Judge — May 1935 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

D ZAR Papa Judge: 1 know that this is for a Legal Number but I’m still out here in Cali- fornia trying to get up to see Mae West, so I'll have to tell you about Hollywood some more and let you take care of the lawyers. The main topic of conversation in Hollywood this moment besides “Who done the dialogue?” is “Will the movies move to Florida?” It seems that out of gratitude for having elected him Gov- ernor of the State, and defeating EPIC (by dint of clipping all movie salaries a day’s pay for campaign funds) Gov- ernor Merriam is retaliating by trying to put thru a 35 percent income tax on upper bracket movie incomes. This will leave such struggling folkses as Wal- lace Beery, Greta Garbo, Harry Warner (of the Six Flying Warners), Clark Gable, Joan Bennett, William Powell, and Jesse Lasky with a mere three or four thousand dollars a week to get along on. As you can see it means starving to death or moving. If they do go, however, it will be the strangest trek in all history. It'll also be the dirtiest trek anyone could pull on California, but maybe then without Hollywood around, the government will give C. ifornia back to the Indians whom I understand won't have it anyway. Think what it means to move such an enormous in- dustry as the movies. It means that all the movie sets, which include cities, race- tracks, mountains and forests will be put on trucks and trains and hauled overland. Of course, what Cali- fornians are hoping is that a good deal will be left behind. Some are even hoping they will leave George Raft, Shir- ley Temple and the one plot. There is little danger of that, however. The real danger is that if they do move to Flor- ida the first time most of the 5 HIGH S Vo) movie producers get twenty feet away from the studios somebody'll shoot them as crocodiles. My guess is that sooner than move everything they'll hold some sales and there will be quite a few bargains in used equipment. Should you want a good used cathedral to open a gas sta- tion, a spare mob to kibitz your bridge, a good road to lay to your house, a harem to warm grandpaw in winter— you'll get them dirt cheap. Win reminds me, the Universal Company over at Universal City is for sale. It is completely equipped with hot and cold running relatives, stooges, producers and a plot. You can get it for about a million dollars in promises or $75 in cash. Think of own- “T have a perfectly legal right to do this. Case of Lieber against Crane, Section 814.” 12 HAT ing your own movie lot! Think of turn- ing out your own versions of Camille by the dozen. Doing hundreds of films with the hero running for a touchdown in the last two minutes to go and thou- sands of Virtue Triumphant over Un- derworld. Why, in no time you'd be as successful as the Laemmles were, losing money hand over teakettle. Among other attractions, Universal City boasts real streets among which are Laemmle Blvd. Laemmle Blvd. is a broad well-paved street and you could always load it on a truck and sell it to New York as a substitute for Madison Avenue which sadly needs broadening. That is mathe- matical broadening. There are two popular expressions being played tennis with out here at present. One is “Ah! Gone Hollywood, eh?” The other's: “That's Hollywood!” The first is uttered with cynicism; the second with a sigh. By going Holly- wood is meant merely this: A person has a job, some- thing to eat, and the price of clean laundry, “That's Holly- wood!” means that you got done out of your screen credit by your best friend, R as I gather it every- body out here either wants a job and something to eat or screen credit. Writers, charming fellows with serious purpose when they were nor- mal beings back East, sud- denly become, when trying to screen credit, like little scrambling for a hand- ful of pennies that were never thrown up in the air. The whole matter has been well put by William Conselman, who does your Ella Cinders for you and who is a writer of some importance out here. He said: “You're a writer. They give you a job. They put you in a cell. They tell you to write. You work all night and sleep all day. You deal with a person Hitler ought to get. And what do comicbooks.com