PPM revisits Manchester's Belle Vue amusement park - Picture ...

The magic of Hollywood
Philip Yaxley and his bewitching postcards
Hollywood, particularly in its golden age from the
1920s to the 1940s, was just made for the picture
postcard. Famous studios, legendary film stars and
their palatial homes, movie theatres, restaurants and
hotels, even Hollywood Boulevard itself, afforded
publishers so much material. Academy award ceremonies,
premieres and other glitzy events added to
the subject mix.
Since my youth I have been bewitched by the
magic of the flicks and four visits to Hollywood in
recent years have fired my desire to add postcards of
the world’s movie capital to my cinematic collection.
Shown here are some of my favourites from the 300
or so I have acquired to date.
C a r d s
were published in 1950 and 1951 to
mark the Oscar ceremonies in those years. The event on
both occasions was held at the Pantages Theatre on Hollywood
Boulevard. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences, which initiated the Oscars, was established in
1927 by Louis B. Mayer , Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks
and others. (A-B-H Publication, Los Angeles).
Today the Hollywood area
is part of Los Angeles and
boasts a population in
excess of 200,000, but
when the picture postcard
was already enjoying its
own golden age in the first
decade of the last century
what became known as
Tinseltown was still a rural
community of scattered
homes and farms among
orange and lemon groves
outside L.A. Then in 1912
Carl Laemmie set up the
Universal film manufacturing
company and a year
later Cecil B. De Mille
directed the first full-length
feature film, The Squaw
Man, for the Jessie Lasky
Play Company in a barn,
which today houses the
‘must-see’ Hollywood Heritage
Museum. With
unspoilt countryside, ideal
for Westerns, the proximity
of a beautiful coastline
and, most importantly,
year-round sunshine, the
area was just made for
movie-making. Studios
multiplied and in the early
days ones established by
Mary Pickford, Al Christie,
Mack Sennett, Charlie
Chaplin and Fox were
among those pictured on
postcards - particularly by
the Californian Postcard
Company of California and
the Pacific Novelty Company
of San Francisco and
Los Angeles. Some of the
former’s cards are eminently
fascinating as they
feature scenes of film sets
and the shooting of movies
starring such greats of the
silent era as Gloria Swanson,
Douglas Fairbanks,
Mary Pickford and the Talmadge
sisters Norma and Constance.
Eventually, as well
as publishing companies,
some of the big studios,
among them Universal,
Warners, Paramount and
Metro-Goldwyn Mayer,
issued their own promotional
cards.
Film fans who flocked
to the picture palaces in the
(above) Looking
west along Hollywood
Boulevard this card, produced
by the Tichnor Art
Company, L.A., was
postally used on 5 July
1942. The Pentages,
another of the famous
movie theatres located
on Hollywood Boulevard,
was opened in
1930 and was once
owned by Howard
Hughes. The Academy
Awards were held at
the theatre from 1950
to 1959.
1920s and 1930s to
escape the harsh
realities of the daily
grind in times of
depression and in
the 1940s from the
horrors of war were
captivated by the
extravagant and
surreal lifestyles of their silver
screen heroes. Like fan
magazines and sensational
stories in newspaper gossip
columns, postcards, too,
must have played their part
in fuelling the fans’ obsession
with those movie gods
and goddesses created by
the studio publicity
machines. Many cards were
continued......
The Pacific’s Cinerama Theatre,
located on Sunset and Ivar, is seen here at its opening in
November 1963 when it staged the premiere of Stanley
Kramer’s It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. It is characterized
by the first geodesic dome in concrete anywhere in
the world. (Colourpicture Publishers Inc, Boston, Mass).
Picture Postcard Monthly July 2010 29