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Talking Pictures
invariably are, by virtue of their nearness to art subjects, highly competent in art research, but he is required to be deft in their handling. When a set of Lowestoft china like that used by George Washington is brought to a dining-room scene, an awkward "prop" man, through breakage, could cause delay and financial loss.
A prop man must have the instincts of an amateur detective. On a few hours' notice he must ferret out supplies of most incredible things. No one knows for what a director may ask in his desire to make a setting strikingly authentic.
One afternoon a director decided that the character of a long-deserted house would be best established if a flock of moths could stream from a clothes closet when it was opened. The next morning, fourteen hours later, moths by the hundred fluttered out of the closet! Even today the property man will not tell where he found them.
"That's my private secret," he said, when asked. "I may need moths in a hurry again!"
Well-known is the tale of the cockroaches required for The Big House. The scenario contained a scene in which the convicts staged races between their favorite cockroaches. The director decided to add this episode the day before the scene was to be shot.
The property man started out in high glee, for he expected no trouble. He had eaten in at least ten "greasy spoon" places in which he had seen cockroaches, but his spirits weakened as he went vainly from one restaurant to another. Restaurant owners, while roaches crawled on the walls back of them, would deny that
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