Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1925 - Feb 1926)

86 This reproduction of a section of Maxim's, the famous Paris restaurant, was made with the aid of props from the Metro-Goldwyn studio for "The Merry Widow." THOSE lovely boudoir sets you saw in the exotic De Mille pictures — you are going to duplicate them when again you furnish your home ! And that refined, luxurious private office with its carved desk, deep chairs and harmonizing rug — "John" just must fit up his office that way ! The table in the reception room — it certainly shall have one of those exquisite vases I Is there a woman anywhere who hasn't yearned for those beautiful things? But — try and get them ! In the motion-picture studios of Hollywood are more than three million dollars' worth of props or stage settings. From the distant corners of the globe, from the islands of the sea, the Orient, the Dark Continent, the quaint little shops of Paris and the musty basements of London; from attics in New York City and from the cliffs where dwell the Indians of Arizona ; from the tropics and from the arctic circles the quaint and Sets that Repre Used regularly in motionpic quaint pieces and rare an dollars and many years of By John R. the strange and the old and the antique have been brought to produce those enticing screen effects you see. There are genuine antiques worth a half million dollars. There are imitations in limitless quantity worth twice as much more. There is everything from the cheapest little rug woven in a factory of New England to the most gorgeous design made by the hands of the Turks and Persians. And there is everything from the machine-sawed cupboard evolved in Grand Rapids to exquisitely handcarved period chests and tables. Housewives who have enormous bank accounts might be able to duplicate some of the handsomest interior sets, but such a thing is beyond the average person's purchasing power. In this day and age when so much hokum is resorted to in putting over picture plays, many persons look upon the gorgeous stage furnishings as being made of papier-mache or in some way photographed to make them appear much more luxurious and valuable than they really are. In many instances it is done. The camera can work wonders. But if all the stocks in the largest furniture houses of New York, Boston, Grand Rapids and San Francisco were arranged in one vast exhibition room, they would not offer the range of things that the prop rooms in Hollywood offer, because they do not go in for the odd and strange and quaint things that picture producers do. Outside of the studios of Hollywood, too, are outfitting houses which carry enormous stocks of beautiful furniture, rugs and tapestries; Their rental charge is ten per cent of the value of each article, per week. The huge sums which some of the sets cost is what started the studios equipping their own and in recent years thev have grown to be worth millions. Rental of the stage furnishings in Norma Talmadge's picture, "The Eternal Flame," for instance, cost fifteen thousand dollars. The cathedral set in "The Merry Widow" alone cost one thousand dollars a week. The drawing-room sets, rugs, tapestries and the like in "One Year to Live," cost nearly one thousand dollars a week. For each picture produced at each studio which owns its own props, a cash rental is paid to the property superintendent, even though it is little more than taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another. It enables the company, however, to determine whether or not the props are earning interest on investment. The most extensive stock on the West Coast is owned at the United Studios. Nearly one million dol