Santa Cruz, with its mile strand of perfect beach, world famous Casino, rugged and arched cliffs, evergreen mountains, trout laden streams, along which are nestled many cosy resorts, giant redwoods thousands of years old, and the state Redwood Park, where free camping sites and water are provided by the state; and a world renowned eighteen hole golf links, bids a "homey" welcome to the vacationist and tourist to come, that they may enjoy themselves in this garden of nature's gifts. A welcome is extended to those who are seeking rest and recreation under the most favorable conditions amid scenes that by their grandeur and accessibility, bring contentment.
Founded on the El Camino Real (King's Highway) by the Franciscan Fathers, whose wisdom in selecting this section as a mission site has been sustained throughout the intervening years by the rapid development of the city made possible by those who have visited it from the early years in history up to the present, and where the weary oxen wended their way over rough and dusty highways and by-ways in "ye olden time," a silver ribboned highway has replaced the old, and the oxen and the horse have been replaced by the automobiles which come from all directions; from Los Angeles 400 miles south and San Francisco, 78 miles north, over the state highway which connects with the county's One Million Dollar System, most of which is completed and nearly all of which will be available for travel by August first of this year. Santa Cruz has always been a mecca for thousands of people from other states as well as from the inland valleys of California and although next to the smallest county in the state, it is one of the greatest in diversity of products and natural scenic attractions.
The annual salmon run commenced on the 10th of May, and immediately a rush for Santa Cruz was on from San Francisco and Sausalito by all the small craft available, which added to the home fleet, numbered two hundred boats, and the catches continued to be heavy. This is one of the many wide varieties of fishing enjoyed.
In Santa Cruz County are gathered together within a radius of a few miles, all the attributes that go to make the passing of happy hours, days and months possible. From one of the finest bathing beaches on the western coast, one can motor in twenty minutes to enjoy the inspiring influence of the giant redwoods some of which are sixty-five feet in circumference, and from 250 to 300 feet high; or leave the surf or large crystal watered natatorium to the green fairways of the magnificent golf links on the hills above the city and bay, where a wonderful panoramic picture is unfolded.
Santa Cruz enjoys a year-round climate that compares most favorably with any other part of the world. This is becoming more and more generally known, resulting in the continual influx of vacationists and tourists who have been taught from childhood, that Santa Cruz is the land of sunshine, fruits, flowers and big trees. So magnificent are the lighting effects streaming through the giant redwoods in the Big Trees near the city and in the State Redwood Park, that many of the beautiful scenes of filmdom have been taken in this county, among them being: "The Primal Lure," by Wm. S. Hart, "The Flame of Hellgate," by Beatrice Michelena, "Jes' Call Me Jim," by Will Rogers, "The Cold Deck," by Wm. S. Hart, "Sudden Jim," by Charles Ray, "The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine," by Theodore Roberts, "The Heart Of The Redwoods," by Mary Pickford and Elliott Dexter, and many others.
Realizing the enormous traffic the future holds in store for Santa Cruz, some of the finest auto camps in the state have been established, there being four in number, two of which skirt the banks of the San Lorenzo River, affording swimming, fishing, and boating and having a capacity for hundreds of machines. It seems that not only nature has provided Santa Cruz with all the attractions sufficient to bring happiness and pleasure, but every provision is now being made by man to give the material comforts necessary for their fullest enjoyment.
The Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce, having a membership of 600 men and women, is at your command, having for its motto "Service to the Stranger within our gates."
Truly Santa Cruz bids you welcome."
William Jennings Bryan may have taken juice from grapes but it remains for Joe Delfino to take water from a watermelon.
Joe, we should all know by now, is the very resourceful master of properties with the Victor Schertzinger "Thunder Mountain" troupe of the Fox Film Corporation now sojourning in our midst--as the fancy writers would say. In other words Joe is a man of parts.
Wednesday's action took place in the vicinity of the set known as "Jim's Cabin" near the Bob Jones residence above the golf links and featured a fight between Leslie Fenton (lead, accused of murdering Si Pace) and Arthur Housman, leader of the Givens Brothers gang.
The struggle, destined to go down in picture annals as one of the most realistic yet enacted for the celluloid, called for the clothes and bodies of the participants to appear wet with perspiration. The weather, true provoked a fair amount of the beaded drops--but water was needed.
A messenger was dispatched to the country club in the role of water carrier--but the distance was too great--the time to be consumed on the errand necessarily considerable. Valuable time was being lost and the sun was going. Joe Delfino stroked the trick derby and it wouldn't work.
Then the bright idea came.
Aha! hadn't the troupe lunched on watermelon? Joe immediately began a roundup of the rinds of the juicy fruit,--after which, with the aid of boards, they were pressed. Simple matter. Plenty of water.
