Paramount Pep (1923)

14 PARAMOUNT PEP Gowns Galore for Hope Hampton Hope Hampton will shine in transcendent splendor in the gorgeous variety of beautiful gowns which she wears in Allan Dwan’s latest production, “Lawful Larceny.” Never before in her motion picture career has Miss Hampton worn such an array of clothes as in the picturization of this stage play. She wears ten different creations, ranging from exquisite negligees to bizarre evening gowns. Largest Set in History for De Mille’s 66 T en Commandments” The largest exterior set ever built and the largest number of people ever carried on a motion picture location, it is said, will be outstanding features of Cecil B. De Mille’s forthcoming film version of “The Ten Commandments,” which is scheduled to start May 1. The city of Rameses II, the great Pharaoh who reigned at the time of the Decalogue, will be built in a desert location, hundreds of miles from Los Angeles. The front of the city will cover, it is said, nearly three times the area of the famous castle set in “Robin Hood.” Over 2,000 actors will be employed in addition to hundreds of carpenters, technical aides, horses and camels. A modern tent city to accommodate several thousand will spring up overnight on the desert as a temporary home for those who will play as Hebrews and Egyptians in the Biblical cutbacks of the modern story constructed by Jeanie Macpherson around the Decalogue. “The Ten Commandments” will take over five months to produce. For the Biblical episodes thousands of costumes are now being prepared in an annex to the De Mille wardrobe established on the top floor of the old Lasky laboratory. Chariots are being built by a crew working day and night, while an entire harness shop has been established to make hundreds of saddles such as were used in the days of the Old Testament. The entire force of a wig-making establishment is busy preparing hundreds of historically correct hirsute accessories. Where the city of Rameses II will be established has not yet been decided upon. Assistant Director Cullen Tate and Cameramen Bert Glennon and Edward S. Curtis have scoured all of Western America in search of country similar in appearance to the deserts of Egypt and the Holy Land. Decision is still pending as to the cast who will play out the ancient and modern episodes of De Mille’s undertaking. It is expected that an announcement will be made within a fortnight. The producer Is said to be making a careful survey of all available acting talent for this picture. It is certain that in a production on which so much money is to be spent the players chosen will be among the most distinguished in the picture world. The Astoria L.Ot With the coming of 'the bright sunshiny days of spring an outdoor lot has been established in connection with our huge studio at Astoria, L. I. The first scene to be filmed on the lot, which is directly behind the studio, was a French street scene for Dorothy Dalton’s latest picture, which Ralph Ince is directing from an adaptation of the play, “Leah Kleschna.” A little corner of the Montmartre of Paris w^as reconstructed at the back door of the studio for the action of this particular sequence in the picture. It showed a typical Parisian vegetable vender’s stand, one of the familiar kiosks that are seen at the street corners in Paris, a row of low stone buildings, and the ever-present cobblestone pavement. The new outdoorstage has been christened the “Astoria Lot” in the parlance of the stage hands and property men. It will be used in the future for all street scenes and foreign exteriors which have to be built at the studio. Bozeman Bulger Engaged as Literary Scout Bozeman Bulger, Saturday Evening Post writer and for the last few years literary scout for George Horace Lorimer, editor of the Saturday Evening Post, has been engaged by Jesse L. Lasky to act as a literary scout for the production department. It will be Mr. Bulger’s duties to get in touch with authors and dramatists for the development of ideas that may grow into stories for our pictures. Mr. Bulger for a number of years was the baseball writer for the New York Evening W orld and has an unusually wide circle of friends among the novelists, dramatists and publishers of the country. Ruggles Company Back After a month in Palm Beach and Miami, Florida, taking exterior scenes for “The Heart Raider,” Director Wesley Ruggles and a company of players headed by Agnes Ayres and M'ahlon Hamilton have returned to our Long Island Studio to complete the picture. Other members of the cast who were on location were Charles Ruggles, Marie Burke, Charles Riegal, William Nally, Marie Olivet, Frances Greenleaf and Pauline LeGros. Jack Cunningham, who adapted "The Covered Wagon” for the screen, made the adaptation of “The Heart Raider” from a story, “Arms and the Girl,” by H. R. Durant and Julie Herne. Charles Schoenbaum is photographing the picture and W. J. Scully is Mr. Ruggles’s assistant.