When we read about the great days of Hollywood in the 193os, it seems incredible that the studios could have spent so much money and employed so many stars. But when we realise what the people in charge of the studios were like, it is surprising that they made any good films at all.

Almost all the owners of the big film companies had come to America as salesmen and suddenly realised that they could make a lot of money from films. They owned the production companies and the cinemas as well as the studios, so they were so powerful that no one could make a successful film without them. In private life, they were such ignorant, unattractive people that their employees thought they were monsters. There are so many amusing stories about them that we sometimes forget that they had such a dangerous influence on the cinema for such a long time.

Carl Laemmle of Universal was a family man. He employed so many of his relations that when he died, seventy of them were working for the company. Samuel Goldwyn never learnt to speak English properly. 'I can answer you in two words,' he said once : 'im possible'. Harry Cohn of Columbia had a nasty sense of humour ; he gave his visitors electric shocks by pressing a button connected to their chairs. Everyone hated Louis B. Mayer so much that when someone asked Goldwyn why so many people had come to hisfuneral, he said, 'They want to make sure he's dead.'

`Gone. with the Wind' is prob- ably the most famous Hollywood film of this period. The story of how Vivien Leigh was chosen for the star role of Scarlett O'Hara illustrates the title of this article. The studio interviewed 1,400 girls for the part. They made so many screen tests that the test film was almost as long as 'Gone with the Wind' itself. But when the producer, David 0. Selznick, began shooting the picture, he still had not found the right actress. He was going to start by filming the burning of Atlanta. He waited for an hour because his brother Myron was late. Finally everyone got so impatient that he had to start without him. The enormous imitation city was set on fire.

Then Myron arrived and introduced him to Vivien Leigh. 'I want you to meet Scarlett O'Hara,' he said. `Gone with the Wind' was so successful that it ran for three years in London. You can still see it in cinemas today. Vivien Leigh won an Oscar. She gave such an outstanding performance that she was more famous than her husband, Sir Laurence Olivier, for a long time. But all the previous screen tests must have seemed a terrible waste of money.

It was not quite as simple for Vivien Leigh as it sounds. She had to do a test with three other actresses before she got the part. But she had two great advantages. She was a very beautiful, talented young woman. And Myron Selznick was her agent !