Leslie and Arthur were thereupon suitably sprayed and the cameras clicked again.
Bud Geary, juvenile lead with the Schertzinger troupe, is today receiving great gobs of congratulations on the birth of a son to Mrs. Geary in Hollywood late Tuesday night. Art Housman, after tendering nice words, called the sympathy of the troupe down upon himself. For is he not Bud's roommate at the St. George and did not long and hectic long distancing between Hollywood and Santa Cruz Tuesday night and away into the Wednesday morning hours deprive him of one entire night's sleep?
No further rattlesnakes had been reported up to the time of this writing.
Miss Peggy McCall, be it said, is the very efficient publicity manageress of the Schertzinger troupe, of whom to which we have not as yet up to and including the present outburst been introduced."
The members of Frank Borzage's big Fox company, selected for the filming of "The Dixie Merchant," are just about all in the city now. Jack Mulhall, male lead, who is to play young "Pickett" in the production, registered at the St. George Hotel this morning after being met at Watsonville Junction by a car from the Santa Cruz Cab Company. Mulhall's arrival completes the principals in the cast.
The film story is taken from a popular novel of the old South entitled "The Chicken Wagon Family" telling principally the intensely human story of old Jean Paul Fippany, aristocratic southerner and breeder of fine race horses--his pathetic course toward poverty during the entire time of which his droll philosophy, "somethin's goin' to turn up," predominates--and finally bears fruit in the midst of exceedingly thrilling circumstances.
Madge Bellamy, feminine lead, enacts the lovable role of Aida Fippany, daughter of Jean Paul, played by J. Farrell McDonald, famed and popular character delineator. The latter is the Dixie merchant of the story's title. Clare McDowell, sterling film luminary, is cast in the role of Mrs. Fippany, mother of Aida. Two parts, those of "Minnie," the vamp, and the lawyer, are yet to be cast. Harvey Clarke in the characterization of "Baptiste," faithful manservant to old Fippany, is handling an important role.
Of interest in connection with the play's filming in Santa Cruz is the news that the famed California mare, "Cherry Blossom," prize race winner from the Borden stables in Stockton, will be brought here to enact the equine role of "Marsellaise," sensation of the southern turf and sole hope of the Fippany stables. "Cherry Blossom" will probably arrive tomorrow.
Most of the local action in the filming will be laid on the Short Street horse car line, of which The News told last evening, and among the picturesque hills and woods of the Aptos Country Club, the former historical Don Joaquin de Castro Rancho. Miss Peggy McCall, efficient and affable publicity directress of the Borzage troupe, told us all of this during today's noon hour. Miss McCall will be with us only about a week this trip, during which time she is going to delve into Castro Ranch history--a section in which romance reigned e'en in the time before Dixie days added to the lore of the land."
A few days late, due to a last-minute revision of plans in Hollywood, the first contingent of the Irving Cummings unit of the Fox Film Corporation, in charge of Business Manager Benjamin Wurtzel, arrived in Santa Cruz at 7 o'clock this morning and domiciled at Hotel St. George to await the arrival at this hostelry on Wednesday of the main body of the Company. On the latter date actual filming, in Soquel and at other spots in the mountains in Santa Cruz' immediate vicinity, of "The Johnstown Flood," Fox's super-effort for the 1926 season, will commence.
With the exception of Mr. Wurtzel, who is a brother of Sol Wurtzel, General Manager of the Fox Corporation, this morning's arrivals consisted of the technical staff of the Cummings unit.
Within less than an hour after arrival the entire contingent had piled into automobiles of the Santa Cruz Cab Company, which, by the way, has been forced to add to its rolling stock to handle the big film company, and under guidance of Bob Jones, through whose perseverance and assistance the company was prevailed upon to come to Santa Cruz, and John Mowry of the auto company, journeyed forth to the Empire Grade. Here, all day, the film staff is working on the erection of one of the main outdoor sets for the film.
Mr. Wurtzel graciously took enough time from the rush of first day arrangements to explain to The News just what it was all about.
Cummings at Head
Irving Cummings, who will direct the big flood production, is accredited with many of the outstanding film successes of all time. He has only recently completed "The Desert Flower," with Colleen Moore and "Fool's Highway," with Mary Philbin.
Of the principal players who were in Santa Cruz with the Schertzinger Fox unit in the filming of "Thunder Mountain," only one will return with the Cummings company. He is Paul Panzer and he has written his friend, Earl Amos, that he's tickled to death at the prospects of the northern trip.
O'Brien's Sudden Rise
As has been said before in these columns, George O'Brien, son of San Francisco's popular Police Chief, will star in the big production. According to Mr. Wurtzel, O'Brien's meteoric rise in the motion picture game has recently been capped by the unanimous verdict of motion picture magazines that of all stars in the game during the past year, more fan inquiries concern O'Brien than any other player. O'Brien is a kid friend and pal of Pat Connor, former Santa Cruzan whose Dad still lives in Seabright, and the two of them broke into the cinema game as extras in Hollywood.
