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To anyone interested in film history, I'm just reading an excellent book - 'W.C.Fields' by James Curtis, which details the comedian's life in extraordinary detail.
He made several silent movies, and the book gives us a mouth watering insight into the mechanics of the studios in those days, where to quote from someone's diary at the time, 'The studio is like a madhouse - with seven pictures being made at the same time - jazz bands, brass bands, symphony orchestras all trying to outdo each other, and the carpenters and props drowning out the lot with hammers, tearing down sets, dragging properties and furniture'.
Alfred Lunt (a big name at the time) joined the cast of a D.W.Griffith production and asked, eighteen days into the production what he should say when delivering his dialogue in one scene. The great man, who was under the weather with a bad cold at the time just shrugged his shoulders and told him to say any old gibberish!
Those were the days.
He made several silent movies, and the book gives us a mouth watering insight into the mechanics of the studios in those days, where to quote from someone's diary at the time, 'The studio is like a madhouse - with seven pictures being made at the same time - jazz bands, brass bands, symphony orchestras all trying to outdo each other, and the carpenters and props drowning out the lot with hammers, tearing down sets, dragging properties and furniture'.
Alfred Lunt (a big name at the time) joined the cast of a D.W.Griffith production and asked, eighteen days into the production what he should say when delivering his dialogue in one scene. The great man, who was under the weather with a bad cold at the time just shrugged his shoulders and told him to say any old gibberish!
Those were the days.