Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1923 - Feb 1924)

Another When "The Covered Wagon" burst Historic upon the screen it was predicted that Achievement Producers would learn from h the . j-,.. j value of filming other significant IS rlimed achievements in our history. This seems to have been done in "Little Old New York." Almost as impressive as the march of the long train of prairie schooners in the former picture is the sequence in the latter which shows the first trip of Robert Fulton's first steamship, the Clermont, a sequence which brings to a dramatic climax the first half of the picture. No one wb.0' has any interest in what America has given to the world can fail to be thrilled when, before his eyes, this historic little vessel starts to move and gayly plows its way up the Hudson. An Argument A number of correspondents have About "The written to The Observer rather flip^ ^ j pantly about certain details in "The Covered Wagon." asking him what, if Wagon anyj justification there is for them. "The wagon tops remain white," one correspondent remarks, "even after they have gone through rain, sleet, sand and holocaust. Each time they appeared I looked eagerly to see if they had become soiled. But no! They were so pristine in their freshness they might have been advertising laundry soap." Well, The Observer had noticed that, too, and it had annoyed him a little. And yet, he felt sure that there must have been some good reason for it because he knew something of the vast amount of research and camera experiment that went into the making of that particular production. A man connected with the production offered this explanation for the condition of the wagon, which seemed plausible: "The sails on boats at sea always appear white," he said, "even the ones which on close inspection prove to be patched and dirty. Likewise the hoods on these old prairie schooners took on the appearance of being white when actually they were streaked and dirty. Many of the wagons which were used in the production of "The Covered Wagon" were very old. They were out on the Western plains several months for the making of the picture alone. Naturally, they got dirty. But like sails at sea they continued to look white. "This puzzled the technical men who were working on the picture. They experimented by making marks on the wagon tops, by throwing mud on them, and by darkening great patches. They "found that nothing short of daubs of paint made any impression that the camera eye would record. "Now people ought to remember that much of the time these wagons were traveling under scorching sun, and there is_ no better bleaching agent in the world. The dirt that got into the wagon tops from smoke and sand on one day might easily have been bleached out the next." What is more important to you, that a picture should be correct in every detail or that it should look right to you? Perhaps those wagons would have impressed you more if they had shown more evidence of what they had gone through. Yet, painting great streaks on the wagon tops would have savored of dramatic trickery — quite all right in its way, but entirely foreign to the spirit of the rest of this particular production. And now, assuming that you have swallowed that explanation quite as The Observer did, he would like to add a few remarks attributed to Mr. Cruze by an acquaintance of his. "We wanted the whole string of wagons to be seen," Mr. Cruze is quoted as saying. "Had we allowed them to get dirty, the ones in the distance could not have been seen. We wanted the wagon tops to show against the horizon, to heighten the sweep of the caravan and give an epic quality to the picture. My orders from Mr. Lasky were to have wagons as far as the eye could see. Had their tops been the color of the soil over which they were traveling, only the first few could have been seen and there would have been none of that tremendous sweep — that endless curve of wagons in the distance; — that has been more praised than anything else in the picture." The Observer puts it up to you. Now, what do you think of the white wagon tops? Exchanging Pictures Some time ago we published a letter from a fan who had thought of a novel way of procuring a large collection of pictures of her favorite star. She had started to save all the published photographs of the different players she could get, and by exchanging with other fans, was rapidly getting a large collection of the pictures of her own idol. We have since received many similar letters. Naturally we cannot print all of these, as they would soon fill the columns of "What the Fans Think," to the exclusion of other letters on different subjects. But the idea, which is a good one, can be carried out by fans who wish to adopt it, by finding other fans in their own town who wish to exchange pictures. No More Visitors Where in the past it has been difficult to get permission to visit the motionpicture studios in southern California, it is now next to impossible. Not even friends of the actors or studio employees are to be allowed the privilege of visiting the studios in the future. Don't blame the producers for making this rule ; blame the people who have made it necessary. The producers stood them just as long as they merely held up production, got in the wav of the actors, and wasted every one's time asking questions. What they couldn't bear was to have a woman come to them with letters of introduction, accept in an apparently friendlv spirit every courtesy that was extended to her, and then ?o out through the country lecturing on ''vice" in Hollywood !