Talk of Hollywood 'Mz. Richard Wallace, motion-picture director of the Paramount Studio of Hollywood, California, having a good time in Shanghai. "But," he says with a rueful smile, "Ty very nearly didn't get here—due to an 'Act of God'
The "Act of God" was the failure of a Dachshund and a "Mutt" to produce puppies at the right time. Mr, Wallace needed five wobbly offspring of the mis-mated pair for certain part in his new production "Two Black Crows in the A. E. F." In the picture the "Mutt" who is a throwback of @ Sealyham, goes to war with his negro master. While in the trenches he disappears, along with a lady Dachshund from the enemy lines. His owner is heartbroken over his loss but is somewhat reconciled when the dog is awarded x Croix de Guerre for dis: tinguished service, The dog not} being there, his owner wears it and when he goes home proudly dis plays it to seventy-five dogs who come galloping down the road to meet him at the station. While tearfully tells them the story of the dog's disappearance a bark is heard and down the track comes the Sealyham throwback, the lady Dachsund, and the five puppies.
Some of the difficulties of the motion picture industry at once became evident. Dogs are rare in California, particularly Dachshunds, and certainly puppies of Mutts and Dachshunds. It also is no small task to gather together seventy-back is $125 gold a week, which turns over to his owner, Henry East. But the other dogs had to be trained on the set.
More important—the puppies had to be produced. And on a certain date, Pictures are like newspapers, they run on a dead-line basis. The] producer always counts on being! fable to take a certain set on a certain Jot on a certain day. The weather, and other "Acts of God! sometimes upset the schedule. Thi time both had to be taken into con sideration, First the—Sealyham throwback and the Dachshund took an apartment together and the picture went merrily on. Puppies appeared and put in their pre-running days. Then the weather became sully. By the time it quit raining the puppies were too big to film. They tried again,—The puppies arrived, but too late. The company was busy with another set 1d Kad to finish it. A third batch was started and in the mean time the rest of the picture was finished Mr, Wallace left before the puppies arrived. No doubt by this time they have been camera-ed while runing} down a railroad track and that portion of the film has been neatly ingerred in its proper place. Any~ way Mr. Wallace decided not to let an "Act of God" interfere with world tour.
"The tra Wallace avers, of dog instinct and the trainer's belief in the dog."
If a dog senses shat his trainer] hasn't much faith in him he isn't going to do what he is asked to do, Patience, kindness, and an appropriate are usually effective results.
The seventy-five dogs on the Para mount lot were the talk of Hol wood during the filming of the picture. Mr. Wallace rented some of them. Gradually attracted by the huge kettles of hamburger steak and mashed vegetables which appeared on the lot everyday, more and more dogs took up their residence there of their own accord.
Fluffy dogs, lanky dogs, dogs with pedigrees, every variety of mutt and mongrel, big dogs, little dogs, bad dogs and good dogs, came to live the Paramount lot. And then the puppies began to appear. "Two or three sets a day," says Mr.
Wallace.
There is one scene in the picture of a negro in bed with in the-same bed with hi them asleep. It sounds difficult, to get twenty dogs asleep at the sume time in the same bed. Mr. Wallace explained that the heat of the Kleig lights not only attracted the dogs $0 that they couldn't be kept away from it, but it also made them drowsy and docile. The slept right through the tiegaphoned shouts of the director and the general hubbub of stage-shifting. and scene. taking.
Now the dogs don't want) to leave and they don't know what) to do with them.
Mz, arid Mrs, Wallace are on a world tour. Mr, Wallace wants to go up to Peking and study China where life is really Chinese.
"Not from a hotel lobby," added Mr. Wallace. He also intends to travel extensively through Siam and India jand Java—a.6,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.