MAKING A FILM

Taranaki Daily News, 18 June 1932, Page 8 (Supplement)

MAKING A FILM

HOLLYWOOD’S WAY.

“GOING INTO A HUDDLE.” There is a film which you. have &.een and, I hope, approved, which is nobody s child, said Edgar Wallace in the Daily Mail, in the last article written befoie his death in California. Nobody’s child has in reality some 50 parents. Originally it was a story whfch took fife eye of a. who is now working on another lot, and hifi enthusiasm “sold” it to the executive. It wasn’t quite right, so somebody else took the story and' rewrote it, and it stayed on the shelf until at conference a member of the executive said, What about ‘Tic Tac’?” , So they “Tic Tac” out and went into a huddle” over it. “A huddle” is the equivalent; of a “scrum —it is rather a good illustration. . “Tic Tac” was taken down from the shelf and scheduled for production: It had to be rewritten of course, and another director had to, be. found. And when the new director got down to it lie said: ’“lt’s a swell story, but it will have to' be rewritten.” . So somebody rewrote it. The director suggested this bit, and a couple of staff writers were responsible for that bit, and they brought in a “high hat” in the writing world and he retouched the dialogue. They cast it. The leading man thought the bit where he “fell down a fire escape wasn’t too hot.” Not that lie minded falling down fire, escapes; he wasn’t thinking of himself, he was thinking of the picture. So they re-. wrote that bit. ■_ And the leading, lady read the script and said-it was lovely, loyely, but did anybody think it was a good idea that she should be found in the millionaire’s bungalow by the comedian ? She wasn’t thinking about her part but, was only -’oneerned for the picture. So they rewrote, that bit, too. The director resigned. He. said he’d shot 10,000 feet of film and he wasn’t quite sure what it all about. So they went into a huddle in the projection room and had a • look at the film he had shot, and found it .was quite another story altogether. He had been quietly rewriting the story as he shot it. ' ANOTHER HUDDLE. So they refused to accept his resignation and fired him and they got in another director and told him to harmonise the bits of picture which had been taken with the bits of scenario which hadn’t been properly looked at. He shook his head and said the thing' would have’’ to be re-written. So 'they assembled every writer on the lot and they went into a huddle on the story, and they all agreed, except one, that this was the lousiest story that had ever been’written. The man who didn’t say so was the man who last wrote it. ’He thought that if they left the script to him he’d put the whole matter right in about three weeks, and everybody else said’“Sez you!” ■ The most important of them said with an air of authority: “All you’ve got to do is to make the girl more sympathetic. Instead pf her giving the hero the air and runhing away with a .Polish tramp because the hero wouldn’t take her to a ball game, let them be out riding one day and her horse falls over a cliff a thousand feet high—do' you get me? 4nd the hero happens to be doing chores on his farm and he dashes up —” “And catches the horse and the woman in His arms,” sneered the original writer. .. Fine, said the leading man,, but if that bit about the millionaire’s bungalow was cut out he’d lose the only scene he’d got; not that he worried about that, but it wouldn’t do the picture any good. So they rewrote it. '• A NEW DIRECTOR. . Then the director had a slight disagreement with the executive and left, and a new director came in. He said it was a swell story, but he felt that one or two changes were vital if the picture was to be a success. That's’one of the grandest, things about a film studio; nobody thinks anything about anything'except the picture. r t is what they call esprit de corporation —all ibr one and one for Especially all for one So everybody went into a huddle, and they decided that the story ought to be rewritten.

And when the story was. rewritten it was decided that the leading man wasn’t quite right for the part, so they got another leading, man. It was ’very awkward, because he’d . never fallen (1 -’Oi a fire escape and he hated ladders anyway—couldn’t stand heights of any kind; they made him dizzy; and besides, he was very superstitious about ladders.

“You put a ladder in a picture and sure as fate you’ve got a flop,” he told them. ; 1 ' .

They went into a huddle over this and decided to cut out the fire altogether. It only meant rewriting half of the scenario, but what did that matter?

Headquarters, which, receives elaborate reports from studios and elaborateprotests from stockholders, sent a message to say that the, picture was costing too muph money and that when the president arrived that morning he had fc :d the., ipresentatives of three banks crying quietly, on the doorstep.. So the executive cancelled the new scenario, put back the fire escape, and engaged another leading man, who used to be a fireman. WHAT WAS WRONG. A less important literary gentleman suggested that what was wrong with the story was the too transparent purity of the heroine. “Work in a night club, and a Mexican dancer who’s a devil with women.”

