that border the court are dracena palms, agaves, papyrus, oleanders and the old gray olive tree that gives the place its name. At noon when the sun has IT you may lunch at tables under a canopy; in the eveningdinner is served in the Mary Helen tea rooms where players are often seen. A crowd invariably gathers around the entrance to the Montmartre on Hollywood Boulevard, Wednesday, the day the players do their public eating, though they may be seen in lesser numbers on other days too. The addition of the Embassy club, for members only, allows the stars to dine and dance unseen by the public and so I predict it will not be popular, stars making poor audiences for stars. Denied the Embassy, you may go any night to the Blossom room of the Roosevelt hotel on the Boulevard or to Coconut Grove in the Ambassador on Wilshire and see your favorites in their various little movements. The orchestras are the finest, the decorations beguiling and the food what you might expect of a hotel. The Coconut Grove no longer suggests the jungle of your swinging ancestors but a garden of blossoms under a cerulean sky. There are two Brown Derby restaurants. The original is opposite the Ambassador, the other — not designed after the Al Smith crown but of Spanish motif — is on Vine street in Hollywood. The latter is conducted by Wilson Mizner, wit, writer and adventurer. in association with Herbert Somborn, once prince consort to Gloria Swan This is the most popular luncheon plan with the film colony just now. Puffing a cigar designed from a Zepp, corpulent Henry Bergman, friend and bodyguard for years of Charlie Chaplin, moves from table to table in Henry's delicatessen-restaurant on the boulevard near Vine. Stars, writers, directors and extras snack here, as well as others who hope to catch the eye of same; (particularly good around midnight). The favorite lunch-andgossip place of players in the pioneer days was Betty's and Hatty's ComeOn-Inn, a little brown bungalow under the giant trees on Gower. It still holds a loyal clientele and its walls are a gallery of autographed faces, a Who's Who and Who Was; many of these are famous today, some just missed and others have faded after a few close-ups. "They come and go," says ^L Betty the character-wait ress, "but we go on forever." Try to get Betty to talk (try to stop her!) and you'll hear many anecdotes. Hatty, who is queen of the (Continued on page 105) This little blue Dutch windmill with revolving sails turns out to be a Hollywood bakery. Inside, girls in Holland caps serve you. 101