Talking pictures : how they are made and how to appreciate them (1937)

Talking Pictures A doctor listed in medical journals as one of America's six best mental specialists is at hand when scenes involving mental instability are filmed. Navy and army officers of twenty different countries can be reached by telephone and brought to any studio within an hour. A woman who has made herself an expert on the table service etiquette of a dozen nations is a joint employee of a research and an interior decoration department. If a dramatic crime is committed in a specified city, fictitious street names are obviously used to avoid complaints. But if a section of a city is used in a highly complimentary sense, the studio will receive complaints if the real names of the streets are not used ! This actually happened in a large southern city. Its aristocratic residential district with its fine old homes was photographed in some detail. The common protective custom of using fictitious street names was employed, and complaints poured in by the score. Copies of telephone books from every great city in the world are an integral part of a well-regulated research department. Trouble arises if real telephone numbers are employed in a crime scene, so false numbers are used. One amusing exception to this concerned a New York telephone number used by a young gallant in calling a very pretty girl. Over a hundred curious New Yorkers dialed this number and were answered by a sweet voice which said, "This is Loew's Ziegfeld Theatre, and this week we are playing Ronald Colman in [86]