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Show HOLLYWOOD MOST of the wars of the world have been fought on California soil, around Hollywood, for the cam-! eras. And believe you me, that includes in-cludes the fracas that started in the Garden of Eden and is still going on the battle of the sexes. All kidding aside, Hollywood has become an expert military tactician, recreating combats from the dawn of history right down to the most modern warfare of World War II. Hardly a major engagement in the eternal struggle of man against man has not been waged for the studio cameras. Within the shadow of Hollywood's peaceful hills Greek phalanxes Have marched and died. Cortez and his Spanish invaders have sent Montezuma Monte-zuma to his doom. The French have flooded the streets of Paris with the blood of civil war, stormed and captured cap-tured the Bastille, and sent Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI to the guillotine. guil-lotine. We've refilmed the defeat of the Boche at Verdun. And the heroism hero-ism of Doolittle and his bombing crew over Tokyo has been- brought to the screen to thrill the hearts of all who believe in the Allied cause. Now It's China Eight now Hollywood is doubling for China, and Leslie Fenton is staging stag-ing a Jap bomber foray against the China coast for "Pardon My Past." Fred MacMurray, who plays a merchant mer-chant seaman, gets a chance to see how the Nips work from overhead and, incidentally, so does the audience. audi-ence. In contrast, 'A Thousand and One Nights" uses Vasquez Rocks, several sev-eral miles outside town as the desert des-ert near Bagdad. For "Counter-Attack" Zoltan Kor- da took Paul Muni and Marguerite Chapman to Burbank, Calif., which appeared for this film as a portion of Russia invaded by the Germans. Last year Korda took a troupe to the Mojave, which served as the North African desert when Humphrey Hum-phrey Bogart rode across it in a tank in "Sahara." Ancient History In contrast to the modern mechanized mech-anized wars, the movies went back to the beginnings of history when Hal Roach made "1,000,000 B. C." The battles, which employed crude weapons of flint and stone, were as factual as archaeological experts could make 'em. Yep, Hollywood posed the stone age and got away with it. Many other wars of antiquity have been fought for the movies. D. W. Griffith recreated the battles of biblical bib-lical times for "Judith of Bethulia," which had Chatsworth, Calif., doubling dou-bling for Palestine. A few years later D. W. built Babylon right in what is now the heart of Hollywood. The walls of the city towered 300 feet into the air, and these walls were wide enough to accommodate two chariots racing rac-ing abreast. Cecil B. De Mille used the old Paramount lot to house Rome, and he had that city sacked by the barbarians bar-barians for a flashback sequence in "Manslaughter." Egypt in Own Back Yard For "Cleopatra" C. B. built portions por-tions of Egypt and even reproduced the battle of Actium in the studio tank. Claudette Colbert was an Egyptian queen and sailed the studio's stu-dio's "Nile" in a luxurious barge that the real ruler couldn't have equaled. The battle of Chateau Thierry, with John Gilbert participating, was one of the highlights of the unforgettable unfor-gettable "The Big Parade." A few palm trees and native huts and presto! pres-to! California became the Philippines Philip-pines for "The Real Glory," which had Gary Cooper in the star role. The Mojave also did duty as North Africa for two versions of Ouida's novel "Under Two Flags." Napoleon's Napo-leon's retreat from Moscow, one of the greatest of all military operations, opera-tions, was shot in the environs of Culver City when MGM made "Conquest," "Con-quest," with Garbo and Charles Boyer. Dunkirk, one of the gravest a ventures of this war, was the climax of Ty Power's "A Yank in the RAF." Since, Ty has gone into uniform off the screen. Robert Taylor did a role in "Bataan" before he answered the call to the colors. Both have seen action more thrilling than they ever underwent before the cameras. One of these aeons, men are going go-ing to stop acting like kids and put away their deadly toy guns and cannons. can-nons. When men really grow up and learn to settle quarrels by arbitrationjust ar-bitrationjust talking things over there will be an end to war. Which is a wonderful tiling to look forward to except, maybe, for movie producers. Bracken Goes Crosby When you hear Crosby's voice coming out of Eddie Bracken's face in "Out of This World." you'll scream with laughter. The whole thing is a burlesque on swooning Sinatra. It's funny, but with greater care it could have been another "Once in a Lifetime." . . . George Marshall, director, turns accidents into assets. When Don Costello had his toe broken by Alan Ladd during a scene in "Blue Dahlia," Marshall had the incident written into the script and they kept on shooting. |