Professional movie soldiers, trained to fight under the flag of any nation the script designates, made tHeir appearance in Hollywood the other day. Organized as the cinema troop, under command of Captain Richard von Opel, late of the Austrian Army, these movie mercenaries were cast as the king's household guard ip "The Prisoner of Zenda", David O.
Selznick production, and will be seen in the coronation sequence in scenes with Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
The cinema troop is the private army of Captain von Opel, who came to Hollywood in 1932 as a fencer on the Austrian Olympics team and stayed on to become an American citizen. He was shocked into the idea of organizing the unit by newspaper reports that 65 men had been injured in making a motion picture featuring several spectacular charges.
He decided to m a corps of professionals, thoroughly trained in cavalry tactics, sabre work, manuals of arms, and other military tion, who, specializing soldier roles, would be less likely, because of their training, to be injured while working out sensational action for the camera.
From the moment the men reported to Director John Cromwell for service on "The Prisoner of Zenda" set, in which more than 400 extras end principals were being used, they were under military discipline.
Instead of the skelter mob of when the "lunch" call w they snapped into a mi tion and marched off th precise cadence.
Von Opel now has nearly 100 men enlisted, trained so the are able 10 fight as Germans, Spaniards, British.
Italian or American. They know the manuals of arms of each of these countries, and.when drilling, their commands are issued in the language of the nation whose troops they are representing.
Von Opels troop men of selected ph; the ages of 22 and range from 5 feet inch in height and tion ately made up of que between 7. They must 11 to 6 feet 1 weigh propor-
Before a man becomes a fledged Cinema Trooper he have absorbed the various manuals ai arms, must be able to slide a cavalry horse down a 45-degree embankment and be familiar with all military rifles, side arms and blades.
They drill four hours a day, three days a week, when not engaged in pictures. They own a number of horses collectively but each man wns his own bridle, saddle and sabre and a troop uniform, although they are ready to d a studio requires o notice y man in the troop, v says, is a college graduate handsome enough screen stars.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.