SCREEN PROPERTIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20922, 11 July 1931, Page 10 (Supplement)

SCREEN PROPERTIES.

SOURCE OF SUPPLY.

It is interesting to note the extent to which the public lends valuable assistance to motion picture producers. During spring cleaning, housewives dig up countless articles which, sooner or later, * find their way into a picture setting. It may be a stuffed owl, an antimacassar, an Arabian sword, a broken, rocking chair, •or a piece of Dresden china. These "film-minded" persons write of their discoveries to the Paramount property department, where they are duly listed in a big book of properties-on-de-mand for later hiring. Sometimes the list is found extremely useful to augment the enormous supply of properties already on hand, at the Hollywood studio, and offers of rare and unique objects have often saved the authenticity of some important detail.

In such productions as " Skippy," Paramount's juvenile talking picture, with Jackie Cooper in the title role, the strangest properties were demanded. Rickety old furniture for scenes in a "shanty-town" district; a dog-catcher's wagon; ancient office fittings, and innumerable odds and ends that only a boy would carry, appeared ,on the ."prop." list. ' , ■