Talking pictures : how they are made, how to appreciate them (c. 1937)

Talking Pictures concern does not sell one tenth of one per cent of its output in Hollywood. But its products are good and are used by stars, and its fa$ade, and its Hollywood head- quarters, make excellent advertising. Down Hollywood Boulevard, a street on which, if one stands long enough at one corner, he will see all the "great" of filmdom, comes a highly polished delivery wagon with barred sides. It is filled with yelping dogs. Its owner is a professional animal trainer, and he can deliver "dog actors" by the score, on a minute's notice. What is that terrific report? It is a huge five thou- sand kilowatt light globe which has rolled from a pass- ing truck. It was on its way to be used in a night scene. Look at any light globe used in homes. Think how that globe would sound if it were broken. Then recall that the one just heard is about the size of two water- melons. Nowhere in the world—in the early morning, at noon in cafes, at night on the way home—can one see so many hundreds of people wearing grease paint, beards, and mustaches. But no Hollywoodian gives such people a second glance. They are as much a part of the local scenery as workers in blue denim overalls are at the time of any change of shift in the vicinity of the Carnegie steel plant at Pittsburgh. Here is a huge warehouse, one of several that holds film for use at the studios—a total of two billion feet for a single year, or a little less than thirty-eight thou- sand miles, or one and one-half times around the world. A modest plaster building proves to be the head- quarters for a company which sells camera lenses. A [3*]