California the Movie (Emily Quirke)

Movie 3: Scene 2

This next scene will cover Raymond being hired as the Hell’s Angels airplane manager in 1927. Raymond has always aspired to contribute to Hollywood and to the movie making industry of LA.

    

The Hell’s Angels film was one of Hollywood first inclusion movies that focused, and included, the airplane. This movie, produced by Howard Hughes, used real planes and real actors to reenact World War I.

“Hughes was determined to make a realistic film, including large scale combat scenes shot from the air. To achieve this, he bought a private air force of more than 40 warplanes and kept as many stunt pilots on payroll for a year. The movie actually took three years to complete, in part because sound technology arrived in the middle of the project and Hughes decided to start all over with the new equipment” (Ethington, Hell’s Angels/ Air and Power in a Cinematic Metropolis).

 

Raymond spends almost 3 years working on this movie, and earned a lot of money from its profits. Raymond immediately invested almost all of this money into the stock market, hoping to make big gains on his current mini-fortune. This happened merely months before the great depression. Raymond ends up losing almost every cent that he made while working on Hell’s Angels.

 

As the scene continues, it shows the effects of the Great Depression on Los Angeles. It shows the thousands of homeless people and the thousands of shops and businesses that closed. Neither Raymond nor Lena can find work. People are unable to spend money on airplane development; they cannot even afford basic necessities like food and shelter. Both the rich and the poor are affected, as shown by the hit movie “Gold Diggers”. This clip shows the song “We’re in the Money”. This song shows how important people felt that money was during this time; every cent mattered to the people living in America during the Great Depression.

 

Lena suggests that her and Raymond search for work in other cities in California, but after a couple of weeks of searching in San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose they are still unemployed…

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