Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Star-dust in Hollywood And then there is the vanity of spending and the advertising value of mere price. We remember in England an old couple looking at a picture in a gallery. They liked it so much that they determined to buy it. But a few minutes later they came back shaking their heads. " If the painter is only asking that much," they said, " it can't be such a very good painting." A film over which a million has been wasted is bound to be a better film than one produced for five hundred thousand by careful management, and, from the point of publicity alone, a director who knows how to waste money is not always looked on as an incompetent, provided that his waste can be advertised as expenses of a cultural nature. In fact, propaganda for the films often reminded us of the Syrian bridegroom boasting of his bride : " Beautiful? Of course she is beautiful : she weighs two hundred and fifty pounds." "Good film? Of course it is good: it cost umpteen thousand dollars." For the everyday parts of the film, or for films that are too everyday to demand the services of an expert artist, there are the studio decorators called respectively ' Streets,' Atmosphere,' and 'Bitchie.' Streets explains himself; he takes charge of all reconstructions of out-of-door life ; he it is who supervises the change of, say, a Bierhalle section of Munich into a corner of Chinatown, San Francisco, with the least possible delay. Atmosphere is in charge of all character backgrounds, cafes, lodging-houses, foreign places, Indian villages, and so on. Bitchie is the expert of the sensuous ; he looks after the details of boudoirs, drawing-rooms, bedrooms, and most of the intimate appurtenances of a properly conducted liaison. [i9o]