HOLLYWOOD FILMS ITSELF

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 November 1939, Page 9

HOLLYWOOD FILMS ITSELF

A DIP INTO THE PAST. I KEYSTONE COPS AND CUSTARD PIES. Nostalgic memories for the older generation and a history of silent movies for those of you born to the talkie ora. That's what "Hollywood Cavalcade.' Darryl Zanuckls two-million-dollar film of the motion picture industry promises to provide. “Hollywood Cavalcade," originally titled -‘Fallen Stars." which is nearing completion, sketches films from 1913 to 1927. the year' Warners first startled ihe world end revolutionised the movie industry with the first talking picture. "The Jazz Singer." The climax of the film comes when Al Jolson steps out to repeat his 12-year-old pioneering stunt —the singing of the “Koi Nidre" from "The Jazz Singer." writes Jon Jones, the well known Hollywood critic. This is the first time Hollywood has attempted a motion picture about its own history, and Zanuck is sparing no expense to make it authentic as well as entertaining. It is being filmed in technicolour, and co-stars Alice.- Faye and Don Ameche. and brings back to the screen many favourites of days gone by. There have been several films about Hollywood, such as "A Star is Born" and “Hollywood Boulevard," but t’icy were not historical. They dealt only with certain phases of the film capital, and were rather brutal the way they portrayed certain unnamed stars. MACK SENNETT COMEDY DAYS. “Hollywood Cavalcade" will open the Mack Sennett Keystone comedy days, and Sennett. that great maestro of slapstick, will play himself as well as act as technical adviser on all Sennett sequences.

You will see the crazy but beloved Keystone cops go through their wild antics all over again, and I wonder if we’ll laugh just as heartily as we did back in the teens or just think it all too childish? Zanuck has gone to a great deal of trouble to bring back some of the original old Keystone cops, and you'll sec such old favourites as Chester Conklin and his walrus moustache: Ben Turpin and his crossed eyes, which earned him a fortune; and frozen-faced Buster Keaton, who has taken time out from his directorial job at M.G.M. to hurl the first custard pie in this nostalgic, sequence. !

Naturally you won't see Charlie Chaplin. Harold Lloyd, and other famous stars, who climbed to tame on the old Sennett lot and earned a living throwing custard pics at 75 and 100 dollars a week. Chaplin and Lloyd have clung to their celluloid fame, and it would not help them, to appear in a smail sequence of a big film.

A CAR PROBLEM.) One of the biggest difficulties for this dated sequence was to obtain a very old model car like the Keystone cops used. After a long search one was found, but the studio had to pay a sum that would buy two new models. Then, of course, it had to bo specially doctored so it would buckle in the centre when it stopped or crashed or stood on its nose and do all the other tricks wo laughed at so heartily back in 1913-1919. Alice Faye plays a composite of all Sennett bathing girls and early stars, such as' Gloria Swanson and Mabel Normand. For one of the opening sequences she gels hit smack in the lace with eustarci pies thrown by Buster Keaton.

Don Amechc will be a D. W. Griffith and a Cecil B. De Mille and a dozen other famous directors all rolled into one. He will wear riding breeches, leggings, and a back-to-front cap. the uniform affected by directors in those far-oir days. As a matter of fact, Mr De Mille still likes to wear a similar outfit except for the cap.