It Happened in Hollywood (1937)

It Happened in Hollywood: Directed by Harry Lachman. With Richard Dix, Fay Wray, Victor Kilian, Charles Arnt. While hospitalized young Billy meets his silent movie idol Tim Bart but then the talkies came, destroying Bart’s career. Now Bart must convince his young friend he is still a star.

“I have to say that I have always been interested in the period this film is set in: Hollywood 1928. Hollywoodu0026#39;s transition to sound (1927-1932) has been a source of fascination with me. I have done a lot of research on the period and seen a pretty good number of films from that time.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI say this because from my research this film is done very accurately and gives you a real feel for what it must have been like while American films where having a nervous breakdown adjusting to sound movies.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt Happened In Hollywood is just chocked full of inside jokes, authentic early sound technical objects, and realistic dialog. It really does not have the look and feel of any other film made in the 1937 time period. One clue might be that a young Sam Fuller is one of the writers.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt is reasonable to assume that many of the folks who were around in the late 20u0026#39;s and early 30u0026#39;s remembered that period and were able to imbue the production with a realism that would not be possible years later.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf you watch closely you will see the original early sound microphones that were about the size of an artillery shell. We also see the famous u0026quot;iceboxesu0026quot; that enclosed the early sound cameras and their operators to keep the camera noise from being recorded. Later on we see one of the early home-made blimps that were hastily designed for the same purpose for shooting outdoors. Early sound films were clunky to say the least.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFranklin Pangborn is very funny as the elocution expert imported from the New York stage to teach actors how to u0026quot;speaku0026quot; for the movies. This actually happened all over Hollywood during that time.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eRIchard Dixu0026#39;s career was beginning to wane at the time this was made. And he played a cowboy a number of times. He managed to make the transition from silents to sound and had some popularity during the thirties, but his parts had begun to get smaller and smaller. Today hardly anyone knows the name. Talk about life imitating art! Very interesting and worth your time, even if you are not a student of early sound films.”