Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

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Hollywood — The Qomic Film passed, but the date for the start was set back from week to week. At that moment I was on the point of being appointed art and technical consultant for a Malay film. This opportunity had come about oddly enough. Had I tried to find work in the movies I might have striven in vain. I should have had to haunt parties, to impress my personality, to get drunk with the right persons, to flatter, to boost, and to become a regular * yes man.* I had to do none of these things. Chance decided that we should watch the filming of Conrad's Rescue^ as we have said. In it a rapscallion trading skipper of the Coast was tricked out in gold lace as though he were a naval lieutenant; his equally rapscallion Malay crew had a kind of uniform ; his headman was and looked an Indian ; the Malay village was musical comedy ; a wandering Moslem pirate, got up like an Annamese dancer, dangled with jewels, while his temporary shack, built on the foreshore, had been painted in the latest pseudo-primitive-drawing-room style, and had, as a weathercock, a comic animal like something from a nursery frieze. This hut looked as though it had been designed by * Bitchie ' himself. The Moslem pirates, armed like Zulus, ran about in military formation. Thus did Hollywood treat Conrad. I myself had been for two years in Malay, and I damned the piece heartily to Ornitz, who, seeing the opportunity of helping a friend and of improving a contemplated Conrad production, suggested that I should be appointed technical and art director. My sketches, exhibited to the supervisors, were approved. At once into my mind leapt the dream of improving the movies. This film I determined should be a thoroughly artistic performance. But a hitch occurred. Emil Jannings demanded the services of the director, and the Malay film was postponed for three months at least. [«5]