Ingenue lead will be handled by Jeannette Gaynor, Fox's most recent "find," and of whom unprecedented things are expected. Then there will also be Florence Gilbert, lead of the Van Bibber comedy series, who will handle a big "Johnstown Flood" role. Other principals in the company include Max Davidson, Anders Randolph, Paul Nicholson, Paul Panzer, Walter Perry, Sid Jordan, Georgie Harris and Elmo Billings--as the boy of the story in an important role.
Eighty People Here
The company will make an extended stay in Santa Cruz, after which they will journey to the Moccasin Creek Dam on the Hetch-Hetchy. Eighty people will be located in Santa Cruz, while, according to Mr. Wurtzel, one hundred local extras will be used. C. Woolstenhulme is Assistant Director, while Chief Cameraman is George Schneiderman, cinematographer of "The Iron Horse" and a recent Fox production, yet unnamed, which is expected to prove the greatest thing this Company has yet done.
The Company is carrying three baggage carloads of properties, three truckloads of the same, six electricians and a giant electric generator. Lumber and all necessary building materials will be purchased in Santa Cruz.
Those registering in this morning's arrivals are Fred Signor, H. Hassan, W. G. McNeil, H. J. Baker, Wm. Rosen, H. Otters, W. T. Mashmeyer, R. Howie, M. Stearns, L. Hammond, S. Wehmeir and B. Wurtzel."
In spite of rain, actual location work on Fox's 1926 "Johnstown Flood" began this morning. The arrival of Irving Cummings, Director-in-Chief, accompanied by his chief cameraman, George Schneiderman, and Jack Smith and Roy Davidson, "miniature men," at the St. George Hotel in the early morning hours signalized the inauguration of production activities.
The main body of the big Cummings unit will roll into Santa Cruz at seven o'clock tomorrow morning in its own special train which leaves the Southern Pacific depot in Los Angeles at 7:30 o'clock this evening. All members of this section, both players and technical staff, will thereupon establish Santa Cruz residence at the St. George Hotel, where this morning all accommodations were announced in readiness.
First for Fox
Director Cummings is accompanied to Santa Cruz by Mrs. Cummings. "The Johnstown Flood," Mr. Cummings informs the writer, marks his first production for Fox. "This picture will be "The Iron Horse" of 1926," he states. Mr. Cummings leaves the banner of First National, for whom he has done great things picturewise, to work under a Fox contract. For the former corporation the famed director has recently completed "The Desert Flower" with Colleen Moore, "Fool's Highway" with Mary Philbin--both decided successes--and "Flirtation" with Corinne Griffith, yet to be released.
Soquel to Figure
Soquelites, Director Cummings assures, can rest easy. Soquel, true, is to be the "Johnstown" of the big film production. The difference between Soquel and Johnstown, however, is to lie in the fact that Soquel is not really going to be flooded. The flood will take place in the Hollywood studio. That's why the miniature men are here today and touring the terrain with Director Cummings. They are photographing both mentally and filmatically, not only Soquel, but Bonny Doon, Empire Grade country and other local wooded spots for reconstruction in miniature in Hollywood preparatory to the final and actual unleashing of the historic devastating flood. All other action in the story will take place in this vicinity, with the exception of dam "shots" at Hetch-Hetchy.
"Picturesque," He Says
Then the interview. Director Cummings says that he is today getting the "feel" of the country--if you know what that means. He was here two weeks ago at the invitation of Bob Jones, through whose efforts the big production was swung to Santa Cruz from a southern location.
"Your surrounding country is the most picturesque I have yet traversed," he tells us. "It is especially ideal for this story, inasmuch as we have to do with the Alleghanies in Pennsylvania."
And then he throws some right-handed bouquets at Bob Jones, artistic hotellier. Bob, of his own volition and expense, recently took Photographer Sherer into mountain locations on a rainy day and registered "storm effects"--and also a tree-framed view of Soquel. These were dispatched to Director Cummings in Hollywood.
"Mr. Jones cannot be thanked too much for what he has done for us," the Director emphasizes. "He has the vital sense of the artistic. His photographs I exhibited widely among picture authorities at the studio. They absolutely thrilled our location men."
The day's tour was made under guidance of Johnny Mowry of the Santa Cruz Cab Company."
The great Fox "Johnstown Flood" company rolled into Santa Cruz early this morning on its own special train and immediately went into winter training quarters at the St. George Hotel. They, incidentally, lost not an awful big lot of time in "falling to" on Bob Jones' best Coffee Shoppe "ham and."