“The Hayes office (Hollywood’s federation of every sort of society) wouldn’t pass that,” said the chief writer. “Let’s go into a huddle on this and get it right.” The new director of the story, except for bits he had* suggested strongly disapproved of it. “I’ll make it, but you’ve got a flop before it stairs,” he eaid, so they fired the new director ' and got the original one back, and he took it to his beautiful house at Santa Monica, which has a swimming pool,. orange grove, two .tennis courts, illuminated so that you can play by night,' a lemon grove, a grapefruit grove, and a kennel of sealyhams, and he thought it over for two days and three nights, and came back to the executive and laid the manuscript tenderly on the table and said:

“There's only one hope and that is to go back to the original story.” “What was it?’’ asked the executive.

The director had forgotten; so they said they wouldn’t trouble him any further, and got another director. The picture was shot and previewed, strangely enough, it is a good picture. The newest director of all decided that, none of the scripts was any good, and

made it up out of his head as he went along. Everybody who has had anything to do with the picture, or who has written a line or suggested-an idea, has a title of the story. There are 76 true credits. The men who wrote additional dialogue are there to be seen, and the men who wrote the scenario are there, and the director is there, and all the actors and actresses are there, and the executive producers—to the very last huddle.

SPENDING MILLIONS ON FILMS,

MOST DISCUSSED DIRECTOR.

A motion picture producer who prefers. to keep in the background rather than court the spotlight and who really objects to being photographed is rare in Hollywood, but although Howard Hughes'has spent several million dollars in the last few years giving “big” entertainment to the public, very little is known of the man. Hughes is discussed constantly in the film capital because of his lavish expenditures on pictures, nut he' very seldom has anything to say for publication, preferring to let his productions speak for him. He is young, six feet three inches tall, slim, retiring and sound in his business Up to date' he has produced'“Two Arabian Knights,” “The Racket,” “Everybody’s Acting,” “Hell’s Angels” and “Sky Devils,”' the lastnamed a big comedy of the air, his latest production. Hughes is wealthy. The Hughes Tool Works, of Houston, Texas, employs 4000 men, and the company was organised- by his father. The young producer fell heir to the royalty rights on many patents on oil drilling machinery, inventions ' of hie father. His income from these sources is great. He is not at all the cartoonist’s conception of a film producer. But his knowledge of motion picture production is very considerable, particularly his store of information on sound. He ap-

oached motion pictures in 192 b as a student approaches a subject, as a business man analyses a problem.

On the second floor of the Metropolitan Studio’s office building in Hollywood, there is a 25,000 dollar projection room which contains every conceivable form of sound-projecting apparatus, a modernistic setting for the screen, and uniform taste and) comfort. It adjoins Hughes’ private office, was built by. him to view "rushes” on his pictures, and is used often. ’

REVIVAL OF “THE MIRACLE.”

LONDON SEES SILENT PLAY.

The triumphs of 20 years ago, when London was thrilled by the C. B. Coch-ran-Max Reinhardt production of “The Miracle,” were exceeded on April 9 at the Lyceum Theatre. To the majority of the distinguished audience, says Dudley Leslie in the Daily Mail, the earlier production at Olympia was either a dim memory or else a pre-war tale they had heard about.

For three hours they were transported from thin modern existence into the

kaleidoscopic country of an old morality story.’ Here was a tapestried land of legend where nuns and knights and fauns and evil spirits roamed in gay colours across; the' believing- world. At th© end the audience was bowed. It was too solemn and beautiful an occasion for clapping; every witness of-the play was impressed into silence. Politics, the. arts, diplomacy—all were well represented in the audience. Among the celebrities were Sir John Lavery, Sir Harold Wernher, Viscountess Revelstoke, Lady Howe, Violet Duchess of Rutland, Viscountess Snowden, Lady Juliet Duff, Mr. A. E. W. Mason, Mr. J. B. Joel, Mr. Gordon Selfridge, Lady Violet Benson, Lady Lytton and Captain Cunningham-Reid. “Those who rememberwi ths esiginal

‘Miracle’ witnessed a much altered pro duction,” continues Dudley Leslie. "The spectacle has been ..subordinated to the drama. Although still an imposing pageant, this dialogue-less play is perhaps the most gripping drama in London. ‘The Miracle’ is' a medieval legend painted in oils. The actors are ejlent, but the eloquent groupings, the purposeful rhythm, and the magic of the lighting tell a richer tale than speech. “Who would have thought, that Tilly Losch, the Viennese dancer,, could display eueh pitiful humanity and -such charm? Against the pomp and ceremony of medieval Catholic Church usage is the eloquent immobility .of Lady Diana Manners. What a famops theatre name Diana Manners would have made if She ha'd been born without a famous nam?.’’