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Часть 1. Конкурс понимания письменного текста

READING COMPREHENSION

Time: 45 minutes

Part 1

Read this article on Hollywood and decide if the statements on the following page are true (A), False (B) or not mentioned in the text (C). Mark your answers on your answer sheet.

It was the sunny climate of Southern California that attracted film producers to a stretch of desert outside Los Angeles at the start of the twentieth century. The prospect of 350 days of sunshine a year meant that film production could continue without worrying about bad weather, thus making it more effective.

Cecil B De Mille’s film, The Squaw Man, released in1914, is generally regarded as the first feature film to be produced in Hollywood. Other production companies soon followed. Douglas Fairbanks, a star of silent films, founded United Artists. He and his wife, Mary Pickford, became the ‘king and queen’ of Hollywood, giving extravagant parties at their grand home, ‘Pickfair’, attended by all famous stars of the day, such as Charlie Chaplin and Rudolf Valentino.

Valentino almost exclusively played romantic roles in films like The Sheik, made in 1921. He was idolised for his good looks and could be regarded as the first superstar. When he died of peritonitis at the height of his career, thousands attended his funeral.

The search for a practical sound film process had been going on since the beginning of the century, but it wasn’t until 1927 that ‘talking pictures’ came to Hollywood, the first being The Jazz Singer starring Al Johnson. The first words spoken on screen in front of astounded audience were, “Wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”

The use of colour tints for dramatic effect was common in the early days of Hollywood, in films such as The Birth of a Nation. Later there were experiments using red and green filters, a process that was gradually improved until the advent of full Technicolor in the film Becky Sharp, made in 1935. Here three colours, (red, green and blue) were used and put together to form other colours.

Hollywood’s first cartoon character, Gertie the Dinosaur, made her debut in 1914, the creation of a New York cartoonist, Windsor Mc Cay. But in 1928, cartoon films were revolutionised by Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie. This was not only the first cartoon film with sound but it introduced the immortal Mickey Mouse.

The cinema’s fondness for horror began in 1910 when Edison studios made a version of Frankenstein based on the nineteenth century Gothic novel by Mary Shelley. In the 1920s Germany dominated the horror film scene with films like Nosferatu, a version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The British actor Boris Karloff appeared in Frankenstein with sound in 1931. For his role as the monster, Karloff had to spend seven hours a day having his grotesque make-up applied.

Today, Hollywood is not the film industry’s only centre of excellence, but it will always be known as the ‘dream factory’ of cinema’s golden years.

1. It rarely rains in Hollywood.