The world film encyclopedia (1933)

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37« Round Hollywood " Hollyzcood " is a vague term, embracing all f.lm land and all the stars. Here is a concise description of Hollyuvod — the place * by A. L. Graham T OS ANGELES, the city of the Angels ! ■*•-' Not so very many years ago the bright California sun shone brightly down on a peaceful little Pacific town with attractive little stucco haciendas shining white and cool under the swaying palm-trees and the vivid red-tile roofs. An indolent and attractive Mexican atmosphere invaded the place, and it was here that the pioneers of the film business decided to make their early Western pictures, or Horse Operas as they were tolerantly called. The dawn of the motion picture was thus heralded in this small but attractive town of Los Angeles, some five hundred mile? south of the then better-known San Francisco. In 1910 the business was getting into its stride. Three years later saw the Griffiths and the Cecil B. De Milles making their full-length features, and the rise of such favourites as Dustin Farnum, Wallace Reid, Blanche Sweet, and the Gish sisters. The old Lasky compan\^ in 1913 made that grand old epic, The Squaw Man, and people began to look at the West Coast town with increasing wonderment while intrepid producers, with vision and enthusiasm, settled down outside the city of the Angels at a country place eight miles away, called Hollywood. The city of the Angels, Los Angeles, then became the city of the Angles — Camera Angles ! And so to-day we find that Los Angeles is on a par with San Francisco ; tv/o giant cities, the greatest in the West of America — powerful, up-to-date, almost ultra-modern towns with towering buildings and congested streets. And, whereas Los Angeles once smiled benignly at her young sister and suburb, Hollywood— to-day Hollywood exists only for the visitors and the film-struck. To-day the people of Los Angeles ha^'e ceased to watch and to wonder ; Hollywood has become a little town of its own a.nd Los Angeles is not really interested in it any more. Slightly to the north-west of Los Angeles, Hollywood is conveniently situated near the famous Pacific Ocean, the attractive hilly district of Hollywood-land, socially smart Beverly Hills, cosy Burbank at the foot of some picturesque hills and Universal City and the San Fernando Valley to the north of the town. Farther out to the west, nearer the sea, there is Culver City ; and at the sea there are several beaches of lovely yellow sand and foaming breakers, the more important being Santa Monica and M?.]ibu. * Refer to maps : Plates 57, 5S, 59.