Inside The Music-Box of Giant Bells

IN the bell loft of the Rockefeller church in New York it suspended the first of the tuned carrillons, the smallest bells of which are shown above. The resonance of a bell, which lasts for several moments, has previously prevented accurate tuning of carrillons, but this age-old annoyance has been eliminated by a system of bell dampers invented by G. M. Giannini.

Right—Where the ancient carrillon players pulled an assortment of ropes, the modern musician sits down to his instrument like an organist. Electricity and compressed air swing the weighty clappers. Left—The Rockefeller church in New York, where thousands are delighting in the tuneful melody of the bells.

Above—The “Music Box” of the giant carrillon. Each peg represents a note in the melody, struck electrically when the giant drum revolves automatically. Left—This damper suppresses the tone of the bell the instant it is no longer contributing to the melody. The damper is the secret of carrillon tuning, and was discovered by Giannini, a young electrical engineer. Each note can thus be heard distinctly, not submerged in a dissonant chorus.

Violin Made Of New “Glass”
ANEW type of unbreakable, flexible material which has the same transparency as ordinary glass, but weighs less, size for size, has been invented in Germany. A product of artificial resins, the new material can be bent, twisted, punched, cut with a scissors, polished and sawed. As a demonstration of the possibilities of the new “glass,” the full-size violin shown above was made entirely from sample sheets, with the exception of the usual strings.

Agitators, Engineers Are Chessmen

MODERN as tomorrow morning’s headlines, a newly simplified form of the game of chess has for its game board the Modern World, and for its pieces Farmers, Mechanics, Engineers and even Agitators struggling against forces symbolized by opposing Armies, Bankers, Radio, Press, Law and Middlemen trying to become Rankers.

The play, which is solely a matter of skill, centers around opposing forces trying to dominate one neutral piece called Government while either the red or white side, as the antagonists are named, is in power.

The game may be played by either two, three, or four persons and is substantially like chess. But gone are the Pawns, the Knights, and the Kings and Queens,

Television Shows Full Size Images
MOVING television images on a screen 10 feet square, produced beautifully clear, perfectly defined, and possessing the illusion of depth, is the latest and most amazing step in the advance of television art. This new development, accomplished by Mr. U. A. Sanabria, a Chicago television expert, enables a large crowd of spectators to view a radio performance, and heralds the day of “television theatres.” Full size images are made possible chiefly by development of a new neon arc tube and a special scanning disk.

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Cobb Acts for the “Movies”

Irvin S. Cobb, the” well-known humorist, recently had the. interesting experience of acting for the “movies” in connection with “Our Mutual Girl” series—to be more exact. Reel No. 24.

In this film production, the Mutual Girl meets Irvin S. Cobb, who takes delight in telling her a story. It is a narrative of great humor and credit is due to Our Mutual Girl Weekly for the account given below.

“In a small Southern town two negroes, who were both personal and business enemies, kept rival short order eating houses. One evening the official bad man of the community, a killer with half a dozen notches on his gun stock and an ambition for further ornamentation along the same lines, swaggered into one of these establishments. He was half drunk and he fixed a bloodshot and threatening eye on the dusky proprietor, who instantly became uneasy and excessively polite.

“‘Nigger,’ he demanded, ‘have you got a beefsteak here that measures about eighteen inches from tip to tip?’

“‘Yas, suh,’ said the darkey, ‘I got a——’

“‘Well, you fry it for me—with onions; and don’t ever fry it too much or I’ll fry you, see? And you spangle it over with fried aigs and bring it to me purty damn quick, along with some fried potatoes and griddle cakes and celery and a pot of coffee and apple pie and anything else you’ve got around this dump that’s fitten to eat!’

“The negro, who was both waiter and cook, hurried away to his cubbyhole at the rear and almost instantly the smell of hot grease filled the place. In an amazingly short time he was back staggering under the weight of an enormous platter piled high with smoking dishes. He spread the order before the glowering patron in an array which covered the table. The bad man ate what he wanted and ruined the rest.

“When the meal was over he leaned back and producing a spring back dirk knife flipped out a five inch blade and began casually picking his teeth with its point. Suddenly he turned on the scared darky.

“‘What sort of a dump does that nigger up the street keep?’ he demanded.

“‘Boss, you wouldn’t lak dat place at all,’ said the darkey. ‘It ain’t fitten fur a white gen’l'man to go into. Why, boss, dat nigger thinks a fly is somethin’ to cook wid-—he do so.’

“‘That ain’t all,’ said the bad man. ‘That nigger is a robber. I went in his place last night and had jest about what I had here to-night—maybe a lettle more, maybe a lettle less. And when I got through I asked him what his bill was, and do you know that black pirate had the nerve to charge me a quarter ? Yes, sir, a whole quarter of a dollar! Of course I oughter killed him. That’s what I oughter done—jest killed him on the spot. But something stayed my hand. All I done was jest to cut off both his ears with this here knife and throw ‘em in his face.’

‘Now,’ he added, ‘what do I owe you for this mess of vittles?’ “‘Boss,’ said the darkey, ‘I reckon a dime would be ample. Yas, suh, ample !’”

Mr. Irvin S. Cobb on being interviewed about his appearance in the film, made the following remark concerning how to act:

“To beginners I would say that when engaged in being a movie actor it is well just to be a movie actor and let it go at that. This is, the system which I pursued. I began by demanding the center of the picture. I believe this is customary among the veterans of the profession. I insisted that all the other performers so favored as to be permitted to appear in the same film with me should take the background and make themselves as unobtrusive and inconspicuous as possible. This also I understand to be the standing rule among those actively engaged in the business. Finally I made a point of requiring that my picture should be featured on all advertising, lithographing and other printed matter and that my name should appear in letters not less than eighteen inches high and correspondingly broad. Wherever possible I favored red letters. In short, I endeavored to act as nearly as possible like a regular movie actor.

“I trust the completed film will show that I succeeded.”

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Hollywood Star Chaser

Tired of being a fall guy for films, this stunt man got on the phone and called up a fortune.

By Carl Crawford

MAYBE I shouldn’t admit it, but I got my big money-making idea right after falling downstairs on my head eight times in a row.

Frankly, I don’t recommend such tumbles to anyone seeking inspiration for a novel business venture. I was a stunt man in the movies at the time and took those eight falls downstairs as a professional daredevil.

That afternoon, when I was wearily picking up my battered bones, I heard the director hailing an actor who’d just come on the set: “Where the devil were you this morning, Joe? I had a nice, little part for you—four days’ work at 60 bucks a day. But when the studio couldn’t find you, I had to get somebody else.”

“Where was I?” exclaimed Joe. “The only reason you couldn’t find me was because I was making the rounds of other studios looking for just such a job!”

While I applied liniment to my aching joints a few hours later, I kept thinking of Joe’s hard luck. That sort of thing was happening all the time in Hollywood because the studios so often needed the services of performers on an hour’s notice. Several times I had had the same depressing experience myself.

That’s when I got my money-making hunch. Now if I could set up an organization to take these emergency calls for actors and actresses—and find the people wanted in a hurry by the studios—I could build up a thriving business.

There were two telephone exchanges in Los Angeles that located doctors in a rush. I thought I could do the same thing for the thousands of actors and other free-lance workers in Hollywood.

I was an easy-going fellow in my early twenties and had knocked around at a number of odd jobs. Besides banging about as a stunt man, I was a movie bit player. I also had my own band, in which I played the piano or a cornet and sang the vocals. Among other things, too, I had fought as a middleweight boxer, under the name of Kit Carson, in semifinal bouts in the local rings.

I gave up all my other work, though, and gambled everything, including my $500 bank account, on my phone-call idea. In the beginning, it would be necessary to devote my entire time to my work. I realized I couldn’t get film people as customers if I competed with them as film performer and stunt man.

During the next week I visited every casting office in Hollywood. The response was enthusiastic.

‘That’s just what our end of the business needs,” the casting agents told me. ‘The people in our offices waste half their time trying to get in touch with actors who aren’t home. Anyone who wants to take the job of finding them will have our thanks and wholehearted cooperation.”

It looked like a swell deal then. I figured I’d use my home as my business office, especially since my bankroll was too small to set up a new place or to hire anyone to help me. Then, too, the casting offices called actors around the clock, and that meant I had to stick around and be ready for business 24 hours a day. All I needed, I thought, was a telephone switchboard and enough clients to pay expenses during the first few months while I was getting started.

I soon found that I’d been a bit too optimistic. My first setback came when the phone company refused to install a switchboard.

“So what?” I told myself. I’d operate on a single phone. When enough calls started coming in, I reasoned, the phone company would be glad to give me that switchboard.

I was sure that actors and other free-lance movie workers would rush to use my service and let me take calls and track them down when they were buying groceries, shooting pool, playing golf or visiting relatives.

I set the fee as low as possible—$5 to $20, according to the earning power of the customers. After six months, though, I had only 50 people on my list.

In my eagerness, I had overlooked one vital factor. I’d gone into my strange business in 1932, at the height of the Great Depression. Most movie actors, like everyone else, were finding it tough to make ends meet. Many of these 50 customers I did have during the first six months of my new business couldn’t pay promptly. That first year was really rugged.

