HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 99, 29 April 1933, Page 5 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

GOSSIP OF THE STUDIOS.

(By MOLLIE MERRICK.)

HOLLYWOOD (Calif.), March 27.

Gay Hollywood, the maddest, mushroom village in the world, has had, in the past few days, more than its share of the world's trouble and confusion. This morning the vast stretches of the studio lots which have hitmmed with life night and day since motion pictures began, are deserted' and silent. They will possibly reopen to-morrow with the opening of the banks here, but their financial situation is by no means solved merely because money is accessible.

Over 80 earthquake shocks which have followed the big shake, are keeping the community in a continuous etate of nerves, and add to the general dejection of its personnel. Knowledge of the dire need and suffering of Long Beach and neighbouring communities deepens the gloom. Four days of 18-hour sessions has resulted in a bill regulating the 50-50 cut or the 30-day salary holiday which the studios have resorted to in a belated effort to save themselves from total extinction. Had the bank holiday not precipitated matters, these studios would have had' to meet this situation one by one each in its own way. Briefly, I understand there are two studios who do not feel the necessity for this move at the present time—Columbia and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but these have fallen into line at the request of the other studios. Some few independent concerns feel they can get along without any "cuts" also. Complication in the actors' agreement to stand by and take a 50 per cent cut for eight weeks came when studios found themselves faced by certain objectors to the plan who deferred signing the agreement slips until they had taken counsel with their lawyers. Those objectors wanted to know if they would

have access to the books, thus proving to themselves whether or not executives took 50 per cent cuts as promised', and if those cuts applied to percentage of the profits—these sometimes running as high as 20 per cent.

To top all this, exhibitors who have been sorely hit by the money shortage demanded that rentals on films be cut 50 per cent; which move immediately nullified the plans of the studio so far as financial relief was concerned. To top it all, the unions" refused to accept any cut at all.

These details merely scratch the surface of a situation which has tremendous ramifications and which would' take much time and space to fully explain. The avalanche into which the motion picture business has slipped as a whole, is the unavoidable result of years of mismanagement, extravagance and waste that has been a matter for world-wide discussion. Motion pictures will climb out of the doldrums and be put on a sane footing eventually. The cameras, silent this morning, will click again. Gelatine entertainment will have a new life and, perhaps, a sane one. There are directors in this industry not afraid to take their, own money and make their own pictures based on their of story, cutting, crating and financial budgeting, but they will not stand for the "overhead" which pictures have carried heretofore. Nor will they be satisfied to have producers with fabulous salaries and! profit percentages that are staggerin", sitting in on the deal. The Californian sun was never so brio-lit, the tennis courts and badminton courts are inviting, the long stretch of sunny "beach is deserted, the actors and writers gather in little groups in cafes and homes—just waiting. It's a gelatine holiday —but nobody has the heart to Pl The failure of Hollywood does not mean the failure of the motion picture industry for all time, but the passing of the old hierarchy of movie-making, with the eventual opportunity this_ condition will present individuals equipped to make movies intelligently, to step in and do so. There are a number of them ready and waiting. _ The studios going into failure —and it is almost inevitable that others will follow Paramount's lead —will not become extinct. The men who have been making pictures with other people's money have their own money pretty well in hand. The failure of the motion picture industry will not be dotted by pergonal failures as the history of other industrial cataclysms has been. But whether or not the gentlemen who have failed to make money in picture-making thus far have the nerve to throw the money they have earned, or at least that they have received, into picture-making on their own, remains to be seen.

Jack Oakie has taken to sculpture. He is busy with plasticene making a bust of himself, which he modestly admits is too divine. And most of the inhabitants of Hollywood's professional ranks not tied up with picture-making, have taken to the desert until the terra becomes firma once again.