Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Hollywood — ^Acting on the Film too incongruous to be found there somewhere or some time. A burly, blue-jowled man passed leading by the hand a chimpanzee, just arrived to earn a goodly sum for its trainer. I had been directed to one of the farthest stages on the lot. It stood at the edge of the land used for temporary buildings, which were crammed on it cheek by jowl with a fine disrespect for congruity. A set of Chinese buildings nestled back to back with a medieval castle, in the courtyard of which was an Italian gipsy caravan. Behind the castle were grouped a few Indian wigwams. Beyond there was a scene under the sea. Huge seaweeds made of painted canvas stood streaming upward into the air sprouting from rocks of plaster ; at the side were pivoted barrels on which were stuck broken pieces of looking-glass, the turning of which under the glitter of the arc-lamps caused wandering gleams, as if of sunlight, piercing through the water ; at the back was the camera stage with a thin tank for water through which the scene could be photographed, the only water in the whole aqueous set. A motor-lorry came down a French village street piled high with a number of Malay canoes, and from a withered oak-tree, with a cement trunk but real branches, dangled a papier-mache corpse. Naturally all this varied material did not present itself at once. But as the stage remained empty I explored a little in the intervals of waiting. At last, however, a workman told me that Cruze was ' shooting ' on another stage, and hurrying there I met my own name echoing through the gloomy spaces of the roof. We had been cast as fake gypsies at a Hollywood eveningparty in a dining-room which was almost a facsimile of one in the director's own house. We had to sit on the floor and play Spanish music while the guests dined and drank luxuriously. No false film food this, but succulent dishes that served many an extra that day in lieu of lunch. [203]