Another Goldwyn Miracle

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20916, 22 September 1939, Page 4

Another Goldwyn Miracle

Once again Hollywood is demonstrating in spectacular manner, why it is no longer necessary to film pictures on distant locations. The Island of Mindanao, in the Philippines, complete with a United States Army Post, a native village and a jungle which includes a huge lagoon, lies in the heart of the film city, behind a high wall. Samuel Goldwyn has reconstructed six acres on his studio “back lot” for the production “The Real Glory,” with Gary Cooper in the starring role. Skilled craftsmen have constructed a whole village of thatched bamboo huts on the edge of a 1,500,000 gallon lagoon in the studio grounds. There also are a headquarters and a hospital, officer’s quarters and complete interior furnishings, even to mosquito-netted beds. More than 500 workmen devoted two months to the construction. Five hundred native Filipinos clad in authentic costumes, appear as savage Moros in the village sequences and an equal number work in the uniforms of the famous Fdipino Scouts, about whose heroic lives the story centres. About 200 additional extras, all veterans of the American service, compose the American Army. On the other side of the wall, a' scant fifty feet distant, lies the civilisation of Santa Monica Boulevard, one of Hollywood’s main thoroughfares.