Page:Spider Boy (1928).pdf/277

 I suppose a lot of scenes take place in this set, he remarked to Philip Lawrence as they walked away.

No, that's the only one. Oh, I guess there's another with Auburn alone, if Hallam decides to leave it in.

But isn't it awfully expensive to build a big set like this for so little use?

Expensive! I should think it is expensive. Everything Hallam does is expensive. If you handed him a script calling for a single set in a London dive he'd make it expensive. Why, you ought to see the ice palace they're constructing down in a corner of the lot for Spider Boy. Hallam's injected a ski contest into the picture which means dragging the whole company hundreds of miles to a mountain where there's plenty of snow and keeping 'em there till they learn how to use skis. He'll throw in a caravan with camels and the burning down of the Paris Opéra if he can think of a way to do it. This picture will cost two millions before he gets through with it.

Two millions!

At least. He'll take about sixty-four reels of which at the outside they'll use only twelve. If it doesn't turn out to be a super-special they'll only use six. The rest of this grand opus will lie scattered on the cutting-room floor.