The casting problem was a comparatively simple one, but the mat: ter of bringing in historic backgrounds without jarring men's memories involved considerable tech: nical experting. It was solved through the engagement of four technical advisers, a record number to be working on one picture on the Warner lot in the memory of its oldest employee, who probably is Frank McHugh.
First there was Capt, John T. Prout, who was with the 69th for ten years before the war and who commanded its G Company through the service overseas. There was George H. Boothby, old-time New York newspaper man who "covered" the 69th in France. There was Mark White, who was in the ranks of the 69th from the days of that little Villa affair on the Mexican border, to supply the dough-boy's slant. And there was Father John J. Devlin of St. Victor's Catholic Church in North Hollywood to guide O'Brien through the Father Duffy role Camp Mills was reconstructed at Warners' Providencia Ranch, across the Los Angeles River from the studio in Burbank. It was a reproduction, down to the last tent peg, of that old training ground. near Mineola, L. L, where the old 69th New York was mobilized and brought up to war strength as the 165th United States Infantry, and where the Rainbow Division was formed from troops representing 27 States and the District of Columbia. Here as many as 800 principals, stunt men, bit players and extras worked in a day, the maximum number being employed the day when the 4th Alabama marched into camp to the strains of "Dixie" to be met by a fighting 69th that wanted to resume the battle of Fredericksburg.
Overseas war scenes were re-enacted at the Warner ranch at Calabasas, 30 miles from the studio, where Prout and his technical asso-clates were convinced that a sufficient number of six-inch hoses could make California mud just as inhospitable as that of Luneville.
Virtually all the war scenes were photographed at night. The New York World's Fair got a pretty effective spectacle last Summer by shooting off $6,000 worth of fire-works at night. The Warner war-makers, for sixteen consecutive nights, set off $10,000 worth of explosives of various sorts every night in getting their night battle effects. Pilots of aeroplanes heading for Burbank Ajrport said they could see the flashes from more than 100 miles away And in Hollywood, according to Fred Ponodel, head of the powder department that staged this mimic war, it costs as much to make war safe as it does to make it look like the real thing. This involves the use of cases of sheet cork fashioned to semble rocks and dirt clots flying through the air, carloads of sawdust and shavings to represent earth blown up in No Man's Land, trucks of burnt umber to make the shavings look like earth and tons of sand to be used a cushions for the blasts.
The ranch layout was mined and wired so that a maximum of 200 bombs, blasts, flashes, rockets, whistle bombs and dynamite sticks could be fired simultaneously if William Keighley (who was in Shanghai last year) the director, desired. All individual explosions were controlled by five operators at separate switch panels.
Rosen's Jubilee Gala To honour L. Rosen on the 30th anniversary of his theatrical career, the Russian Light Opera and The, spian and Terpsichorean "artistes in Shanghai have volunteered to take part in "Fire Goddess" in the Lyceum Theatre on April 16. There Will be but one performance.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.