I managed to scrape along only by going back to a trade I hated—fighting. Unfortunately it was the only job I could get that didn’t directly compete with the actors I was rounding up for the studios.

At the end of a year, I had 200 customers— and finally got a switchboard. At first, many actors were reluctant to take the service for two good reasons. First, they were afraid that I would tip off some other performer, who was a friend, that a good job was open at the studio. And, secondly, they often didn’t want anyone to know where they were every hour of the day and night.

Another problem was getting the studios to call our number first. Their natural impulse was to phone the actor at his home or to call his agent. But, in the end, they all found it more efficient to call me immediately.

Gradually, the performers of Hollywood learned they could trust me to keep any secrets they had.

I found out that everyone lives by a pattern. If a customer liked Turkish baths, I’d remember that and call him at every Turkish bath in town, if I couldn’t find him anywhere else. I set up a filing system to keep a record of the calls made to, and received from, every client I had. When somebody wanted him, I’d look through these records of old calls and various numbers where we’d found him before.

Slowly, I built up my reputation in Hollywood as a “telephone detective” who could find actors and actresses no matter where they had gone, and locate them quickly, too!

Today, as soon as we get a new client, we find out all we can about him. We have him fill out a questionnaire, telling us his clubs, his favorite restaurants, who his barber, clothier, best friends and masseur are. We get a list of numbers to call when a studio wants our client. Believe me, we have found stars in the strangest places!

If ever a star needed the services of a phone detective, it was the late John Barrymore.

I stepped in with my call service and won the star’s confidence. During the last years of his life, Barrymore gave out only my Call Club’s number, Hollywood 6211.

Always generous, John Barrymore paid me $1000 a month for my trouble. That was the fee that made the Call Club solvent. After that, we never had any money problems at all.

Today, I probably know more about the private lives of the Hollywood stars—all of whom have at one time or other been subscribers to my service—than any other living person. But when the gossip columnists prod me for tips on scandals and other hot stories, naturally, I’m not talking.

The whole success of my business rests on my ability to keep my mouth shut. The 10 operators who work my five switchboards on day and night shifts are carefully screened on their ability to keep the information they gather in their work strictly to themselves. I’d fire any one of them who broke our rule of secrecy. But I’ve never had to in the 17 years I’ve been in this business.

The Call Club now has three busy offices, with the main one on Hollywood Boulevard. Among the hundreds of stars and featured players who are members of the club are Marilynn Maxwell, Keenan Wynn, Ava Gardner, Lena Home and Pete Lorre.

Every day there’s something exciting or amusing in my business. One morning Paramount called up in a panic because they couldn’t get in touch with Barry Fitzgerald, who was working in one of their pictures. Their whole production was being held up for Fitzgerald and they wanted him but bad!

We called Fitzgerald at home and everywhere else we thought he might be. No luck. Then it occurred to me that the old fellow might be sleeping so soundly that he hadn’t heard the phone.

Because of the emergency, we phoned the Hollywood Police Department and asked them to go to Fitzgerald’s home and wake him up. They got him up for us and rushed him to the studio.

I’ve called Honolulu, New York, and Boston just to find a film player. I often spend hundreds of dollars to track down an actor or actress. My phone bills run $1000 a week!

Of course, there’s only one Hollywood— and, personally, I love the place for the fine life it’s giving me. But, no matter where you live, there are always local stars—doctors, lawyers, business executives, the Mayor and other leading citizens. They need phone detectives in their business and professions as much as those fabulous people in filmland do. Line up a few of those for your own phone-paging setup, gain their confidence that you can keep your mouth shut about their personal affairs—and you’ll be surprised how soon you’ll make money chasing stars, too.

Today, my Call Club is a gold mine, with 3500 customers who dig up from $7.50 to $75 every month for my phone-chasing service. I now own a small stable of racing horses and plan to buy a local radio station soon.

But I still get my big kick out of getting a call through fast to the little fellows, the bit players who always need work to keep going. After all, it was the trouble of Joe, another bit player, back in 1932, that first started me chasing Hollywood stars, wasn’t it?

DOG SHOWS MUSICAL TALENT
EVERY now and then a dog is seen on the stage that seems to almost have human intelligence. This dog shows exceptional musical ability when he sits on the bench of an automatic piano and pats the keys, as the piano plays. That he has a musical sense of rhythm is shown by the fact that he pats the keys in time with the piece that is being, played. He is owned by a Berlin vaudeville performer.

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Haywire House

By R.W.K

I’VE been there, I’ve seen, I’ve taken pictures—but I still don’t see how such things are possible.

The Editors of MI heard some wild stories about a place called the House of Mystery. What stories! People go around ten degrees off the vertical! A golf ball thrown straight up comes down several inches to one side! A bottle rolls uphill! A broom stands by itself—at an angle to the floor! People grow taller or shorter, depending on where they stand! All this happens in Oregon, in a peculiar area called the Oregon Vortex, a circle, or rather a sphere, exactly 165 feet 4-1/2 inches in diameter up in the Gold Hill country!

The Editors, always hot after new science angles but suspecting trickery,, arranged that I be sent up after the . story. Right off, I’d better say I’m not a trained scientific writer at all, but a photographer. I got the assignment because I wasn’t born yesterday and because I know my camera angles. They figured if there was any optical trickery involved I’d catch it.

I’ll say right here that the House of Mystery is still a house of mystery to me.

I was plenty skeptical when I arrived. Right away John Litster, owner of the works, looked me in the eye. “Keep alert here,” he warned. “You’ll need all your skill. I won’t promise that your pictures will come out. You may have to come back several times.”

I certainly tried to be alert.

First he took me to a place where there were two concrete blocks a couple of feet apart, separated by a line. The line, he said, marked the edge of the Vortex, one block being outside and one in. He stood me on one block and himself stood on the other.

“Now, sight along a line level with your eyes and see what part of my face comes into view,” he directed. I did it, and found myself looking at the top of his head. I was the taller one.

“Now let’s swap positions,” he said. We did that—and now I found myself looking squarely into his eyes! I couldn’t help myself! I was amazed! He was taller! I tried it again. I experimented. The concrete blocks were level and even with each other in the ground!

^While I was trying to fathom the secret, a dozen tourists gathered to be token through the House, and I joined them. As we stood outside the Screwy Circle, Litster told us to cross over carefully, then stop and stand perfectly still, and we’d actually feel the change of balance. We did it. He was right! It were as though a strong wind were blowing us over toward magnetic north! We were to remain at this odd angle, sometimes greater than 10 degrees, during all our stay.

After this we were led through a rickety gate in a high board fence, and inside found ourselves in a small yard flanked on one side by the House of Mystery itself, left just as it had fallen during an earth slide many years ago. The crooked doorway captured our eyes. One elderly woman, livid with fear, refused to go a step farther.

At the doorway our guide told us to watch our balance carefully when entering because we could very easily fall up! At this advice a few ladies giggled and one old gent smiled and expertly arced a gob of tobacco juice between two rotting boards. But when we filed in we found he spoke the truth! The floor was at an angle, and standing was made difficult by the pull of some mysterious force!

In the House the experiments began. A girl was told to push a 28-pound weight, suspended from the ceiling, in a certain direction. She did it with ease. But when she tried to push it the opposite way it took all her strength! A golf ball tossed straight up fell inches to one side! These aberrations were due to the magnetic pull of the vortex of electrons, according to Litster, who says the House of Mystery puzzle is based on the same principle as a vortex. I looked up that word “vortex” as soon as I back, and I guess I’d better put down what

the dictionary, It was: “1. A mass of fluid, especially of a liquid, having a whirling or circular motion tending to form a cavity or vacuum in the center of the circle, and to draw toward this bodies subject to its action. 2. A supposed collection of particles of very subtle matter endowed with a rapid rotary motion around an axis which was also the axis of a sun or a planet. Descartes attempted to account for the formation of the universe, and the movements of the bodies composing it, by a theory of vortexes.”

That same golf ball, put on the floor, began rolling uphill! And it was uphill: any customer who doubted that could check it with a level.

A girl, on instructions from the guide, was told to back slowly up into a corner. She did so, but couldn’t control her momentum; she suddenly felt herself “fall up,” and slammed noisily against the wall!

At one place there were two poles marked off in inches. On one, a man’s height would be six feet, say, but on the other, only a few feet away, there would be a difference of an inch, and sometimes more!

A plumb line was suspended from the branch of a tree. Normally the bob and cord would hang straight down—but when we stood in back of it with the bob between our feet, the cord passed nearly in front of one ear!

I learned that many years ago the Indians regarded the area of the Vortex as a place of evil spirits. It is said that horses shied when they neared the place. The House of Mystery was erected as an assay office when the white man first came that way in search of gold, and its present owner, John Litster, claims he discovered the oddities of the area some 17 years ago and now stars them in a roadside sideshow to finance his study of the region.

I must say that the place seems a very profitable attraction, and I also must say that Litster was very friendly and cooperative.

These, then, are the highlights of the story. You see the pictures, just as my camera caught them.

To me, the House of Mystery is still a mystery. I’m not enough of a physicist to understand just what this vortex force is. I bought Litster’s “Notes and Data” booklet on it, but I bet Einstein himself couldn’t make head or tail of that.

