Photoplay (May 1921)

Photoplay Magazine / . the Latin Quartier are producing masterpieces on canvas, the glass stages, tearooms, canyon shacks and bungalow courts of Hollywood are sending forth masterpieces on celluloid. Only — Hollywood is different; she's as seductive as any Parisienne but, as it were, she's a country girl gone wrong. A sophisticated milkmaid. A Follies beauty in a gingham gown. "Nancy Brown" with a hoe in one hand and an absinthe frappe in the other (figuratively speaking, Mr. Enforcement Officer, figuratively speaking). Vou see, there's so darn much outdoors. Consequenth' you find a reckless, buoyant, sun-warmed, "joie de \i\re" that separates it entirely from any real "daughter of the j)a\ ements" like Greenwich Village or the Latin Quartier. Its amusements are noisy and intense, its habits artistically careless, its philosophy almost tropical — an island of motion pictures, that's all. Its code of living — like that of all islands — autocratic and easy unto itself. If you just pass through Holh wood, you'll see the same little suburb that was here before D. W. Griffith discovered it. The same physical perfection of hills, sunshine, roses and orange trees, the palatial homes, the dear old familiar palm trees. You will see "The Hollow" with its quaint, vari-colored adobe houses tipping down into brooks. You will get some impression of it all — the quaint little one-story shops all along the Boulevard, the better-known tearooms like the Garden Court, where their apricot draperies match the hot orange rolls for which they are famous. You will be startled by the exterior amount of motion i)icture atmosphere; recognize it as something strange and different. But you will entirely miss the real significance of it all. You will no more see Hollywood than you would see Chinatown if )ou just strolled through unannounced. The motion picture colony is so clannish as to be cannibalistic. And nobody will take you o\er to Betty's "Come-On Inn." Nobody will show you the queer, tumbling, little houses built against the side hills of Laurel Canyon where the colony of extra girls — as fascinating and unique as the Greenwic'n Village models — ha\e made their homes. Nobody will show you the Log Cabin (if it happens to be open), or take you to the musty Community Theater, built in a big barn, where the great stars of the pictures make their only appearances upon the speaking stage. Just take the "Come-On Inn," for example. It is jiroliably the most pbpular of the tearooms they frequent — the mo\ ies. If you go there as a stranger you will be made to feel exceedingly uncomfortable. Nobody will actually notice you, or stare at you. But somehow you will get a xhid impression that you are an outsider — "out of focus," as they say. \ou will feel in the waj' of the gay. terril)I> intimate "patois" of the films that is hurled ceaselessly from one table to another. Your ears may burn a little at some of the new and startling theories you hear advocated. Because in this little cottage, set in a quiet side street where you would be least apt to look for it, is the pet gathering place for nearlye\ erybody in the game. When you first walk in it gi\es you the impression of the h( neymoon cottage— it is so tiny, so clean, with its three rooms and cosy tables. But it is full of an odd mingling of cigarette smoke and mar\e!lous home cooking. It is almost impossible to get a table at Betty's. LTsually you ha\e to o\ erflow onto the porch and into the yard — gabbing chimimily. And Betty, who knows e\er)' star by his or her first name, is quite apt to throw you out entirely' if you get in her way or displease her during the rusli hour. I remember one woman had the nerve to ask for poached eggs during the lunch hours. Betty stuck a fork in 'em and ser\ed 'em cold, min-muring in a fierce aside, " I guess that'll feach her not to come back here again." There, as in all the eating joints, \ou will see a mar\elloiis medley of costumes. Girls clad in Salome dancing costumes, in kimonos, in sunbonnets, bathing suits, and court robes. Men, too, in e\ening clothes, westerns — uniforms of all kinds. The unconcern is what amazes one. The stars who frequent Betty's ha\ e their own special tables — real institutions in the colony and not to be lighth' disturbed. There is one tiny room that seats four, and houses a cunning pair of love birds in a cage, that is the fa\ orite. It is likewise a barometer for the changing "amours" of the game. "Oh, Betty, who's got the little room to-night?" Colleen Moore is usually at her pet table in the corner. Her Irish wit makes her one of the chief spirits of the place. And Viola Dana, pretty as a picture and saucy as an imp, sils in front of the fire, gossiping and preaching Bolshe\'ism or something like that. There is a piano, too, where somebody is always playing the very latest — usually Wally Reid. You know nearly everything about the stars. But in Hollywood the stars form only a part of the colony — I almost said a small part, and it would not be so far wrong. For Hollywood has e\-oh'ed type upon type — types in general and any number of types in particular that form the backgroimd for its Bohemianism. For it is Bohemia — though the word has been misused almost into insensibility. Outside of One of tKe many mountain cabins chosen as dwelling places by picture folk ; a tumbling little house built against the side hills of Laurel Canyon where the colony of extra girls have made their homes. Only the top floor is really usable.