The Devil's Candy: The Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco by Julie Salamon

Author:Julie Salamon [Salamon, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B001F517O2
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11 HOLLYWOOD WAY

The Warner Bros, water tower was a big, old-fashioned structure that looked like a giant barrel on stilts, a replica of the water towers in Hollywood Westerns signaling to travelers from a distance that they were approaching a frontier town. In this case, the town was the Warner Bros, lot, and both town and tower had become relics of another age. The tower no longer contained water, and most movies were made off the lot. Still, the tower remained a potent symbol for the glory days of the studio, when this 140-acre sprawl on the Burbank side of the Hollywood Hills really was the physical plant for the factory of dreams.

For the last two decades, Warner Bros, had shared the lot with Columbia Pictures as part of the retrenchment of the 1960s. During that period, the real estate originally acquired in 1928 by the founding Warner brothers — Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack — had lost its individuality if not its value. For twenty years the two studios shared sound stages and screening rooms under the generic rubric of The Burbank Studios. The Warner Bros, logo on the water tower had been replaced by the initials TBS.

But in the summer of 1990, the year the studio celebrated its fiftieth birthday, Warner Bros, had regained its lot as part of the $1 billion settlement of the breach of contract suit Warner filed against Sony Corporation for hiring Peter Guber and Jon Peters. In return for its 35 percent interest in the Burbank Studios, Columbia received the old MGM lot in Culver City, which Warner owned. Warner emerged triumphant: not only had its historic boundaries been restored, but the Burbank property was worth about $50 million more than the Culver City land.

The water tower had been refurbished to reflect the new order. The TBS was replaced by a freshly painted Warner Bros, logo: a bright white WB glistening against an electric blue shield. The symbolism was lost on no one: the lot was once again stamped with the familiar mark that identified every piece of company property

— from Bugs Bunny cartoons to “Batman” to “The Bonfire of the Vanities.”

The “Bonfire” crew was happy to report to work in this cloistered world on June 12. After the frantic uncertainty of New York’s streets, the rigidly enforced security of the lot was comforting, as was the five-day-a-week, days-only shooting schedule. Every morning crew members turned onto Hollywood Way, the street whose terminus was Gate 4 of the Warner Bros, lot, where guards closely inspected entry passes before allowing anyone — no matter how familiar the face — to enter the grounds.

Behind the gate stood the tower, silhouetted against the grizzled Hollywood Hills. Giant buildings resembling airplane hangars lined up to the east and north of the water tower. These were the sound stages where entire apartments, offices, and subway systems could be built and dismantled as needed. Rows of one- and two- story buildings sprawled across the rest of the lot. These housed offices and storerooms for canisters of film.

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