The Editors of MI smile whenever I tell how wonderful everything was, and when I ask why, they smile even more—but they won’t tell me a thing. Maybe they’re putting on an act, but I don’t know. I was there. I saw these things. What can account for what happens?

It Would Make A Swell Fan, Too

IT LOOKS like a new-fangled kind of windmill, or at least a trick water turbine—but don’t let appearances fool you. It’s an unusual aerial designed for W6XAO, the only television transmitting station in Los Angeles. The aerial is 60 feet high, and the paddle-like elements are intended to produce television pictures with better definition than former aerials have given. Made of duraluminum, it is being inspected by Harry Lubcke, its designer, and Thomas Lee, who owns the station.

EAST INDIAN MERRY-GO-ROUND
ONE of the most popular sports for young people in India is riding in merry-go-rounds of the type shown in the photograph. It seems to American eyes to he a crude imitation of the Ferris wheels which are so popular in amusement parks. Four chairs are suspended from X-like cross pieces which are mounted on uprights. The device is propelled by man power, and when it gets into action its squeaks can be heard for a long distance, since the axles are never greased. A group of Indian children are shown waiting their turn to ride.

TV camera gets power from battery pack

Using a new portable TV camera and battery pack, a telecaster no longer has to drag power cables behind him. All he needs for audio and video transmission to a booster unit a mile away is the five-pound camera in his hands and the 25-pound power pack on his back.

The Newschief system was modified, with the help of American Broadcasting Co. engineers, from Sylvania’s closed-circuit transistor apparatus. The back pack contains transmitter, broadcasting equipment, and a nickel-cadmium battery good for an hour. While it is being recharged, a new battery can be clipped on without loss of signal.

ABC-TV used the News-chief first to telecast the Olympics at Innsbruck, Austria, last winter, and will use it at the national conventions. RCA and NBC are developing a similar portable system.

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Talking Devices are Revolutionizing Movies!

By GEORGE C. HENDERSON

MILLIONS of dollars are being spent by movie magnates in equipping studios for the production of talking pictures. Mr. Henderson visited a “talkie” in the making and in this article gives a fascinating glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes.

THEY’VE got to wear sneakers on their cowboy boots in moviedom now. The yelling director has been stricken dumb. His megaphone has gone back to the prop room. The big fellow with the blasting voice is outside the gates looking in, on the “extra list.” They say he “bloops.” The little lady who speaks with a hissing sibilance is out there with the blooper. She is called a “sizzler.” The hollow-voiced tragedian is told that his tones are “tubby” (as if he were speaking into a tub) and if he cannot correct the defect, he goes out too. Weak voiced persons “get the gate” with those above mentioned. They are called “juice suckers.”

They’ve invented a new lingo in Hollywood since the talking motion picture became the vogue. The human side of the big change has attracted first attention and. this lingo has singled out defects that become magnified on the microphone and make the actor or actress ineligible in the talkies.

But changes in personnel have been few and inexpensive compared with the vast outlay in the mechanical and technical end. The fact is most stars, through voice culture and otherwise, can make good in the sound drama. A few who are “mike dumb” have had to be relegated to the silent screen. This is not so bad as it sounds. All pictures are taken first on the lot in the regular way, where voices do not count. The film is then run off and the executives decide where talking sequences will be inserted. Only important portions of the picture are re-shot in the sound-proof stages.

After the executives have selected the portions to be re-shot, one of the editorial staff is called in to write the “talking sequences.” This is the conversation. He must give the matter great care. Sometimes he takes weeks for it. The dialogue must not only be snappy, interesting, dramatic and to the point; it must be entirely free of certain words. The letter S should occur rarely at the beginning or the end of a word. If a “sizzler” were to try to say, “Sister Susie’s sewing shirts for soldiers” it would reproduce as one long continuous hiss after the voice-recording apparatus had got through with it.

Next come the rehearsals. Everything is rehearsed to perfection. There can be no prompting once the two ton doors are closed and the director becomes a silent spectator. Slurred speech, excess movement which means excess noise, the rustle of paper which makes a noise like thunder in the microphone, the pouring of a glass of water which becomes a loud “blop—blop —blop,” the scraping of a chair leg over the floor, thus drowning out every other sound—all these little things must he prevented or arranged.

I watched them rehearse and film a scene at one of the big Hollywood studios (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). The set, which was like any other movie set in outward appearance except for the microphones hanging overhead and standing about, was located in a great concrete, sound-proof building. The construction of the building itself had been supervised by scientists. The walls were 8 inch thick concrete. Over that was a three inch layer of balsam wool, a half inch layer of acoustic plaster and a hanging of cheese cloth fastened on with chicken wire. The first sound stages were made by hanging felt against wooden walls. This would cut out the high notes but would not damp the low ones. The balsam wool in the new-structure shuts out the high notes, the rigid concrete the low and the acoustic plaster the medium notes. The floor was made of layers of concrete, sand, cork and two thicknesses of wooden floor. The cork absorbs mechanical vibrations from the ground.

It is very difficult to gain entrance. Even after everything had been arranged a policeman stopped us. It had been found expensive to admit visitors. They talked or scraped their feet and hundreds of dollars worth of work had to be done over again. Getting past the policeman, we came upon a scene of great animation. Here was a great vaulted room, cluttered up with big, powerful lights, the floor covered with wires, boxes and instruments and apparatus scattered everywhere, electricians, technicians, carpenters and roustabouts hurrying back and forth, men on girders overhead manning the overhead cranes that shifted heavy objects from one place to another. And right in the midst of it all an orderly little room furnished with fine carpets and drapes, chairs and divans—the set. Here the actors and actresses moved in range of the camera.

But where was the camera? We found it in a refrigerator-like vault, looking out on the set through double plate glass of the finest German make. Johnny Arnold, the camera man, explained that he had to enter this sound-proof vault and close the big heavy door to keep the clicking of his camera from registering in the microphone. It was hot in there, Johnny was perspiring. He said it made a camera man’s job harder because he couldn’t take any orders from the director.

Electrical engineers and acoustic experts were getting their apparatus set. A baritone walked around the set singing selections from an Italian opera to test the stage at every point. Another went around clapping his hands. The technicians were listening in, watching their recording de- vices as these tests were made. Rehearsals were completed.

“Ready for interlock,” said Director Van Dyke to the switch board operator. The operator flashed signal lights. The camera motor, the recorder motor and the test record motor all were synchronized on a master distributor when an expert at the recording building threw a switch. The operator on the stage received the report, “interlock O.K.” Arnold, the camera man, reported, “camera O.K.”

The stage switchboard man pressed a switch which threw on a green light, the signal that camera was ready. In the room where the recording apparatus set, the expert switched on, a white light. That meant the recording machine was set, that he had a wax record on the test machine and that the film making machine was all right.

Arnold entered his booth and closed the door. It was so hot and stuffy in there that he did not enter it until the last moment. The actor and actress, Nils Asther and Raquel Torres, took their seats at the table where they were to speak the love scene. The director took up a position off the set, out of range of the camera, but so that he could signal to Arnold. He watched Arnold throw on the motor and caught his signal. He snapped his fingers.

Suddenly the actor and actress began to talk. A snap of the finger set things to moving. There were no shouts of “Ready,” “Action,” “Camera,” no waving of megaphones, no lurid denunciations. The director dare not move. He was afraid to un-wrinkle the scowl on his face for fear it would crackle in the megaphone.

At the “mixer panel” overhead, two operators sat with earphones over their ears. They were reminders that this was an engineer’s job. The director, who had been all powerful, had to give way to scientists. These operators listened intently to the voices. When they began to get faint, they turned knobs to raise the volume. As the actress turned toward the microphone they decreased the volume; when she turned away they increased it. They had to watch every movement. In his sound-proof room Johnny Arnold was turning his camera, unheard, as if he were in another world. The actor and actress went through the scene without interruption, as if they were alone in a garden really making love.

They stopped talking, Director Van Dyke motioned to Arnold. Signal lights flashed. The synchronized motors operating the camera, the recording device and the test record all were halted instantly. Johnny Arnold flung open the door of his refrigerator and stepped out, wiping his brow. The man in the recording room had thrown off the interlock, placed the test record on the reproducer and taken the film from the recording machine and placed it in a box to go to the laboratory.

“Give me a playback,” said Director Van Dyke. That meant he wanted to hear how the voices recorded. “Give me a playback,” repeated the switchboard operator.

There was a general exodus into a room arranged like a theater, the monitor room. It was built like a theater so that the director could hear the voices as an audience would hear them. Everyone took seats. Up in the recording room, the man there put on the soft test record which ho had made and which can be played but once. Voices began to speak again. Through the horns we heard what had been said on the stage.

At one point in pronouncing a word, one of the speakers had slurred it.

“Take it over again,” ordered the director. Just for one word mispronounced the whole scene had to be re-taken.

It is impossible to estimate the thousands upon thousands of dollars that have been spent by the motion picture people for equipment, buildings, machinery and for experiment in this business of adapting the industry to the talkies. At this one studio two stages, each measuring 98 by 70 feet and constructed of the expensive, soundproof material have already been built. The recording building has 12,000 feet of floor space, the monitor room, 3,500 square feet. In the recording room were four separate recording machines, the battery rooms, cutting rooms, projection rooms equipped with the latest simplex projectors arranged for both record and light ray sound projection, elaborate switchboard equipment, power house installation and modulators necessary to handle sound recording.

