Night Life in Hollywood
Moving Picture World, June 1922
Directed byFred Caldwell
Written byFred Caldwell
Starring
Production
company
A.B. Maescher Productions
Distributed byArrow Film Corporation[1]
Release date
  • November 15, 1922 (1922-11-15) (U.S.)
Running time
6 reels[2] (approx. 60 mins)
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent (English intertitles)
Budget$75,000[3] (equivalent to $1,310,000 in 2022)

Night Life in Hollywood, called The Shriek of Hollywood in Europe,[4] is a 1922 American silent comedy film[5] directed by Fred Caldwell. It starred J. Frank Glendon, Josephine Hill, and Gale Henry, and featured a number of cameo appearances of celebrities with their families.

In 1922, Ada Bell Maescher organized the De Luxe Film Company to produce the propaganda picture, which would show the "real" living conditions in the film capital. Instead of depicting Hollywood as a lurid, sensual Babylon, with its reported debauches of depravity and wickedness, it was shown as a model city, beautiful and attractive, and populated with home-loving people.[6][7]

The film is preserved, but incomplete, as reel 2 is lost.[8]

Plot

Joe Powell (Glendon) runs away from his small town in Arkansas to visit Hollywood, anticipating debauchery. After his sister Carrie Powell (Henry) heads there too, their father (McComer), mother (Rhodes), and younger sister follow them out there. Once the family is reunited in Hollywood, they learn that it is great place to live.[2][9][10]

Cast

Main cast
Cameos

Release and reception

Sheet music of the cues from the film were distributed to theaters, and theater owners were told to distribute them, free of charge, to their customers.[11]

The film received mixed reviews,[9][12][13] but was commercially successful.[14]

References

Citations
  1. ^ "Arrow Buys the Maescher Production". Exhibitors Trade Review. Vol. 12, no. 11. 1922. p. 752.
  2. ^ a b c "Feature That Aims to Correct False Conception of Hollywood and Its People". The Film Daily. Vol. 23, no. 60. March 4, 1923. p. 11.
  3. ^ "True Picture of Hollywood". Motion Picture News. Vol. 25, no. 26. June 17, 1922. p. 3253.
  4. ^ Fleming 2013, p. 205.
  5. ^ Munden, Kenneth W., ed. (1971). The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Feature Films 1921–1930. New York: R.R. Bowker Company. p. 544. OCLC 664500075.
  6. ^ "Moving Picture World". June 1922. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
  7. ^ "Hollywood 'Night Life'". Los Angeles Times. May 3, 1922. p. 21. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
  8. ^ "Night Life in Hollywood / Fred Caldwell [motion picture]". Library of Congress.
  9. ^ a b c "Night Life in Hollywood". Variety. Vol. 70, no. 3. March 8, 1923. p. 31.
  10. ^ Motion Picture News Booking Guide. Vol. 4. New York: Motion Picture News. April 1923. pp. 76–77.
  11. ^ "Mr. Exhibitor: 'Thematic Music Cue Sheets' Are Now Available at Practically All the Film Exchanges Throughout the Country". Motion Picture News. March 24, 1923. p. 1449.
  12. ^ "Arrow Presents 'Night Life in Hollywood'". Exhibitors Trade Review. Vol. 13, no. 1. December 2, 1922. pp. 12–13.
  13. ^ Fleming 2013, p. 258.
  14. ^ "Who's Who and What's What in Filmland This Week". Camera!. August 25, 1923. p. 13.
Works cited

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Night Life in Hollywood.


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