The New Movie Magazine (Dec 1929-May 1930)

A Tourists' Guide to Hollywood In Hollywood, R-K-0 and Paramount are Spanish neighbors. Warner Brothers' on Sunset resembles a state capitol and flies a flap. First National is over the hills in Burbank, and Universal City is appropriately "Mission" in San Fernando. If the good padres traveled along El Camino Real today they might turn into a building that resembles a Mission and be thrown into confusion by Mack Sennett's bathing girls. Dont't try to rent one of the attached English cottages on Le Brea avenue in Hollywood because they are offices masking Charlie Chaplin's lot. Most of the studios have -been created with beauty and the lots landscaped like parks. Their commissaries, where the players eat when working, serve excellent viands, the Fox Cafe de la Paix being exceptionally pretentious. Some of the stars have "dressing bungalows" that could house a royal family in comfort; Marion Davies' and Cecil B. de Mille's are walled castles with huge living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, libraries and sleeping quarters. Hollywood Holidays — Hollywood is always holiday, as I've said, but some days more than others. If you drop down in December you'll find the sophisticate Boul' yclept Santa Claus Lane. It is hedged with spangled Christmas trees that flower the evening with bouquets of light. Music themes the air as if the whole town were wired as a talkie. Boys in uniform serenade you from the deck of a bus hung in banners. You may sniff the fragrance of a thousand flowers and still not miss the home-town snow, for little flakes are gently falling from an airplane overhead, and they'll {Continued from page 105) not melt to mess you up because they're bleached corn flakes. The entire city has become a forest of light and the ancient eucalyptus on Pico boulevard in the center of the valley is a proud old monarch decked with jewels. On Christmas day the childies gather round a tree to await Santa's descent by parachute, a sleigh being impractical in these parts. The music of Christmas has scarcely ended before the symphony of summer begins in the Bowl. In a natural tureen of the Cahuenga hills, where the Indians once held their ceremonials, the musicians of the world foregather in symphonies. From a shell of soft glow that forms the stage the strains of Beethoven, Bach, Brahms and all the masters waft upward to the stars, like the smoke from the Indians' pipe typifying the ascent of prayers to God. Leaning backward on the hills and looking upward to the stars you may poetically believe you are listening to the spheres. While against the sky on a neighboring hill a crucifix burns to the glory of God and Father Junipero Serra. California, like Spain and Italy, is a natural locale for outdoor plays and fiestas. The Pilgrimage Play around Father Serra's cross is gaining yearly, and the Mission Play at dreamy old San Gabriel a few miles distant is a famous institution. On New Year's Day everyone motors to Pasadena for the Tournament of Roses and the football game, and in midsummer to Santa Barbara, a hundred miles up the coast, for the Spanish fiesta, when the days of the dons are revived with pageant, music, sports and dancing. Beauty parades, boat races, horse shows, floral expositions, golf and ten William H. Hazel, veteran cabinet maker at the Paramount Hollywood studios, was a private in the Confederate Army when Robert E. Lee surrendered to U. S. Grant. The other day he saw the surrender again, staged for Gary Cooper's new film, "Only the Brave." This time Guy Oliver played Grant and John H. Elliot was Lee. 110 iris surge the year-round season. Salzburg has its music festival, Oberaramerg-au its Passion Play, Italy and Spain their various religious fiestas, but Hollywood has certain celebrations indigenous to the movie — its Premieres. With the opening of big pictures at the Chinese, Carthay and Warner Brothers' Theaters, night actually outblazes day and the spectacle eclipses the pomp and luxury of Vatican or royal palace. Giant arcs wipe the stars from heaven in favor of those below, and searchlights send their rays a mile into heaven. On the recent occasion of Lawrence Tibbett's debut in "The Rogue Song" at the Chinese, a dirigible broadcast his voice from the sky throughout the afternoon. At night paths of light converged above the theater, which was bathed in a ruby and emerald glow. Everyone with a car or pair of shoes turns out to squirm the boulevard on such nights, while the bed-ridden and those unfortunates who do not dwell here turn on the radio to hear the blessed ones coo "Hulloo Everyb'dy." Truly, the Field of the Cloth of Gold where king met king was an Old Timers' Picnic compared with the pompous night of the cloth of silver when star meets star in ermine. When the theaters are not crossing their rapiers of light in the sky, the oil stations and markets are. Even these have their grand openings with music and flowers and even stars. The opening of a mosque of gas and oil at the corner of New Hampshire and Wilshire was distinguished by the personal appearance of Buster Keaton, Norma and Constance Talmadge, the mosque with its iron-grilled gates and tiled dome being a property of Caliph Schenck. It is fitting that the city which provides nightly entertainment for all the earth should be itself a city of gala nights. Hollywood celebrates everything and when there's nothing to celebrate we are so relieved we celebrate that. Sitting by my studio window on a dead night not long ago I beheld the searchlights suddenly blaze out in a veritable barrage. They were not concentrated from a single spot as for a theater or oil station premiere but swayed and strayed, crossing and re-crossing one another, the entire length of the boulevard. Swiftly donning my fiesta costume which I always keep handy, as the fire-chief does his hat, I hastened downstairs to my waiting motor. The boulevard was so congested with immobile cars that it appeai'ed to be an auto show. As there was no room for my Hispano, I descended to try my fate in the hoofing mob. Through a bewilderment of siren screams and horn blasts I made my way until I stumbled over the form of a winded newsboy. "What's all the racket for?" I asked. "What?" he panted, cupping an ear. "What's the celebration for?" I bellowed. "Bigger and Better Hollywood Night," he screamed, and was swept off into the gutter. And so, messieurs et mesdames, having completed our tour, I ask you could any nights be bigger and better than Hollywood's? No is the answer, not even the Arabian Thousand and One.