"Hollywood Snapshots"

A shot of the actor Lloyd Hughes in front of the Iris Theater, 6508 Hollywood Blvd. Thanks to John Bengtson for the screenshot from "Hollywood Snapshots" (Hodkinson Films, 1922). It appears, with many other shots from the film, on his Silent Locations post "Hollywood Snapshots - a 1922 Time Machine." He notes that we can see the name of the theatre in the tile floor behind Hughes and that in 1922 Hughes starred with Mary Pickford in "Tess of the Storm Country."

See the Los Angeles Theatres page about the Iris, in 1968 rebranded as the Fox Theatre. It's a building still on Hollywood Blvd., although seriously remodeled both inside and out.  

In his post, John uses shots from other films, as well as vintage photos, to identify many locations. He comments: "Facing a public relations nightmare in 1922 over recent scandals, the film community produced 'Hollywood Snapshots,' a promotional film portraying screen folk as wholesome to middle America...'Snapshots' captures remarkable images of burgeoning early Hollywood, including Hollywood Boulevard, the Famous Players – Lasky Studio, and the Pickford – Fairbanks Studio."

The thirteen and a half minute film is online from the National Film Preservation Foundation, copied from a 35mm tinted nitrate print from the Academy Film Archives discovered in the New Zealand Film Archives collection in 2010. Again thanks to John Bengtson for spotting the film on the NFPF website and providing a link to it in his post. The NFPF site discusses the film:

"As scandals rocked Hollywood in the early 1920s—the suspicious poisoning of Paramount star Olive Thomas followed by the scandalous Fatty Arbuckle trials—the American movie industry teetered on the edge of a public relations disaster. Speaking before the Motion Picture Directors Association in September 1921 (six months before the sensational murder of its president, William Desmond Taylor), William Wadsworth Hodkinson, a founder of Paramount Studios, argued that Hollywood needed to “fight for certain standards of cleanliness and decency…that you want preserved in your home and in society generally.” In early 1922, amid growing calls for national censorship, Hollywood recruited Will Hayes, the sober Postmaster General of the United States, to head the new Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. His mission was to encourage the movie industry to police itself and turn around public opinion.

"This unidentified reel, titled 'Hollywood Snapshots' in the New Zealand Film Archive inventory, dates from shortly after Hayes’s arrival. It follows Hezekiah, a visitor from the sticks, who searches through Screenland for scandal. But instead of wine, women, and song, the country rube encounters denizens reading books, playing with pets, pampering children, and attending church. Over the course of his trek across Beverly Hills and Hollywood, he meets several dozen lesser-known celebrities—Carter De Haven, Katherine McGuire, Viola Dana, Jack Kerrigan, Owen Moore—visits landmarks, and enjoys scenes from 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' (1921) and the now-lost 'Trifling Women' (1922). Finding that movie stars are a wholesome lot—and at bottom remarkably like the folks back home—Hezekiah leaves town, a wiser man.

"'Hollywood Snapshots' makes its point by grafting a simple storyline onto the format of the popular film-fan newsreel showing screen celebrities at work and at play. In an informative illustrated research paper, Paramount archivist Charles Stepczyk argues that this fascinating example of Hollywood spin control was made as a community service for the motion picture industry. He traces the HF logo of the intertitles (center, bottom frame) to Hodkinson Films, concluding that Hodkinson would have had the clout to exact cooperation from the several studios linked with the pictured stars. Many thanks to Charles for his excellent film history detective work!"

See "Hodkinson, Hays and Hollywood," a discussion by Paramount archivist Charles Stepczyk about why the film was produced. It's a pdf on the NFPF website. 

The film can also be seen on YouTube.