The picture has provided one of the most ambitious location parties in some seasons. The Anderson brothers, who fed and quartered the workmen at Boulder Dam and who handle all the expeditions that Hollywood sends to the world's far corners, have built a town of 72 residential tents, a commissary, a large kitchen, an outdoor moving picture theatre and equipped the village with all the comforts of civilization. The equipment, which is transported from location to location, is valued at $75,000, and it cost the Andersons $10,000 to set it up on the RKO site.
Sixty of the tents are for the rank and file of the troupe and sleep five men each. The director, executives and stars are housed in twelve "de luxe Hollywood cabins," which sleep two apiece: each star has a cabin with the extra bed occupied by his valet, a necessary adjunct to life in an Indian outpost. While the extras and utility workers must depend upon community, facilities, the "riners' quarters are quite tony. Each has a bathroom, a bedroom ana a living room, equipped with beach furniture. secking a hero and heroine, the Maine Development Commission shipped a cage by express, on which was bla Disneys New Find From Maine, Bambi, Traveling With His Girl Friend, Falene" generous act that threw the Di: plant into utter confusion.
Comparable celebrities are al met at the train, but Bambi an Falene were, slighted for several hours. Finally, James Baumeister, an assistant director, stepped into the breach and became a reception dele. gation, a benet cence that has caused him considerable embarrassment, for he has become the foster parent of the deer. At first he was a little sheepish about the affection he showed for the animals, but he is used to it now and brazenly arrives at the studio at 630 in the morning to feed them.
Bambi was eleven weeks old and vas thirteen when they They must be fed four times which keeps Mr. Baufneister busy, what with his other duties, The two fav drink four quarts of goat's milk dally, which is mixed with lime water; and Disney's staff or 700 employees have taken it upon themselves to bring the animals dandelions, which they gather from Hollywood lawns, and raisin bread. Since their arrival, teeth have become apparent in their lower jaws. Bau-meister hasn't weighed them but he has measured them. Bambi is now two feet high and 30 inches long, while Falene is slightly larger. Bambi avoids displays of affection, but Falene, being a woman, makes no bones about her love for her cousin.
The studio is photographing the animals in all their phases. And as "Bambi" will not be completed for two years, the film will provide an accurate model from which the cartoon will be made. As yet the fawns are inarticulate, but later sound tracks will be made of their bleats. The two animals are housed in the Disney annex, where they have 200 ft. long and 20 ft. wide.
their pen is a squirrel named Squeegy, who has not been in any Disney pictures and probably will not be, but it is felt that he lends a woodsy tone to the cage, which i nice for the f. e czar of troupe is not George Stevens; the director, but Dewey Starkey, the unit manager. He runs things with a firm hand and no one questions his orders. A br out the first night the extras and Starkey went 1 to their quarters, which are set apart from the rest of the village, and offered to fight it out with any or all of them, one at a time. Nobody ae cepted his proposition and peace ha reigned ever sine Starkey is the one who keeps in touch with the studio, sees to it that the exposed film is sent to Holly wood every night and has the "rushes back the next day for Stevens to look at. Blandly, he displays the autocracy of a captain in seeing that the unit functions properly The studio has had to be pretty careful about story elements that would offend the Indians or would complicate England's colonial operations. RKO engaged Sir Robert Holland as technical adviser and he has kept the company straight on ticklish problems. For the villains, the Thuggee fraternity, which used to make a fine art of strangling people with silk "kerchiefs, was revived, although it had been stamped out some years before the opening of film.
Even though the Thugs are in disrepute, even in memory, Sir Robert said that other Indians would be offended if a Thuggee temple was blown up. natives will not stand for a place of v being destroyed. So the ending was re-written with the three brave.soldiers carcerated in another building, from which Gunga Din rescues them and which is destroyed during the action.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.