We had to get this story on the fly because Council meeting took an awful lot of time today. Really, we could only talk to two or three--but there are other days coming.
First of all we looked up our friend of San Francisco days--George O'Brien, filmdom's youthful sensation, son of San Francisco's popular Police Chief, and starring in "Johnstown Flood" in the part of Tom O'Day. "I've been on a veritable Cook's tour these last few months," he explained to us. "Been making pictures in about every place except Los Angeles. Have just now returned from Wyoming, where, under Director Jack Ford of "Iron Horse" fame I made "Three Bad Men"--yet to be released."
George, though, is really having lots of fun and is tickled pink to be in Santa Cruz. In kid days he came here every summer with Dad and Mother, made lots of friends and had good times. He can't get police stuff out of his mind, however--born in him, probably. Yes, he's heard of Police Chief Kalar and former Chief Frank Hannah. His Dad has a high regard for the efficiency and dependability of the Santa Cruz force, he says.
And then, too, we have Jim Holohan as Sheriff here, George O'Brien reminds. Jim was United States Marshal in San Francisco when George's Dad was in the earlier days of his Chief of Police work. Tomorrow morning we're all going to take a walk around and say a genial "hello" to Sheriff Holohan. Also, tomorrow, Chief of Police O'Brien and Mrs. O'Brien are coming to Santa Cruz to visit with their scintillating son.
"Meet Miss Gilbert," suddenly said George, as conversation in the St. George lobby proceeded.
Then we exchanged introductory greetings with none other than Florence Gilbert, lead of the "Johnstown Flood," exquisitely blonde. Miss Gilbert's most recent outstanding success filmatically has been in the starring part of the Van Bibber series. She has other excellent parts in films already completed but yet to be released. She has been prominent in filmdom for over four years.
Before leaving the hotel lobby we were greeted by Clint Uturbees, grip, here a few months ago with Vic Schertzinger's "Thunder Mountain" unit. "Tickled to death to be back--had a peach of a time here last summer and have been homesick for Santa Cruz," enthusiastically exclaimed Clint. He, by the way, has also just returned from Wyoming, handling the artificial lighting for O'Brien's "Three Bad Men."
"Grip," it may be explained, applies to the person charged with the handling of the screen reflectors which are Old Sol's all-important aids in the securing of photographic perfection in movie filming.
In addition to the chief technical and property staff there are thirty-five company members coming who, in the official roster, are classified "atmosphere and bits."
Following are the principals, with character titles to be used in the screen story: Anders Randolph, "J. Hamilton"; Florence Gilbert, "G. Hamilton"; George O'Brien, "Tom O'Day"; Janet Gaynor, "Ann Burger"; Paul Nicholson, "Peyton Ward"; Paul Panzer, "Joe Burger"; Max Davidson, "David Mandell"; Walter Perry, "Pat O'Day"; Elmo Billings, "Freckles"; Mrs. Billings, "Mother to Freckles"; Mrs. Geddes, "School Teacher"; J. Tant, "Double for Miss Gaynor"; Sid Jordan, "Mullins."
The following are the principal members of the technical and property staff: Irving Cummings, Director; G. Woolstenhulme, Assistant Director; Leo Houck, script clerk; Geo. Schneiderman, cameraman; Joe Valentine, second cameraman; H. Tappenback, assistant cameraman; Lefty Hough, property man; Tom Plews, assistant property man; Lyle Leonard, second property man; Clint Witubees, grip; A. McDonald, wardrobe; Shorty Kline, stock; Tony Travers, music; Joe Zito, music; Chet Davis, electrician; H. Hoffner, electrician; C. Adams, electrician; Ben Wurtzel, business manager."
Sunny skies and perfect photographic conditions cheered Director Irving Cummings, staff and cast of Fox's big "Johnstown Flood" company when, at eight o'clock this morning, they embarked in seven automobiles furnished by the Santa Cruz Cab Company for the first day's actual location work on the Empire Grade, at a site about four miles beyond the old city reservoir.
At the latter location the force of twelve Fox carpenters and engineers working for the past week have prepared and completed an Alleghany farmyard and cabin scene,--the mountain home of Anne Burger (Janet Gaynor) and Joe Burger (Paul Panzer). Here all of today's action was filmed. Tomorrow, in eleven of the Santa Cruz Cab Company's automobiles, practically the entire technical staff and cast will work in the immediate vicinity of Bonny Doon.
We again talked with Florence Gilbert. She didn't work today, but visited, at Director Cummings request, location. Returning, she expressed herself as thrilled beyond measure at the beauties of Santa Cruz's mountains. Miss Gilbert radiates freshness and energy, and, as she explains, gets particular enjoyment out of her Santa Cruz visit because she appreciates especially the beauties of nature done in "gobs of greatness," as found here."