Every bit of “juice” used on the soundproof stage comes from batteries. The regular line supply varies too much for the exceedingly fine work required of these machines.

Moving picture men admit that their big investments have only begun. They expect developments in the talkie industry that will mean the expenditure of additional millions for several years to come.

TOMORROW-LAND

High spot of the New York World’s Fair reopening this Spring — GM Futurama!

You can look over GM’s exciting “idea” cars — Firebird IV with television, stereo, game table, refrigerator; GM-X with jet aircraft cockpit and controls—fascinating design and engineering innovations right out of
tomorrow.

You’ll take a ride that is wrapped in wonders . . . through the metropolis of the future, over Antarctic wastes, into tropical jungles, along the ocean floor.

You can count on the people of General Motors again to provide the most popular show at the Fair—the Futurama.

General Motors Is People…
making better things for you

Cards Now Played like Midget Golf

THE latest addition to the ever increasing list of games devised for the amusement of incurable golf fans is a combination of midget golf and bridge, played on a carpet spread out at the bathing beach for games between plunges.

The unique carpet on which the game is played has painted on it a circle containing card symbols on which various card numbers are inscribed. In the center is a cup, and the objective of the player is to score by driving the ball into it. If he misses, the ball rolls onto a section representing another card.

The carpet can easily be rolled out on the beach for a rubber at any time.

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Africa is 60 Miles from Hollywood (in the movies)

by JAMES BOWLES

If you think the title of this article is rather far-fetched, you’re doing an injustice to Hollywood’s cleverest location managers, whose special brand of geography, not taught in the public schools, crowds Alaska, Ireland, Honolulu and Holland within the bounds of the state of California. FRANCE is 20 miles from the South Seas, the Sahara Desert adjoins Holtville, California, and the dykes of Holland leak into Long Beach.

Crazy geography? Not a bit of it. It may not be according to conventional maps, but it suits the producers of movies with foreign settings. And as far as the talkies are concerned, the Steppes of Russia are only 40 miles from Hollywood and the haunts of cannibal head-hunters even closer than that.

Of course, these bits of foreign countries are used for movie purposes only. Politically, they’re part of the state of California. In the office of Fred Harris, locations manager for Paramount, there are 35,000 photographs of settings which can be used in representing foreign scenes.

A company actually shooting a foreign film abroad encounters too many difficulties in most instances to make the venture worth while. The absence of high voltage electrical lines and enormous costs of transportation and salaries make it advisable to use such California locations—and there are more than 35,000 of them—as are available.

In California every foreign scene—from the snow clad Alps to the jungles of South Africa—can be reproduced, with one exception: the rivers run upside down. That is not literally true, of course, but so many streams run underground around Hollywood that location managers often are driven frantic searching for streams that can be made to look the counterpart of others on the other side of the world.

From Hollywood one need travel only 60 miles to reach Africa, 90 miles to Alaska, 45 miles to the Canadian coast, 37 miles to reach English hills, 15 miles to the French Riviera, 35 miles to Holland, 37 miles to the hills of Ireland, 45 miles to Italian lake resorts, 35 miles to the Mexican coast and 45 miles to Tripoli. Oddly, midwestern towns near Sonora, 600 miles distant, are further from Hollywood than Siberia, 500 miles away at Truckee.

Victorville, in San Bernardino county, probably has been the background for as many exterior movie scenes as any other city in the world. Without moving the cameras other than to turn them around, there may be recorded on celluloid vistas of green fields, a river bordered with densely growing trees, and desert with drifting sands and sage brush and Joshua trees (desert palms). Nearby, the same cameras may record dry lakes and pyramid-like buttes which give an Egyptian touch, and valleys bordered by towering mountains. During the winter Alpine snow scenes are available.

But how are these locations found?

Suppose a studio should decide on a picture with the locale to be laid in France. An assistant director calls the location manager.

“This is Bill Blank speaking, George. We must have a French location next Monday; the French Riviera. What have you close by?”

This is an easy one for the location manager, who will reply, “French Riviera is 30 minutes from the studio at the Santa Monica palisades. Good bye”.

Another phone rings. A second assistant-director wants exteriors on the Sahara desert, and the location manager sends him to the Imperial Valley.

Another assistant director wants the locale in the South Seas. He is directed to the isthmus on Catalina Island, or the crescent-curved, rock-bound Laguna beach.

In Hollywood and on nearby locations pageants of all nations and all times are produced. Recently on two movie “ranches”— so called only because they were large areas of land outside the city—I witnessed the filming of a street battle during the French revolution, and of a Chinese town hard by a river bank. In both cases from the “camera angle” along side the cameraman I could see the hills of North Hollywood forming the skyline behind the scenes.

As the “shooting” of the Chinese pictures continued, on a nearby set, perched on the dry branches of a papier-mache tree, a sparrow warbled its greetings to the spring.

Without painstaking research, no foreign picture of consequence could be filmed in California; and without much greater expense than the run-of-the-mill picture warrants, a company cannot be carried to a foreign country. Therefore, research specialists, writers, photographers, and, in some cases, engineers visit foreign scenes and record in picture and drawing those scenes to be reproduced.

In preparing for the “Call of the Flesh” a scenarist spent six months in Spain, gathering atmospheric material—and searching for a Spanish police-patrol of about eighty years ago. When it finally was located, the patrol proved to be a small one-horse wagon with a simple iron cage on top. But the vehicle belonged to a museum and could not be sent to Hollywood. So the scenarist made exact measurements, sketched the patrol from various angles and wrote a complete description so it could be reproduced. Later, when it was shown in the Seville market place none could have distinguished it from the original.

Research staffs of the studios not only must pass on the California scene where the picture is to be filmed, but must decide upon the authenticity of every prop and setting to be used. They even censor the dialogue and music in order that nothing will be used which might offend a theatre patron in some country. Their principal difficulties come in reproducing authentic obsolete objects, such as uniforms, armor and clothing. Yet a good research director never will admit defeat.

“We never yet have been forced to send back word that we have failed,” declared Miss Natalie Bucknell, head of the research department for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. “Recently a director called for photographs of the seven wonders of the world—and he wanted them in 24 hours. Ordinarily I should have searched many volumes to find them, but I remembered having seen plates of these in a child’s book. So I sent them back with the same messenger. Some day, one of the seven wonders will rise on a southern California location and be filmed amid familiar surroundings.

“We must be very careful in dealing with customs, costumes, locales and historical events. We cannot use certain words. In the United States ‘bum’ and ‘lousy’ signify meanings so entirely different from their construction in England, that we cannot use them in an English picture. That is one reason we prefer technical advisers from the country to be represented in a foreign film.”

In viewing a picture involving Alpine snow scenes or the Sahara desert, your mind follows your eye. Seldom do you examine the picture for incorrect details, and seldom will inaccuracies creep in. And there’s a reason. The research department painstakingly arranges those details.

“What are the most difficult questions you have been called on to settle?” I asked Miss Bucknell.

“Oddly,” she replied, “these have not had to do with locations. Recently a director sent up a sheet of paper with two queries: ‘What is the uniform worn by postmen in the capital of Iceland? And, how are corpses of persons of the Lutheran faith laid out in Germany?’ Odd? Possibly. But it is of supreme importance that the letter carrier wear the correct cap and have the correct number of buttons on his coat, and that the corpse be laid out properly, or we’ll begin to receive uncomplimentary fan letters pointing out our errors.”

Another difficult problem comes in reproducing foreign prison scenes, foreign courtrooms, jails, etc. For years one studio has been making consistent efforts to obtain a series of pictures showing the interior of Scotland Yard. The Ritz bar in Paris was another much-sought scene. After many efforts the Parisian representative of one large film company, using methods he would not reveal, sent the pictures to Hollywood.

A recent picture shows actors at the British Foreign office. This was correctly reproduced, even to cobblestones on the street, from photos and drawings. When George Arliss played “Disraeli,” the English garden scenes were filmed at the famous Busch garden at Pasadena. Night jungle scenes for another picture were “shot” on a Los Angeles estate. And when the snow melted away from a Russian mountain scene, the company returned to Hollywood and completed the close-ups, using gypsum for ice and a painted curtain to represent the snow-laden trees in the background.

One script called for scenes to be laid on islands bordering the South Seas. “Prop” palms were planted in a cove on Catalina island, carpenters built high prows and repainted several canoes, and 200 Hollywood extras, blacked with grease paint, took spears in their hands and became man-eating warriors. Yet you would not have known, in viewing the picture, that the scene was nearly 100 percent “movie made”.

South Seas in California For another picture an actor was shown on the floor of the ocean near a South Seas island. In fact, he did descend to the ocean’s bottom and was filmed with a special camera. But the waving sea grasses were “planted” there to resemble the floor several thousand miles further south.

On another occasion a technical expert spent several months in England collecting data for the reproduction of scenes in London’s Mayfair, and particularly for a sequence showing an Oxford-Cambridge boat race. During this time a director flew daily in a fast airplane over southern California seeking locations. Finally the boat race was pictured near San Pedro.

While it costs only one-twentieth as much to film a foreign scene in sunny California as it would to transport a company of possibly 2,000 to the country depicted, sometimes the physical difficulties try the mettle of actors and technicians. No African desert could burn any hotter than the Imperial Valley. In fact, it sometimes becomes necessary to lighten the complexion of actors after the Imperial sun has baked them two weeks. And summer storms and winter snows sometimes chase them back to Hollywood or freeze them in, in some mountain “Russia” or “Siberia”.

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DOLLS Become ACTORS

DOLLS may replace drawings as actors in animated cartoon movies if the idea developed by three Italian brothers proves successful. The present way of making such films, the best example of which is Walt Disney’s Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, is to shoot thousands of drawings separately and then piece them together so that the subjects appear to move when projected.

To remove the need for a drawing of each movement of a character, the brothers decided to use dolls in miniature settings. Filming procedure is the same but the cost is less. By this method they have taken Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm’s old fairy tale, The Seven Ravens, and turned it into an interesting movie.

In the picture, several scenes of which are shown in accompanying photos, the story tells of an old man who had seven sons but no daughters. At last a girl was born, but she was so small and delicate she had to be christened at home. Her brothers were sent for water to baptize their newborn sister, but in their hurry they dropped the jug. Whereupon their father cursed them, saying, “May you all turn into ravens!”

Years later the daughter learns she is the cause of her brothers’ fate and that they live in the Glass Mountain. Seeking them, she grows tired and falls asleep in the forest A prince finds her, and their marriage delights his people, but her silence baffles him.

She is tried as a witch when her own sons turn into ravens and is condemned to die at the stake, but she remains silent, for to free her brothers she cannot speak a word for seven years. Previously the princess had taken care of an old blind man and his daughter. They demand her release, and at that moment her seven-year spell is over. Her brothers, restored to human form, rescue her and bring back her sons.

Toy Automobiles With Real Motors Displayed in England for First Time

IN THESE modern times when motor cars are playing such a prominent part in family life, the children have such an advanced knowledge of the auto that they demand that their toys he correct in every detail. These miniature cars, which were recently displayed at a British automobile show, are equipped with motorcycle engines, pneumatic tires, electric lights, starters, and all other modern accessories. The little fabric coupe pictured here is the first of its kind.

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TELEVISION Advances ON MANY FRONTS

THOUGH the outdoor Olympic Games experiment was a “flop” and patent litigation has slowed development, television continues to advance on many fronts.

The Don Lee Broadcasting System has started daily experimental broadcasting from station W6XAO in Los Angeles under direction of Harry R. Lubcke. He offers plans for a home receiver to experimenters who send a stamped envelope. The W6XAO schedule is from 3 to 5 and 6:30 to 8:30 p. m., P. S. T.

Philo T. Farnsworth, Philadelphia television leader who explained his system in June MM, conducted a seven-mile experiment on August 11. The image and voice of Boake Carter were transmitted from the Philco laboratory to the home of William H. Grimditch, engineer. Philco claims to have eliminated flicker.

Radio Corporation of America engineers are transmitting from the Empire State Building to points 20 miles away in Westchester County and gave several summer demonstrations. A 10-kilowatt transmitter was used first on June 29.

Jefferson Hogue and Miss Sylvia Wayt were married August 15 at the Texas Centennial in what was believed to have been the first television wedding. The event attracted considerable attention.

Television exhibits featured the annual Berlin and London radio shows. In England, the British Broadcasting Co. has installed equipment in Alexandra Palace and plans extensive use beginning in November.

Aided by a 300,000 yen subsidy from the government, Japanese scientists are building a transmitting station which Dr. K. Takayanagi, one of the leading experimenters, hopes to have in operation this winter. Waseda University investigators are experimenting with natural color.

The Don Lee television division on Sept. 1 transmitted a newsreel, the sound portion over KHJ and the sight part via W6XAO, from the Don Lee Bldg, at 7th and Bixel Sts., to a home at 2441 W. Silver Drive, over three miles away and behind two hills.

Members of the Institute of Radio Engineers and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers witnessed the event.

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the music goes ’round and ’round

People who like phonograph music are getting dizzy trying to keep up with three different systems of playing three sizes of disks.

By Robert Hertzberg

BUYING phonograph records used to be a simple and painless operation. You could walk into any music shop and say, “I want a few of the latest dance tunes for a party.” You’d depart in a few minutes with a neat bundle under your arm. But not any more!

“Phonograph records? Yes, sir,” the clerk now says. “Would you like 10- or 12-inch records for a 78-r.p.m. turntable, or 7-, 10-, or 12-inch records for a 33-1/3 r.p.m. machine, or 7-inch records for a 45-r.p.m. player? The prices range from 60 cents to $4.85.”

If this jumble of figures doesn’t make you dizzy, a demonstration of the three different turntable types certainly will. And after you have seen and handled the six different records, in colors ranging from bright red to somber black, you may decide to cancel the party and go to the movies instead.

The slightly delirious record industry is a big business. Last year, about 15 million owners of phonographs bought approximately 250 million records. RCA-Victor and Columbia Records, the two biggest producers in the industry, are engaged in an undeclared but active “trade war” with this juicy market as the prize.

For as far back as most of us can remember, the standard phonograph turntable speed has been 78 r.p.m. A player of any make would take records having a diameter of 10 or 12 inches. These sizes have maximum playing times of 2-1/2 and 5 minutes per side, which are adequate for popular selections and dance music but, of course, much too limited for long classical works. To eliminate the bother of changing disks manually when a symphony was being played, manufacturers brought out automatic record changers. Some of these machines must have been designed by disciples of Rube Goldberg. They are weird contraptions with flailing arms and complex gear trains, they have a tendency to wreck the records, and they’re out of order about half the time.

Last year, Columbia Records, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Columbia Broadcasting System (keep that little fact in mind), made a big splash with the first really important improvement in phonograph records in almost half a century: a new 12-inch record that turns at only 33-1/3 r.p.m. and plays for a maximum of about 22-1/2 minutes. Coincidentally, it brought out a 10-incher that runs for 13% minutes and a 7-inch baby that last 5 minutes. The smallest one is thus equivalent to the old 12-inch, 78-r.p.m. disk.

“What about those 45-minute records I read so much about?” you ask. The 12-inch, 33 -1/3 -r.p.m. disk is the 45-minute record, played on both sides. That expression “45-minute record” was used a bit loosely in the initial advertising and publicity. You had to read down into the fine print to learn that the figure represented two sides, not one. At that, more than a third of an hour of uninterrupted music is a lot of music, and Columbia’s LP (for long-playing) Microgroove records were a quick success.

The word Microgroove explains the secret of the new disks. As you probably know in a general way, a phonograph transcription consists of a wiggly spiral cut into the face of a flat plastic disk. A sensitive needle, attached to a tone arm, follows the grooves and translates the undulations into impulses, which are increased in volume and reproduced by the amplifier section of a radio or by a separate phono amplifier. In 78-r.p.m. records, the grooves run between 85 and 100 to the inch, the needle point is about three thousandths of an inch thick, and the pressure of the pick-up against the record is between one and three ounces. In the LP records, the grooves hit between 225 and 300 to the inch, the needle tip is one thousandth, and the pick-up pressure is about a fifth of an ounce.

The tone quality of the LP disks is generally regarded as superior to that of the older records. A notable feature is absence of scratch noise, a result of the very light needle tracking.

Right off the bat. you can see that the new records won’t work on an old machine. Columbia was all prepared for this. When the records were announced, Philco had a new player and a tone arm to go with them. Fortunately, no revisions had to be made in the amplifier circuits. Any owner of a high-grade phono-radio combination could tie in a 33-1/3 r.p.m. turntable in a matter of minutes.

And it was a simple matter for manufacturers to rush out two-speed equipment fitted with dual tone arms or single arms containing separate pick-ups that could be switched in and out at will. This was a wise move, because there are millions . . . probably billions . . . of perfectly good 78-r.p.m. disks carefully preserved in albums, and their owners have no intention of throwing them away just for the sake of new records that play longer. Existing automatic changers could readily be adapted in manufacture to the two-speed turntables because the physical dimensions of the 12-inch LP records are identical with those of the 12-inch 78-r.p.m. disks. Only four LP records, changed and flopped automatically, can thus provide three solid hours of music—providing the changer doesn’t decide to chuck them across the room into the fireplace.

Just when the two-speed turntable and the LP records began gaining momentum, RCA-Victor threw a small atomic bomb into the happy picture in the form of a new 7-inch record that turns at 45 r.p.m. and has a 1-1/2 inch center hole instead of the 1/4-inch opening found in all other records. Its grooves run between 250 and 275 per inch and the needle size and pressure are the same as for the LP disks. The playing time per side is 5-1/3 minutes.

People in and out of the radio industry rushed to criticize RCA-Victor for bringing out another “nonstandard” record. A point not generally appreciated, but deserving a lot of attention, is that with the record itself the company introduced a new automatic player of highly ingenious but simple construction. The entire changing mechanism is enclosed in the stubby center post or spindle, with no outside arms, levers, carrying pans, or anything else. The spindle takes a stack of ten records, giving a total of more than 50 minutes of playing time. The records drop into position quickly and quietly. Anyone accustomed to the erratic and sometimes spectacular behavior of ordinary automatic changers will be intrigued by the effortless functioning of this new device. Its simplicity makes it especially valuable for children’s use, for dance parties, etc.

The 45-r.p.m. records themselves have a construction feature not found in any others. The label area, immediately around the spindle hole, is thicker than the playing surfaces; so the latter cannot rub against either each other or the top of the turntable. This undoubtedly makes the disks last longer and give better music during their life. Most ordinary records have to be discarded long before their grooves actually wear out because they get so scratched up.

The advent of the RCA records caused the New York newspapers a few months ago to give front-page prominence to reports of a “record war” between that company and Columbia. This surprised no one because the Columbia Broadcasting System, which owns Columbia Records, has been feuding with the National Broadcasting Company, which is owned by RCA. The head of Columbia records issued a long and somewhat angry statement denouncing RCA; RCA officials said nothing and went right ahead with a million-dollar campaign to put their new system over.

Turntable manufacturers lost no time in. revamping their products to accommodate the 45-r.p.m. disks. By the time this issue of Mechanix Illustrated appears, there will be on the market dozens of three-speed players, with double tone arms, that will handle any records now sold. If you want to play some of your old favorites, you shift the speed lever to 78, push in a 1/4-inch spindle, select the three-mil pick-up, and load ‘er up. If you want to go high brow and listen to Brahms or Shostakovich for a couple of hours, shift to 33-1/3, leave the 1/4-inch spindle in position, select the one-mil pick-up, and pretend you’re in Carnegie Hall. If there’s a special new number on a 45-r.p.m. disk, shift to 45 on the turntable, plug in the special 1-1/2-inch adapter spindle, and let it roll.

If you’re perfectly happy with your prewar phono-radio combination and don’t feel inclined to invest money in a new two- or three-speed player, you won’t be missing a thing. Both Columbia and RCA have announced that 78-r.p.m. duplicates will be made of all new recordings.

Columbia and RCA-Victor advance excellent reasons for their choices of record speeds. Mostly, they’re very technical and are tied up with the distortion effects that occur at different speeds in relation to the diameters of the grooves. As far as quality of reproduction is concerned, I doubt if one listener in ten thousand could detect any appreciable difference between the two makes. When you get down to it, the RCA 7-inch 45-r.p.m. record, playing five minutes, is virtually identical with the Columbia 7-inch 33-1/3-r.p.m. “Long-Playing” disk, which also runs five minutes; RCA just doesn’t use the term long playing, because a five-minute record certainly is not a long-playing one. The 13-1/2- and 22-1/2-min-ute Columbia records are something else. For classical music, they undeniably are wonderful. Personally, I am of the opinion that RCA-Victor isn’t much concerned about the high-brow trade and figures that it can do plenty of business with the many more people who go for the popular stuff. Pay your money and take your choice!

The World’s Largest Saxophone
THERE is plenty of music in this horn. Standing six feet, seven inches in height, this saxophone is believed to be the largest in the world. In spite of its height it may be played from a sitting position—provided the musician is sufficiently expert.

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New Game Uses Wooden Foils

A NEW fencing game uses foils made of wood with suction cups on the ends. Shields made of cardboard are worn with various sections of the body marked off. Face protecting masks made of cardboard and wire mesh also are included. Shown demonstrating the outfit are Rita Hart (left) of Brooklyn, N. Y., and Ethel E. Battner, of Jamaica, L. I., N. Y.

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HOW TO MAKE A PHONOGRAPH

By WALTER LEE

IN case any person of a mechanical turn of mind wishes to try his hand at building a talking machine, I will explain what I used and how I used it. But before I do so, it may be well to explain, in a general way, the principle of phonography, so that the experimenter will know just what he is doing and why he is doing it that way.

When a pig squeals, the vibrations of the cords in his throat, or wherever his squeal apparatus is located, cause the surrounding air to vibrate. The vibrations move away from that center, in all directions, like the ripples in a placid pool of water when a pebble is thrown into it. They are called sound waves. They come in contact with the drums of our ears, which, in their turn, begin to vibrate, and this vibration of the ear drums is what we call a noise. We hear the pig squeal, but his squeal was perfect silence until it reached our ear drums. If there were no ears, there would be no sound, but the sound waves would be present, ready to be converted into sounds, just the same.

A recording phonograph is a machine with an ear drum. The ear drum is a glass disc, .or diaphragm, which vibrates as an ear drum, when sound waves come in contact with it. The record makers cause the sound vibrations, by singing, or playing, or talking, in the immediate vicinity of the machine, and the waves then vibrate the diaphragm, which has a sharp needle so attached to it that it will make certain movements in exact correspondence with the diaphragm. The machine is so built, that a plate or plane of wax is revolved with its surface in contact with the needle, and thus, when the diaphragm vibrates, the needle moves, and traces a wavy line in the wax. This wavy line represents the sound waves that vibrated the diaphragm. Now, if the wax is hardened, and the angle of the needle is changed so it will go over the same path again without digging into it, the wavy line will cause the needle to move, and the needle will cause the diaphragm to vibrate, and that will set up a corresponding vibration in the air. The sound waves thus created, reach our ear drums, which in turn vibrate, and we hear the same sounds that were originally thrown into the recording phonograph.

My home-made machine consists of the following articles, which I picked up around the house and basement. One soap box, one movement from a discarded eight day clock, one tin megaphone, two feet of three-quarter-inch gas pipe and three elbows, a piece of a worn out inner tube, a diaphragm of hard rubber from a telephone receiver, an old scarf pin, various pieces of wood, nails, bolts and one pie tin. There were also two iron washers. The tools I used, were a pair of pliers, a pocket knife and a hammer.

The clock movement I removed from its case, then took from it, the dial and hands, its hour and minute wheels. Then I removed its escapement, which is the mechanism which controls its speed. In some clocks, this is simply the pendulum and verge, but in this clock it was the balance wheel and hair spring, pallet fork, and escape wheel. You can tell what these are by going over the wheel train. The first wheel or pinion, is the one on which the mainspring is wound, the second is the center wheel or pinion, on which the minute hand is mounted and from which the hour wheel is geared. The third is an idler. The fourth is the one on which the second hand is mounted, but it is always present, whether there is a second hand on it or not. The fifth is the escape wheel, the sixth is the pallet pinion, and the seventh is the balance wheel, which has a very fine spring on it, and which turns in opposite directions alternately. The balance wheel, the pallet and the escape wheel form the escapement.

The rest of the wheel train could now turn at high speed, from the power of the mainspring. Using two of the wheels I had removed, and two pieces of the hairspring, I made a speed governor and set it so that the train would turn the center pinion at eighty-five revolutions per minute. I attached the governor to the fourth pinion, or the one which was now last in the train.

I now whittled a little block of wood into the shape of a spindle and fastened it rigidly to the center pinion, in the place where the minute hand had been. It should be tight enough so that it will not wobble, and it must run true. In the bottom of a pie tin, to one side of which I had glued a disc of cloth, taken out of an old overcoat, I now punched a hole in the exact center, and fastened it to the spindle with a screw and another piece of wood to act as a continuation of the spindle.

My tin pan now would revolve by the power of the clock spring. I made a friction brake with a lever and a piece of wood, to act against the fourth wheel. Then I mounted the whole in a soap box, so that the spindle with the tin pan on it was on top and on the outside. By means of a hole in the side of the box, I could reach in with my hand and wind the spring, or control the brake.

The next step was to make the reproducer and its conducting line to the horn. Two large iron washers, about two inches in outside diameter, I fastened together, first sandwiching between them two rubber washers of the same size, with the telephone diaphragm between them. The washers were held together with three small bolts and six nuts, not through them, but against the outer edge, like clamps. A long, strong scarf pin with its head and point cut off, I now fastened to the center of the diaphragm with wax, and at the point where the pin passed the edge of the iron washers, I doubled it around on itself, to form a loop. Through the loop I ran a small piece of wire and fastened both ends of it between the washers to act as a support for the pin. On the end of the pin I impaled a small block of wood, which had a small hole in the other end, about the size of a regular phonograph needle. With a very small wood screw, I fastened the needles in the hole.

I then took the shell of an electric light socket, the small end of which was fortunately a good tight fit to the inside of the washer behind the diaphragm, and the other end was an equally tight fit over the outside edge of an elbow for three-quarter-inch pipe. The elbow, L screwed to a ten-inch length of three-quarter-inch pipe, with another elbow at the other end, and a second length of pipe with a third elbow was then put on!

To the third elbow I fastened the tin megaphone.

Then I attached this rig to an upright which I nailed to the soap box, in such a way that it would be free to swing, and balanced a little to the left, so its tendency would be to swing that way. The adjustment of this somewhat delicate balance was the hardest part of the entire job. .

My phonograph was now complete and I set a record on it. To my surprise, it really played! Not exquisitely, perhaps—let us rather say with surprising ability and persistence.

Had I been obliged to purchase the material out of which this home-made and homely machine is made, it would have cost me from one dollar to two dollars, the greatest expense being for the clock works. I have an idea, however, that the resources of nearly any attic or basement storeroom contain all the requisite materials.

TV’s Magic Lantern

TV’s latest miracle is the Scenescope, designed by Frank Caldwell, scene maker in Hollywood for 17 years.

The problem of costly sets is a perennial one in the movie capital and Caldwell had been trying to solve it. When TV came along he saw that the problem was even more acute in this field—and maybe a bit easier to solve. His magic lantern, shown here, the only model in existence, has cost $100,000 so far. It has three 4×5 slide holders, a 35mm slide projector, a 16mm movie projector and a live lens. The movies are projected before or behind live action. The slides project backgrounds and still material to be combined with live action.

WILLY the walking bug

WILLY can be taken off the wooden track and played with but his finest moment is on the track, being pulled by the string. His legs take on a most lifelike movement which is imparted by the waves cut in the “wiggle spine.”

Begin by making the body from the layout block as shown. Use fine-grained white pine. Cut two saw-kerf leg pivot grooves and dado out the larger groove which receives the spine. If any part of the body splits away mend it with glue. The antennae are No. 165 compression springs stretched slightly and tipped with eraser discs. Fit legs in place on coat-hanger wire after legs and body are painted. The waves under the spine are cut with coping or jigsaw, narrowed to a ridge with then narrowed to a ridge with a circular saw. •

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FUN WITH BALLOONS

Next time the children have a party add to the fan with these toy balloon games.

TO ADD zip and zest to a children’s party turn your attention to these toy balloon games. Here you will find the answer to gay and novel games. The blowing balloon race, shown in the top photo, is one of the most popular forms of amusement. Line up two or more players at one end of a room and in front of each place an inflated balloon. At a given signal each player fans or blows his balloon toward the opposite wall. The balloon should not be touched by any part of the body. The player whose balloon touches the opposite wall first, wins. Another interesting pastime is playing basket ball, using a balloon as a ball. Place an inverted lamp shade or waste-basket on a raised object six feet high at each end of a room. Select two groups of players, two or more to a side. Each team has a basket as its goal. Both teams line up in the center of the room. At a signal one player bats a toy balloon into the air. Each player then tries to bat the balloon without its touching the floor into the opponent’s basket. Any player breaking the balloon or permitting it to touch the floor is disqualified. The team scoring the greatest number of baskets in two five-minute periods, wins.

A balloon bottle race is another well-liked game. At one end of the room line up your guests against the wall. Furnish each of them with a one-pint milk bottle and a large, round inflated balloon. At a given signal each player ‘ balances his balloon on the mouth of his bottle and begins walking toward the other end of the room. If a balloon drops from the mouth of a bottle that player must stop and replace the balloon before proceeding further. The player who reaches the opposite end of the room first, wins.

The game of tennis can also be adapted for balloons. Stretch a string approximately 12 in. above a table. Select one or two players to a side. Inflate a small balloon. One player serves the balloon over the string to his opponents using his hand as a paddle. The opponents return the balloon in the same manner. Should either side catch, hold, hit the balloon under the string or off the table, a point is scored for the opposing side. The side scoring 21 points first, wins.

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HOLLYWOOD’S FROGMAN

Glen Galvin of MGM, attired in bathing suit and oxygen mask, is man behind the scenes in Hollywood’s fabulous underwater extravaganzas.

By Bob Willett

STANDING on the bottom at a depth of 12 feet, a man pulled steadily on a slender line. About 100 feet away, an object moved slowly toward him through the greenish-blue water.

As it drew near it took the shape of a beautiful young woman whose face and form could rival those of any mythical sea siren. She was bound hand and foot but, despite this apparent predicament, managed a cheerful grin when the diver finally reached out and grabbed her. Following twin streams of bubbles, they rose to the surface and he towed her to safety.

“A good one,” they heard director Charles Walters shout, “Print it!”

Glen Galvin slipped off his mask and quickly untied Esther Williams. They had just completed an underwater scene for the live-action cartoon sequence of Dangerous When Wet in which the MGM mermaid shares star billing with the comical cat-and-mouse team, Tom and Jerry. * Few fishermen would think of throwing back such a catch as the curvaceous swimming star and most men would consider working with Miss Williams nice work, indeed. Galvin is no exception. However, he wants it known that being a studio skin-diver, although enjoyable for the most part, isn’t as simple as it may sound. For one thing, his aquatic activities can be awfully hard on the nerves because Esther, whose father is a Los Angeles barge captain, has as much nerve as most males where water is concerned. Most actresses willingly accept doubles but she insists on doing the dangerous stunts herself. During filming of the one described above, Glen died a doz^n deaths.

“I kept thinking of what would happen if the line broke,” he says, “and I should be unable to get her out of the water before she ran out of air.”

Reducing the possibility of an accident to the absolute minimum is the reason he shadows her in every swimming scene. You never see him on the screen but he is always there, just out of camera range. He thinks it only common sense to avoid swimming or diving alone and never attempts anything underwater himself unless another expert swimmer is ready to assist him if necessary. His standing rule is, “If I don’t come up in three minutes, come down and look for me.”

In a movie made a few years ago, the script called for Esther to be imprisoned in a giant clamshell and the studio called for Glen to supervise construction and operation of this perilous prop. It was made to open and close through the use of micro- switches and remotely-controlled motors. During initial tests, a mechanical defect kept it closed with Galvin inside. Fortunately he was able to hold out until the movie mollusk could be pried open but the call was a little too close for comfort.

Following completion of Show Boat in 1951, it was decided to drain the large lake on Metro’s Lot 3 and allow The Cotton Blossom to settle on the bottom at the shallow end. Before this was done, Galvin went down and cleared away timbers and debris that might have damaged the hull when the boat was beached. He worked his way along in inky blackness, back and forth from port to starboard, shifting from stem to stern a double arm-span at a time. This cleaning-up operation brought back memories of his wartime salvaging experience, without which he probably wouldn’t have dared to do it.

He thinks entering the lower decks of a sunken ship is the most hazardous of the many odd assignments he’s had, recalling that once he was almost trapped in one on the bottom of the Red Sea. When he dived into the pitch-black engine room, he made a point of memorizing the number and position of stairways to aid in his ascent. However, a bump on the head made him lose his senses temporarily. His equipment consisted of a converted Italian gas mask and, though momentarily stunned, he managed to grope his way up by clinging to its air hose. The water temperature was nearly 90 degrees and marine life the most abundant he had ever encountered. A school of curious fish had followed him into the ship and it was while he was engaged in brushing some of them aside that he knocked his noggin on a bulkhead.

Perhaps because of this incident, Galvin is more afraid of getting lost underwater than anything else. He has often worked in water so dark or dirty that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his faceplate. The sensation, he says, is similar to being caught in a snow storm on land. It’s difficult to figure direction and easy to start going around in circles. Nevertheless, Glen doesn’t go for full-dress diving with weighted suit and air supply, nor does he usually make use of oxygen equipment of any kind.

“It’s not claustrophobia or anything like that,” he confesses. “It’s just plain caution. I like to depend on my own lung power and ability and, by keeping trim physically, I automatically insure myself against risk. I prefer to be in a position where I can put up a good fight for my life and have no desire to be a dead duck.”

The film capital frogman has only one complaint. Although he spends an average of five hours a day working in water and has waterlogged over 10,000 hours during his career, he’s never completely satisfied his love for swimming. Glen first met his wife Helen at the beach and their six-year-old daughter Kathleen and four-year-old son Bobbie are both accomplished swimmers. At his home in Manhattan Beach, Calif., he avidly pursues his hobby—skin diving!

Born in Melstone, Mont., Galvin got his first swimming lessons at the age of five in a creek on his father’s ranch. The family moved to California when he was still a child and when he started high school in Huntington Park, he joined the swimming team and played water polo. He went to the University of California at Los Angeles during the ’30’s where he made the football squad and saw action in the Rose Bowl. As a member of a Navy salvage crew, he helped refloat .a dozen merchant ships and a huge floating dry dock that had been sunk by the Italians in 1942.

“Galvin is a sinker,” a prop man pointed out. “Around the studio we call him Lead Head.”

I soon found out why. Whether he was born with the ability or acquired it as a result of his environment, he can sink in water to any depth at any time simply by stopping his swimming stroke. When he takes a header, he goes down like a shot. Even with his lungs full of air, he can lie flat on the bottom without rising unless he swims up. “I can’t float for sour apples,” he told me.

A skilled carpenter and an authority on water-resistant construction materials, Galvin has planted prop gardens, set up formations of fake coral, constructed complete furnished rooms and installed dance floors and playground equipment underwater. Of course, it is possible to do this type of work when a tank is empty but, as often as not, something objectionable is discovered after it is full. Because a halt in production to allow for draining and reconstruction can be costly, Glen does a lot of building and installing in water and he has learned the hard way that there is quite a trick to handling hammers, saws, wrenches and other tools below the surface. Construction crew members say they can always tell when he hits his thumb. The bubbles turn blue.

One of his most outstanding construction jobs was the huge glass tank, complete with live fish, used in Million Dollar Mermaid, the film biography of former swimming champion Annette Kellerman. Re-creating an accident that Miss Kellerman had experienced called for it to collapse on cue with Esther and 20,000 gallons of water pouring out through broken glass. While no actual test was made because of the expense involved, the scene was shot without a hitch, thanks to his planning and know-how.

His most memorable mishap was more humiliating than harmful. Artificial coral is made of glass cloth covered with laminae and its projecting edges can be as dangerous as barnacles. Before anyone else enters water where it has been set up, Glen goes down and files them smooth. While he was doing this for Dangerous When Wet he backed into a sharp corner that made him rise with more than his customary alacrity.

“When I came up, I was not only short of breath,” he says with a smile, “but minus my trunks.” •

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There’s a new kind of blue note on this racy hit parade!

by JOHN TERRY

The hi-fi was giving out with Les Brown as the smartly-dressed guests cut a rug in the Park Avenue apartment of a Cafe Society playboy. Champagne and Scotch flowed freely and high-pitched laughter mingled with the deeper rumble of male mirth. Seductive women, reasonably handsome men, a luxurious apartment, what more could anyone ask?

Somebody did ask for more, for suddenly, the hi-fi stopped in mid-music. Dancers stood in the middle of a step and looked annoyed, but politely, at their host, who stood at the expensive record player. He had a batch of albums in his arms. “Hold on just a minute, folks,” he said. “Charlie Blake just sent these recordings over and I thought you’d like to hear them.”

Seemed to Be on the Make A moment later, a feminine voice, soft and seductive, filtered through the loud speaker; obviously addressed to a man with her. The guests looked at one another, wondering whether a practical joke was being played on them. Then, suddenly, wide smiles spread over their faces as the record ground on and they realized they were listening to a conversation between a high school boy and a high school girl.

But what a conversation! She feared that if she surrendered he would not respect her, and in a soft voice told him diffidently. “You wouldn’t respect me.” There was earnestness and passion in her voice, a plea praying for answer. Then, clear and fervently came the voice of the youth trying to seduce her, “I tell you here and now I’d respect you like crazy.”

Peals of laughter echoed through the room, punctuated by cries of “Where’d Charlie get that dirty record? Was it smuggled in? How’d he get it?”

It’s the New Look in Zest Their host smiled. “That’s no dirty record,” he said. “It’s one of the ten best sellers around today. That’s May and Nichols. You can buy it anyplace—but I never heard about it until today.” He held up the stack of albums he’d placed on a table. “Here’s some more— and everyone a public performance.”

Difficult to believe, maybe, but there’s actually a new look in zesty records today, and the inside story is that it’s called “ribald sophistication,” all so cleverly done that no one has taken offense, least of all the censors.

It was the late Billy Minsky who said that “downtown burlesque is called bawdy, but put the same thing uptown in a Broadway show and it’s called art.”

That’s just about the status certain best-selling record albums enjoy today. Indeed, to call some of the songs in many Broadway albums risque would come dangerously close to being euphemistic. Smart or smutty, it’s a cinch the public wants them. In 1958 alone these racy platters accounted for some $40 million dollars in sales. They’re a far cry from the old days when ditties like “Mama Don* Allow It” and “Take Yo’ Finger Off It” were considered daring and played surreptitiously. (Lizzy Miles, incidentally, has re-recorded them for today’s listeners.) The crude and ribald songs of the veteran “shouters” of yesterday left nothing to the imagination. Today’s disks are different . . . they play on the imagination, conjure up zesty pictures, and what they do to the libido is a caution.

Tops among the newer sensations on sophisticated records are Elaine May and Mike Nichols. Their “Improvisations to Music” is both torrid and a treat, particularly their impression of a couple chatting against the background of a Bach concerto. At the beginning, they are simply two persons enjoying a tete-a-tete, but as their unaffected conversation drones on, pinwheel** begin to ignite as they discuss Adler, who to Elaine is more than just a man who made mice neurotic. “Much more,” 3ays Mike. “Much more,” says Elaine. And then comes the shatterer when Mike says solicitiously “Can you move over a little? I’m falling off the bed.”

If you haven’t gotten the idea by now, you won’t enjoy May and Nichols, who are making chatter-platters a national buy-word.

Your taste buds, though, might be satisfied with Noel Coward, whose “Noel Coward at Las Vegas” is another sleeper in the spate of sophisticated bawdiness.

In precise, meticulous English, Coward renders ditty after ditty that would bring blushes to the cheeks of the burliest dock walloper, particularly with “Uncle Harry” a missionary who sailed to the South Seas to lead the wretched heathen to the light.

Feted by the natives, all Harry wants to do is tarry, but his Aunt Mary will have none of it. Nevertheless, he rebels and, as Coward tells it, Harry lines all the older girls up in one of the local sheds for a revival meeting, but “while he was reviving them and tearing himself to shreds,” the local belles took their Mother Hubbards off and wrapped them around their heads.

Even Aunt Mary in time succumbs to the lure of the islands and Coward wraps it all up wittily by revealing that Uncle Harry’s last illusion crumbles into dust when he finds his sainted Aunty had placed a flower behind her ear — and also exposed her bust.

That’s not the kind of stuff they used to feed the firemen back in the days of “The Smokehouse Monthly” and “Cap ‘n Billy’s Whiz Bang,” the spicy magazines of Grandpop’s day.

Nor is there any resemblance between the moon-rhymes-with-spoon type of lyric pre-war musicals featured. If your Aunt Minnie from Dubuque wants a real kick let her tune in her hearing aid on some of the lyrics of the past few seasons in Broadway musicals where sly sex and not girls is the big selling point.

While it’s true that Broadway show albums in general give you the complete score, you can only know the real score by keeping your mind open, and your ears cocked to catch the salty phrases in them that upped the sales of these expensive packages.

In ‘Destry Rides Again’ for example, there’s a sparkling bit of double entendre in a scene where the Madam, Rose Lovejoy, (get the name?) gives the girls her formula for running a successful house. She explains that through storm and hail, etc., their mission is to deliver for the U.S. male and exhorts her girls to always remember that they’re upholding a grand and old tradition.

“In spite of amateur competition” she adds proudly.

A similar example of raffish humor can also be found in the “Pipe Dream” album when Fauna, owner of the local bordello describes a friend who drops in often because he’s kind of mixed up in his life. His trouble, she explains, is that he’s always longing for a home and a woman. But it only happens when he’s home with his wife, she adds.

Actually, though borderline prurience in disks is big business today, its been around and waiting to be mined by the record makers. In *Guys and Dolls4 for example there was ‘Take Back Your Mink4 which was slyly sung by Vivian Blaine and proved a show stopper. When the show was transferred to the movie screen some of the lyrics were edited. But good- They haven’t gotten around to putting ‘Happy Hunting’ the Ethel Merman hit of last season in movies yet, but it’s a cinch some of the lyrics will be bluepencilled, particularly “A New-Fangled Tango.” When ebullient Ethel sings it, she really sings about sex with no holds barred. To her there’s no getting away from the one big attraction of the new-fangled tango which, she shouts lustily, may not have much movement—but there’s plenty of action.

The listener doesn’t have to ask the guy on the right what is meant by ‘action.’ It’s all there—typical of the new fangled kind of best-selling platter, the sizzling sex disk in song.

Another incendiary item on wax that thus far has escaped the censors is ”Pardon My Blooper,* a collection of unintentional verbal goofs that is garnering smirks from Bangor to Beverly Hills. Four albums have been issued and each one has outsold the last. They’ve got everything Grandpa used to look for when he sneaked “Breezy Stories” into the backhouse—and more.

Probably the biggest titter provokers on these spicy disks are the “commercial announcements,” fluffs made by announcers. Since they’re presumably genuine (and most of them are) the censors have looked the other way at such gems as: “Remember, it’s Wonder Bread for the breast in bed.”

“And now stay tuned for 6I Love Loosely’.”

“Tune in tomorrow, same time, same station, to see if John will goose Sadie’s cook.”

Even a horse racing commentator gets into the act when, announcing the day’s scratches, he tells listeners that “Harass is not going to run. Be sure to scratch Harass.”

The laughs come thick and fast on the “Blooper” records and, if the material seems to border on the raw, it at least has the excuse of having originally been unintentional. As such, they have the status of merely being reports of radio and TV goofs.

And who’s going to quarrel with a report? Certainly not a censor—even if they are the hottest item to come along since the Chicago fire.

“It’s the best thing that could have happened,” a prominent Broadway music store dealer told INSIDE STORY. “Now if a guy wants to liven up a party, he doesn’t have to know another guy named Joe who knows an under-the-counter place. He can walk in right off the street and get the bawdiest show around at Fair Trade prices.”

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CIRCUS ON THE CAMPUS

The big show at Florida State U. is all part of this school’s “High Flying” curriculum.

GO TO college and join the circus. That’s what collegians at Florida State University in Tallahassee do at the only school in the land where students can learn the circus profession for credits! Aside from arts and science courses, some 200 boys and girls join the “Flying High” circus group as part of their Physical Education classes. To cap their training periods the circus graduates pack up each spring and tour the surrounding country to put on their show. The course has been given since 1947. As yet, no student has made a permanent career under the Big Top in the professional circus world.

Puppets May Now Smoke

The high spot of a marionette show now touring the country is when one of the tiny puppets lights up a cigarette, inhales the smoke, and blows it out. The picture above shows the puppet under the guidance of invisible strings, and below, how the smoking stunt is accomplished.

Air Rifles Have Lever

Hand Pump A well known type of air rifle has been improved by the addition of an easy lever hand pump action. The gun also has bolt action, hammer fire, hair trigger, safety and adjustable sights.