Screenland (Nov 1928-Apr 1929)

80 SCREENLAND Oil Location — Continued from page 41 I found the ring? I'm sure I'd be so interested whizzing through space that I'd forget all about pulling the ring until I landed — and then it would be too late." Pulling the ring, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with aviation if there are any such left, releases the parachutes. It can't be pulled until the victim is turtling through space. Ralph Graves kept popping over to sit near a very attractive young lady around whom I immediately scented a romance. "His fiancee?" I enquired. "No, his bride," said Harold Wilson, script clerk for Mr. Hill. "Ralph met her just after Christmas in San Diego — she is a San Diego girl, and they were married a few weeks afterwards. This is his first picture since the honeymoon and what does he draw but a location to San Diego, which pleases them both. Mrs. Graves isn't in pictures and wonder upon wonders, doesn't want to be, though she is pretty enough to make quite a splash if she cared to." In a location chair, with a bandaged foot propped up on a bench and a sateen cushion, was a familiar face. "That looks like Sumner Getchell," I said. "It is," replied Carroll Nye who had picked himself a soft place in the sand. "And he is the sweetest, most goodnatured kid I ever met. That foot has given him a lot of pain but you'd never know it from him." he thought I couldn't manage because alone." I had heard so much about George Hill that I was very interested to meet him and watch him work. He didn't know it but I was around the lot when he made his first picture, eight years ago, and everyone thought then that he would make a fine director, but he was so good-looking that they wondered why he didn't become an actor. Above our heads thundered seventy five or more planes doing their daily dozen. Each flier has to spend two hours in the "Everyone in this outfit is cracked over aviation," he said. "Gets into your blood down here. You don't realize what limitless possibilities it offers until you see these boys dashing up to San Francisco to weekend with their family or running over to Denver on an errand. Time and space is reduced to nothing, comparatively speaking. And think of the discomforts air travel eliminates. No dust, no heat, no trouble about changing cars, and snoring travellers." "Sure. It would be great if you could depend upon getting there." said I with a wise look. "Just as safe as the train if you get a responsible pilot. Look at the air mail. For five years or more those boys have been delivering mail with less accidents chalked up against them than the train service shows. And then, look at the view you get. Will you have some fruit?" he asked offering a community box of pears, apricots and grapes. "I'm always dying or something in pictures," continued Car, roll. "This one I get cracked up on my first trip alone, probably because I am scared to death. A good many of the boys are scared on their first solo flight, I find. And for the period of instruction it is now customary for each instructor to carry a sand bag or black jack so that if a boy get's scared and hangs on to the controls too stiffly he just gets a crack over ow it from him." . , ■ , .1 t outs hjm out and the It seems that Sumner who has been doing air or be fined or court-martialled or some he bean that put several talking comed.es-and by the way, thing terrible, and it gave some of the boys «t0J ca* £U° ^ they did that listen for his half apologetic little chuckle considerable worry to have to wait around rom the front eat y ^ when you hear them or see them— what to be movie actors when that two hours there were a im * Tr weygo.ng to say now that we both see was hanging over their heads. "I wish," . recruits and their *^rSfl ind hear a picture? Anyway. Sumner, a one of them said anxiously, with his eye Novarro is crazy about flying and wants flver himself with about three hundred on the sinking sun, "they'd get through a plane of his own; so does George Hill ours in the air to his credit without an with me so I could do my flyin'." There was such a sense of order and poise accident sHps on the treacherous footing While they were 'setting up' for the next on this location that I asked a ew questions of the concrete runway just beneath the shot George Hill gave me a eulogy on the about the boss for find that a the ^ bo surface of the water and falling, does him merits of air travel. "Just think. The thinketh so think the rest. There was no self a lot of damage. His ankle was Admiral left here at nine this morning for rushing about, pacing up .and do«n, «or sprained, broken and the ligaments strained Los Angeles Harbor where he will inspect ried looks or any o the ^f8*^ the Lexington and around three o'clock he found to some extent m the best regulate a film units. Mr. Hill had plenty of time rhile his assistants were setting up for the ((Carroll Nye and Sumner Getchall on location for 'Gold Braid.' This is not a scene from the picture. — all at once. , , , ro or<> wiU be back here again. Ordinarily that It s good all my scenes down here are ^ ^ uncomfortable days. taken in a plane so I only show from the P m ^ u shuts ngxt scen£ t0 mak a few friend y remarks waist up said Sumner. It would sure J > . ffi , fth hl/ and t0 a guest making her feel perfectly at home be a tough break for the company if I had *J ^ ^ s £Ver^ dse und welcome, which is something of an to show my feet which gives an indication J Lexington. On the achievement for a busy director I dis of the boys character There wasn t a . mind he doJn-t even have COvered the reason for this was that Mr. word about what a tough break it was for B > > to board ^ he Hm pknned his whole days activities the lands right on its deck. That's service, night before, often sitting up .until two That's a peach of a bandage," someone Before We know it we will be able to shop and three m the morning, with tne re.un in China in the morning and have chop that he knew exactly what he wanted to suey at our Beverly Hills homes at night." do, how he wanted to do it and had pre hi mi. said. "Isn't it, though! The Navy doctors sure know their stuff all right. Between them and Carroll here I'm getting along fine. Carroll did everything for me at first — missed a trip to Tia Juana and everything ;y at our Beverly mns nomes <u rugut. uu, ~ — „ "All ready, Mr. Hill," said Dave Howard, pared other work in case of emergencies, his assistant; and as Mr. Hill burst into He arrives on the set each morning as a action Carroll Nye dropped into the chair general arrives on a battlefield with every he had vacated. thing thought out in detail. Consequently