HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18959, 4 January 1930, Page 22 (Supplement)

HOLLYWOOD IN PERSON.

DAILY LIFE IN FILMDOM. “ Little Tooting ” —British Colony. If you’ve by any chance been invited to “ Little Tooting,” you have some faint idea how a portion of the British colony in Hollywood maintains its entity. If you haven’t—and that's your loss—let me tell you something about it. A bungalow court one block from the heart of the village main street bears the modest sign, “ Little Tooting,” and houses as interesting a group of his Majesty’s subjects as one may find in this polyglot vicinity. There are in Hollywood highly coloured Russian clubs where food is purveyed to the members at small cost and to visiting friends and tourists at a slightly higher cost; where flaming walls vibrate to music that once had heat and vigour, but is become casual from nightly strumming; where the temperamentals sip boulevard vodka (which, believe you me, is weird brew), and consume large sandwiches of pressed caviar. And there are various other Semi-commercial national groups. But “ Little Tooting ” has none of these factors. It is home for a group of writing people and actor-men who do not readily assimilate the apartment quality of this locale. One tiny white bungalow houses Lionel Belmore, that splendid old actor who was a friend of Sir Herbert Tree in his London theatre days. He bolsters up more ailing talkies with his healthy presence than perhaps any actor in the colony. Eric Snowden, who moves about from legitimate to movies with amazing versatility, supervised dinner the other night. I must explain that these pro- 1 selytes of the cinema devote one bungalow in the centre of the group to eating purposes only. It assumed the proportions of an officers’ mess, wdth whichever of the number who happens to be least in demand by the movie moguls supervising the cook and doing the menu-making. Lawford Davidson, adjudged the most perfect voice in the profession, served beef-steak and kidney pie and chiffonade salad with the ease of a Ritz waiter, such ease that I suspect he is often impressed into this line of duty at “ Little Tooting.” Alfred Tennyson, grand-nephew of the poet, saw to it that ladies were comfortably seated at small tables not too near the open fire. Browne Holmes drifted in and joined the group. Anthony Burke, of the London “ Daily Mail.” A delicious, slim girl named Drew, with grey eyefe and a purely decorative look, turned out to be an illustrator. Snowden left precipitately at nine to play his part in the third act of a boulevard theatre. Belmore, returning to Culver City, where they were shooting sequences in his movie, hadn’t bothered to remove ail vestiges of make-up. Davidson, going on to the sound stages at midnight, was enjoying a well earned free evening. This group is more closely identified with the industrial or gelatine end of the village than many others which exist here; yet one came out into the midnight air and was amazed to see the familiar boul lights. “ Little Tooting” maintains its entity in the face of the voracious village. The New Mode. When fashion put the new skirts j six inches below the knee, it played a

hardship on a village full of ladies whose fame has largely been a matter of exquisite curves and perfectly proportioned limbs. The professional colony takes wholeheartedly to the evening mode, but still reserves the right to show a dimple or two in the knee-cap while the sun is shining. Despite flowing lines and extravagant fabrics, the new mode is decidedly genteel. How long it will be a popular fad in the colony is doubtful. Long, graceful draperies are outlandish with fuzzy, white hennaed hair. Titian ringgets topping green-lidded eyes cry out for one of the brief beaded shifts of. yesteryear. One of the strangest sights Hollywood has ever given to the world was an official glimpse

of its leaders in 1930 frocks at the latest opening. One had not associated Bessie Love with the dignity of an ankle-length skirt which swept the ground behind her. Bessie’s blonde hair was worn as of yore. She looked like a little girl carrying around a whole lot of mate-

rial and not quite knowing what to do' with it. There was Eleanor Boardman, curls on shoulder and make-upless in a lengthy and ripply frock; Marion Davies, in demure white chiffon frosted with daimonds, and just missing the floor all round; Mary Brian, looking like a little girl playing grown-up. Lilyan Tashman’s trailing black fishnet frock missed that old-time look and took on the sophisticated flow of line gowns this year are intended to reveal. Kay Johnston’s narrow hips and rangy figure exemplified the new idea perfectly in a white satin gown whose only claim to ornament was its singular cut and artfully designed draperies. While brave souls affect the tweed mode, those more fully identified with the village spirit are wearing soft little velvet frocks these autumn days. Last year these were Alencon-trim-med, but this season the cinema ladfes have a new idea. The frock is laceless-, but the opened necks reveal a great deal of lace on the underbodice. It’s an artful stroke, this revealing of the lingerie, and it’s taking well along the Boul in exclusive professional circles. Troubles of the Projectionist. Harold Lloyd is one of the first producers to see the light so far as pro-

lection is concerned. So anxious is he that his first talking picture shall have its New York premiere correctly done that his own projectionist will accompany the film from Hollywood and remain with it for its showing in the larger eastern cities.

It is the idea of cinema-makers to have, in the future, a film that will automatically adjust itself to changing conditions in the house. A different amplification is given the film for a full house than that used for an almost empty one. The necessary adjustments are often responsible for the vaj-yine tonal qua] ity and obnoxious happenings in sound films. Every projectionist is not gifted with a perfect ear. Experiments in sound while the audience is in the theatre often cause the voice to sink to a whisper or rise to a bellow, either one utterly destroying the illusion.

Doug. Jun., and Joan. The junior Doug Fairbanks continues the most versatile juvenile in the colony. He progresses dizzily from film to legitimate, via the local theatres. At present he is playing in a village stock house and drawing tourists and villagers as well. . Toan Crawford, in private life Mrs Fairbanks (in case there is anyone left who hasn’t had

this drummed into them) is now a star, with the release from grind which the new system allows. Four or five pictures a year are turned out, and the time between is free. Which means, if you know anything at all about movies, that you can study languages, voice culture, danc-

ing, fencing, eurythmics—any little thing you can think of to improve your status with the powers that be. Doug and Joan are said still to be out of favour with Doug pere. But they seem idyllically happy for all that. Mrs Fairbanks accepts far more of life’s responsibilities than the joyous Joan ever thought of taking. She’s on the stage with Doug., Jun., when he’s rehearsing. Her criticism counts with him—she knows a thing or two about drama. Then if she’s not working she’s there in one of the front rows at night to give the performance life. She circulates through the lobby during the entr’acte, which doesn’t do any harm at all with the tourist following. One of the cleverest little ladies in movieland —Mrs Douglas Fairbanks, Jun. —nee Crawford. Griffith’s New Picture. David Wark Griffith’s “Lincoln” will be either the masterpiece of his career or his swan-song. He has chosen, he tells me, to give the world a picture of Lincoln the man—not Lincoln the hero, the national god, the superman. And he has chosen Walter Huston (if he can get him) to do the portrayal. Walter Huston has been doing interesting work in celluloid since talkies brought him to the screen. Monta Bell made a happy choice when he capitalised on this actor for the rugged, middle-aged financier type. The middleaged editor type. The middle-aged Don Juan. Mr Griffith says an exhaustive study of Lincoln has convinced him that the martyred President was a more complex character than any of the thousands of villains and heroes he has portrayed on the screen during his twenty-two years of motion picture making. D.W.’s story centres about a frontier lawyer who later became President. That man never drank liquor, but never censured those who did. At times he was even known to champion those who patronised the flowing bowl. This, says Mr Griffith, was evidenced when a group of temperance workers asked Lincoln to dismiss Ulysses Grant because, so the story ran, the General had been drinking when he won the Battle of Shiloh. Lincoln smiled and said: “I'd like to get more of the same brand for my other generals.” “That’s a man,” observed D.W. “Lincoln didn’t smoke either," went on the master-director, “although most of his best humour came forth as he leaned against the bars of frontier saloons, talking with fellows who both smoke and drank. “He was a shy chap,” said Mr Griffith. “Why, on his wedding day Lin coin became so panicky wjth embarrassment that he fled to the woods and stayed there until searchers discovered him wet with the perspiration of shy fear.” “Are you going to try to incorporate

that into a picture of Abraham Lincoln?” “I am going to try to give the public as faithful a picture of the great American as I can. That is why it is so important that I get the one actor to fulfil the peculiar demands of the role. It must be done with conviction and sincerity. I want to give Lincoln the champion Tassler,* the teller of risque stories, the man whose indomitable courage forced him out of a heritage of ‘pore white trash’ into the greatest political captaincy of modern times. I want to show the man who was at once practical and impractical. I want to show him in such a way that thousands who have time and inclination to go to a show, but no inclination to read lengthy biographies, will know their great American and know him thoroughly. “At times Lincoln was a bit of a bore, if one cares to put it that way,” continued Mr Griffith. “He read out loud until his law partner, Herndon, was driven almost to distraction. But, .on the other hand, he was so thoroughly human that he argued his law cases to success, through the employment of apt stories which struck sympathetically the simple quality of the jurors’ hearts. He visited a voodoo woman once and laughed heartily when she told him he w’ould some day be President of the United States. This real Lincoln—this complicated mixture of man and god, this paradoxical creature, crue and lovable, small and majestically great, is the Lincoln I want to give the American people.” So spoke D.W.—a master who I have often thought and said was getting to be a legend in motion picture history. This is no legendary idea, no mirage of a story. When you give an audience a biography in celluloid you touch the one point the screen needs to-day. I have long been crying for such an attempt—even in contemporary life. It is the valuable thing motion pictures can do for those too tired to read huge tomes when their day’s work is done. If Mr Griffith puts it over with Walter Huston as Lincoln well all have to admit that there’s something more than legendary in the greatness of David Wark Griffith.