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Job Hunting in Hollywood
Censorism VS Socialism Minus BY LOUISE GALLAGHER
CENSORISM and socialism are two things I never expect to understand. You look for a big thundering “Dont’ – You Dare” over certain conditions and not even the tiniest little squeak is heard. Then a howl will go up over something a Y.M.C.A. board of directors would look kindly upon.
There is a handsome big fellow here whom you meet on sets where foreign atmosphere is needed. Though American born, he claims to be a mixture of many races and to have spent most of his time on the continent. He is everything you would look for in a man of his profession for he has the reputation of having at one time been one of the most dangerous socialist in New York City. He is justly proud of this and you can see him swell up with pride when it is whispered around on a set.
And yet so far as 1 can learn he has never once broken out or raised his voice in protest for his fellow workers since coming to Hollywood. Long hours, too strong Kleig lights, no extra pay check when it is due for overtime, ever gets a raise out of him. He take it all out in looking the part and is meek as any of the rest of us when it comes to taking orders from directors and their assistants.
I have never given up hope, however, that some day he would break out and show his real colors. A few days agao I met him on a set out of the stadium in Pasadena. Things dragged terribly all morning, partly because the sun refused to stay on the job for long at the time and partly due to the discussion between the director and the male lead as to whether or not he was to have a double when there was a chance that he might be thrown from a horse.
To get away from a girl with a nasal twang who kept insisting upon telling me that she could have gotten a second lead at Christie’s if she would go to the wild parties given at the director’s home. I walked down to the second entrance which seemed deserted.
And what do you think?
There was Mr. Socialist all by himself in a corner mixing something in a bucket.
At last!
From his face which was moody and tragic I knew that bucket con tined nitro glycerine. I got as close as I could before he looked up and saw me. I did not speak but just motioned towards the bucket in an encouraging way. “I am helping Props out,” he said in a mysterious voice. “They are going to lighten things up a bit by having Romeo fall from the horse into a whitewash bucket!” Not that is the kind of socialist you can expect to find out in the woolly West.
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Even Bigger Joke.
Censorism is even a bigger joke. I mean the censorism that is done in picture while they are in the making. At Fox we had a big stage set where our curly wigs made a nice covering for our backs. The girls were all small and looked not more than 12 in the makeup.
But the poor leading lady. To begin with she was most unsuited for the part but being under contract it was wished upon her. She looked ridiculous, and knew it, in her short ballet and protested that she be given a different costume. The production manager looked the set over and refused.
In the afternoon we changed into gym suits for another scene in the same picture. Our suits were grey flannel and consisted of middy bloomers and cap. “We will have to watch the censors on this, ” said the production manager and a prop man was called to measure all the bloomers and see that none were shorter than four inches from the knee.
Nothing could have been more unbecoming or respectable than those gym suits and any censor that could find anything detrimental to the morals of a nation in them would have to be trying hard to hold this job.
If you could see Nita Naldi and some of the other high-powered vamps going their bare-backed way unchallenged and then the same careful production manager lets out a yell if grey flannel bloomers are one inch too short. You might agree with him that they should never be screened but it would be on account of their bad influences on striking textile workers who might thing the demand was heavy.
The thing that has surprised me most is that not one little censor voice of any of the states has been raised in protest of showing the younger generation as fast, furious and fastidious. They seem to take kindly to the idea of seeing the youth of the nation going a swift pace. If you ask any of the big motion picture makers why they have turned out so many pictures of this kind, they tell you it is because the public demanded them-they go over well.
The famous younger generation who are supposed to be always on the job, overlook this or think it is too silly to protest against. On the other hand, all nations protest against any of their people being shown in American pictures villains, so do the Ku Klux, and even a group of traveling salesmen sent in a petition asking please not to show up any of their clan with villainous instincts.
Characteristic Nix.
There is one thing any young lady flapper can expect if she goes in for the hard job of showing herself off on the screen. She will find she must check or wholly forget all of the little individual charcteristics by which she was one time known. You just can’t be yourself and get anywhere in movies because so many directors are not up on what a flapper in good society is supposed not to do. I had a call on a drawing room set at First National; strictly evening gowns and wraps were required as we were to be shown in a later scene in a hotel dining room.The 10 girls, with their equally correctly groomed partners, would have passed so far as looks went, in any society.
The drawing room scene went over fine and then we were switched over on another stage where the hotel dining room was an exact copy of that of the Ritz. Real food was served and often you are hungry enough if it has been a long time since lunch to enjoy it but the trouble is you have to be a lady and just pick at things if it is anuntra-modern society drama.
The cameras started up, the big lights flashed on and at the call for “action” we gave our best imitation of how we would behave if we ever got inside the Ritz. Right in the middle of the scene the director yelled “Cut It.”
From the tone of voice we knew something had gone wrong. He stalked over to the table across from me where a recent beauty contest winner from Chicago and her escort sat. He grabbed the girl roughly by the shoulder. “Don’t you know better than. to chew gum in a high-toned joint? You know what you have done?
You’ve ruined 200 feet of film chewing that gum in the foreground. Where do you think you are-in a dairy lunch? I was sorry for the girl when she walked off the set crying and they didn’t let her partner stay and stag it either. This particular director seemed to think it was the escort’s duty to know that the lady was not behaving properly, and that he was, therefore, also in disgrace. The spoiling of a few hundred feet of film was, of course, a serious matter. Not only on account of the cost but in this particular case they were not sure just when the little dear started in on her gum and it was, therefore, necessary to run the film to find out just how much would have to be reshot.
Looks Still Count.
No one can predict what fate will befall a picture in the making. An inexperienced actor who does not know the consequences of looking directly into the camera lens, is apt to do so and thereby blur and throw out of focus several feet of film. I worked in a picture at Universal for four or five days. They had been working on the picture then about three weeks and were just back from location with the principle leads.
The setting and the costumes were both elaborate and expensive and the extra part players had several recalls on the picture before it was completed. I had a nice little part that I had much enjoyed playing and was anxious to know under what title the picture would be released. I met one of the cameramen that had worked on it, on another set and asked him if he had seen the review. The studio had promised to call me for it but it frequently happens that this is overlooked and especially so if you happen not to be one of the important members of the cast.
“Didn’t you hear what happened?” the cameraman asked me, “Better be glad you didn’t call up out there about it. The completed film went to the head film cutter, who runs quickly over the whole thing and cuts out such parts as were marked to be cut out at the time the picture was filmed. He can usually do this in one day, as he uses clips to mark it for his assistants who do the actual cutting. Just before starting to run off the film, he cut his finger rather badly and bound it up tightly with a bandage soaked with peroxide. What do you think happened? That dog-gone peroxide corroded every bit of the film. Simply ruined the whole thing for he went over ever bit if it, using the hand on which was the peroxide to hold it. At least $30,000 or $40,000 wiped out in half a day. “When it went to the next assistant for cutting, he found a blurred film. The didn’t know until the head technician came what had hapened to it.”
