Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Hollywood — First "Days on the ZMovie Lot her. You see, a second camera-man may one day be a director, but a bloody author never will be anything more than a bloody author." The scene that we perceived between the silhouettes of lights, cameras, operators, and workmen was that of a lowclass, dockside drinking-den, the sublimation of a hundred romantic bars. It had a poop with a ship's steering-wheel, behind which was a pool-table. Bar was divided from saloon by the jutting ship's figurehead of a half-nude woman. For a movie set it was very complete, since almost every corner was to be used as the background of some scene or other. The chairs marked " Betty Compson" and "Geo. Bancroft* ' were empty, since the two, she in the bedraggled finery of a dockside tart (all too beautiful for her job, with something of innocence shining through the degradation), he as the egoistic stoker (cutting the edge of his rude indifference by a suggestion of incongruous good nature), were taking their positions under the distilled glare of a few thousand candlepower. Green and purple illumination from the mercury moons above, and yellow from the sun-arcs, mottled their faces with contrasting and death-like tints, while the director issued his instructions and the chief camera-man stared at them through a tinted square of glass to estimate their exact photographic values. To the left an additional battery of lights played on a group of toughs beyond the camera's range. The director, a thickset young man with wild hair and a rough tweed coat, addressed them : " Now then, you boys, when I say go, put some pep into it. Don't just push one another about as if you were a bunch of babies." He sat back in the chair marked " Mr Von Sternberg " and placed a small megaphone to his lips. [77]