The Film Daily (1935)

THE 12 » » TOPICS OF TIMELY INTEREST €€ « Why Charlie Chaplin's Tramp Will Never Talk T KNOW that the new generations do not know a thing about silent pictures, their forms, their mimicry, their quick tempo and so on, but I figure that the public will always like a good entertainment whatever its form may be. Look at the legitimate stage. There is room enough for the ballet, for the opera, for the drama. Why shouldn't there be and coexist various forms of motion pictures, silent ones besides talkies? As long as I keep this character I can't talk. If I should start talking, my tramp would change into a wholly different man. Talking would localize him. With the first word he would cease to be the universal creature whose joys and troubles are comprehensible to all countries as well here in America as in Europe or somewhere in Abyssinia. A talking tramp would be either an American or an Englishman, someone from a specific country. This is the reason why I have resisted so far the talkies. I simply could not talk a word in this character. I would have killed my twenty years work. I may give it up, though, and it will be different then. I shall be free to talk, if I choose to talk. Nobody talks in my new picture. Originally I thought that the others might talk even if I remained silent, but then I knew that it wouldn't work. It would look as if I were dumb. And so we use sound only indirectly through radio broadcasting and so on. In our publicity we shall stress the fact that on the same length we shall give the public 14 reels of entertainment, whereas a talking picture gives only 8. A silent picture is quick, its tempo is dashing and there can be, therefore, more action. When we started to work I employed at first talking picture actors. But I had to discharge them; they all wanted to talk. As soon as there was a dramatic scene they automatically opened their mouths, totally forgetting the mimicry. I had to look for people who still remembered silent pictures and how we used to do it then. And I had to look not only for ac SMART ONES have discovered truly Continental atmosphere — view of Central Park, superior service? invitingly inexpensive rates. (Single, $3.50-$5; Double, $5-$7) The popular CONTINENTAL GRILL, the CAFE de la PAIX and America's only it i >ii»i:lvi ayi:k\s * smart, meaning the clever, the knowing and, of course, the fashionable. MORITZ ON THE PARK 50 CENTRAL PARK SOUTH. NEW YORK Direclion: S. GREGORY TAYLOR tors, but for cameramen, assistant directors and others as well, for people who did not work in talkies at all or could at least remember the old days. We thus helped many who since the victory of the talkies could not get a job. A comedy must have action. When people talk, action stops. I shall always make only silent comedies, even if I gave up the tramp character and started with a new one. Should I ever make a talking picture either as actor or director, it will be only a drama, never a comedy. — Charlie Chaplin in interview in "Intercine". "Natural" Colors Will Run Riot on the Screen A LL art begins as a practical, mnemonic means, then goes through a second phase in response to man's need to embellish and adorn, and finally reaches the third phase, where it loses the more or less practical quality of the two former ones and becomes "art for art's sake." When this point is reached, however, there is a final reaction which is at the same time a step forward and a step back: we return, that is, to the "imitation of reality, but an imitation which benefits by our experience up to date." The cinema has not escaped this law: from a simple excellent documentary instrument as the Brothers Lumiere saw it, it has come, through the abstract aestheticism of the vanguard, to a living, substantial realism which conciliates documentary rights, originality of style and the narration of a fact. But we are now seeing a new birth of the cinema, that is to say, of the color cinema. In this early stage, what is wanted is "natural" colors, that is to say, a faithful reproduction of colors as we see them, the illusion of multi-colored reality. Those carrying on the laboratory experiments are in despair, because they do not succeed in getting these natural colors. "Becky Sharp" interests the public on account of its novelty, but the public also is disappointed because the colors are not "natural." But there is no need to despair, on the one side or the other. We shall have "natural" colors; extra-natural, in fact, till we are sick of the sight of them. Next will come the turn of the aesthete, who will show us that art consists less in reproducing real colors than in giving us the feeling of artificial colors, as we get it from paintings. