"It's interesting on the inside, too," said
Joe. "Let's go in." We stepped firmly up
to the porch, opened the front door and
were confronted by?nothing. That is,
there were timbers propping up the walls
of the house; otherwise merely a stubbly
open space. The house was a carefully
built and painted shell. The two large
trees that gave it shade?sycamores, I
think?had been brought from miles away.
The geraniums were in buried pots. The
lawn was transplanted sod. The brown
house was a set built in a few hours for
Rupert Hughes's play, "The Old Nest."
The village of which it was part had been
peopled for a day. Grass was now growing
in the streets. The studio spaces of Cali
fornia are filled with deserted villages. It
surprised me that they were allowed to
stand after their mission was accomplished,
but I was told that with a little change
here and there most of them can be used
again and again for other pictures.
Beyond this melancholy Main Street we
came upon a high arched wall and a turret
with a window and balcony. It was here
that Will Rogers doubled for Romeo. He
jumped backward from the balcony to a
landing net, then from the landing net
to the ground. With the film reversed and
the landing net cut out he feeemed in the
picture to spring from the ground to the
balcony to greet his Juliet.
