When the movies were young (1925)

152 When the Movies were Young and ready for release, so down on Spring Street and Second, a loft was rented for a few dollars a month. It was a roomy, though dingy, barn of a place, but it served our purpose well. A tiny dark room was boarded off and fixed up for the developing, and a place set apart for the printing. The huge wheels on which the prints were dried stood boldly apart in the room. There was a little desk for cutting and splicing. At the head of the room furthest from the windows a screen was set, and a sort of low partition about midway the length of the loft hemmed in the projection room. When things had settled into a routine, and on rainy days, we rehearsed and worked out scenarios up in our loft. We also had the costumes delivered there. The loft was always accessible, and we spent many evenings seeing projections and getting our things together for an early morning start. Across the street from the loft was a famous old eating place, Hoffman's, where my husband and I dined when we returned late or too weary to dress for the more pretentious hotel dining-room. It was a bit expensive for some of the company, but convenient to our headquarters was one of those market places, indigenous to Los Angeles, where violets and hams commingled on neighborly counters, that served good and inexpensive food on a long white enameled table where guests sat only on one side, on high, spindly stools. It was patronized generously by the actors for breakfast and lunch, when we were working in the downtown studio. Here Mary Pickford and brother Jack and Dorothy West were regular patrons. While the studio was being put in shape, the members of the company had been scooting about looking for suitable