LIVING HISTORY
LIBRARY oF CongRess
David o. selznick reclaimed a double dose of his father’s lost magic when
he made Gone With the Wind.
And what of Martin County, where Picture City’s unwired
concrete light poles loom today as disregarded landmarks of
a grand illusion? Like her twin sister, Indian River County,
Martin County was fated to be birthed at the very moment
all the jackpot winnings of the boom were spent and the last
slots came up busted. It would be decades before the county’s
paltry population figures rose. But contrary to logic and naïve
desire, the hard luck had a bright side, too. The region was
spared from attendant woes that might have come with the
gamblers’ answered prayers. You can read a litany of avoided
ills in the tarnish on Hollywood’s tainted halo. In the end, the
region was not fated to become the Tinsel Coast.
Was Picture City ever possible, really? For six or eight
euphoric weeks on the waning side of 1925, it must have
seemed like a wish come true. But as starlets, moviegoers and
busted producers alike all know, when the credits begin to
run and the lights come up, a vast chasm stands between the
world that is and the grandeur we escape to on the screen.
And yet, in real life, the show is never over, not while loose
ends of history still wait to be tied. Someday some gifted director
34
may discover the magic of that fading vision and make
it come alive, but not as the Selznicks once supposed. You
see, those masters of illusion who played with people’s hearts
for profit ended up fooling themselves. They got caught up
in the last gasps of the most sensational mass mania America
has ever seen, a mania bigger than the movies ever set in
motion. And someday the stirring parable of the Picture City
drama may be told again, with all its wildest hopes and harrroowwiinngg
ffaallllss —— iinn tthhee ffrraammeess ooff aa ffaabbuulloouuss fifillmm..
Be part of
the Leading
Magazine on the
treasure Coast
Contact your Martin County ad rep today
Marsha Lange
marsha@indianrivermag.com
973.714.4141
M A G A Z I N E
/www.kempsshoesalon.com
link