Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1931)

A "Location" Ramble Getting set up for a difficult location shot. D.W.Griffith, during the filming of "The Struggle," decided to get a scene of his leading lady, Zita Johann (from the New York stage), actually breasting a rush hour crowd on a New York elevated stairway. Miss Johann, in company with one or two other players, descended these stairs and met the tide of commuters flowing up them, with a resultant natural scene in which a woman in a hurry is pressed back by a crowd going in the opposite direction. Griffith, megaphone in hand, is on the stairway directing the setting of a camera to get the crowd as it approached the station THE unpolished wooden dancing floor is crowded with motley couples, young and old, swaying to the strains of "Beautiful Ohio." The rude wooden covering of the dance pavilion is draped with gay red, white and blue banners. Great trees surround it with shade, stirring sleepily in the breeze. The hundred or more extra players who take part in this "location" scene for D. W. Griffith's latest picture, which right now he is calling "The Struggle," don't seem to mind the heat of mid-afternoon. They hum the familiar popular tune of prewar days as they weave in and out in a slow waltz. But their hats do bother the girls. " Where did you get those hats?" I call to a group resting between scenes. For answer, a stately blonde cocks her enormous rough straw cartwheel chapeau at an even more rakish angle, smooths out the huge velvet bow that perches precariously across the wide, shallow crown, and calls back: "Believe it or not, I went fishing in a trunk stored in the old Edison Studio right here in New York and this is what I caught." And that's exactly where it came from. The time of the scene is about the year 1911 B. T. (Before Talkies). Mr. H. M. K. Smith, whose articles on film costuming have appeared in Photoplay, is in charge of wardrobe for this picture. Searching for authentic costumes of the pre-prohibition period — the scene takes place (whisper it!) in an old-fashioned Beer Garden, a real one that dates back to 1867 — he dug out some rare finds from trunks and boxes stored away and forgotten in the old studio. A ghost walks across the set, in broad daylight— a girl who so resembles the gamine Dorothy Gish of those early Edison films that she is followed by startled eyes. Her discreetly highnecked, long-sleeved dimity dress is hugged close at the waist by a wide band of embroidery through which black velvet ribbons are strung. Her skirt falls straight and full to her 128 By Fran ankles. Placed carelessly on the back of her piled-up black hair is another version of the straw cartwheel, its crown wreathed in pink roses. This was the period of the "shirt-waist suit" and there are some classic examples here. A pretty brunette strolls toward us in a pink linen tailored suit — notched lapels; nipped-in jacket, fastened high at the waist with two white pearl buttons; long, gored skirt flaring slightly as it reaches the ankles — not so different from this season's "romantic" fashions. The men resemble nothing so much as German vaudeville comedians, with their tight trouser legs and funny derbies. Lights, cameras, reflectors and all the complicated paraphernalia of talking picture-making have been assembled for a new scene while we've been busy noting style details. The assistant director summons couples and groups to sit around small tables, to eat limburger cheese sandwiches and drink from huge steins. "/^"\NE more rehearsal before we shoot this scene," orders V-J Griffith, placing his chair next to one of the cameras. The huge circular microphone and sound-gatherer, which can be turned quickly and noiselessly to catch every whisper of conversation, is in readiness for the first take. In this scene, the audience will listen in on the various conversations at the different tables, catching a few phrases here, a snatch of humor there — about politics, women's fashions and, finally, the movies. A group of five or six sit at a front table. A girl in the group asks: "Have you seen the new Biograph Girl? They say her name is Mary Packard." "Oh, no," another girl answers. "It's Mary Swickard, or something like that." A gay young sheik (only they didn't call them that then) at the next table jumps up. "My brother works in a the-a-ter and he says her name is Marie Picard," he informs them. "Anyhow, she won't amount to anything in movies." But the first staunch supporter insists that the little Biograph Girl is going to be a winner, and it seems to her on second thought, that the name isn't "Pack J£ • r ard" but "Pickford"! And that she CCS A I S ft gets ten dollars a day!