Movies Til Dawn

Here's a fascinating  three minute clip  from Mervyn LeRoy's 1930 talkie  "Showgirl In Hollywood" starring the always strange Alice White. (Shamefully, I've yet to see this film--though it's happily extant and reputed to be quite good). It shows the making of an early musical number--complete with views of the cameras in booths, reverse shots of the crew, overhead angles that include glimpses of the on-set orchestra (playback had not yet been developed and musical numbers were recorded live, on camera, with the accompanying musicians standing off to the side and playing out of camera range). There are even shots taken from inside the booths that were then required to hold the cameramen and their cameras--the whirring sound of the cameras, which you will hear, necessitated the airless, sound-proof booths which commonly caused the cameramen to pass out from lack of oxygen. All in all, this is an invaluble, not to be missed piece of film history lore......

Below is a fascinating find. It's a ten minute documentary (I guess you'd call it) about the Hollywood Premiere of the 1932  MGM version of "Grand Hotel"  featuring most of the stars on the lot at the time. Hollywood in the thirties was a factory town and the complete opposite of what it has since become. Once upon a time, you went to work every day making movies, getting paid regularly and advancing up the ladder in the craft of your choice (or being flushed down the sewer fairly rapidly if you weren't cutting it). Contracts provided security for artists along with occasional raises based on the studios desire to retain the artists services. If you were under contract to a studio, you were part of a large family--you worked together, partied together, probably lived near each other etc. The town took care of its own--scandals were hushed up by publicity departments and ranks closed when outsiders--politicians, moral crusaders and the like--took up anti-...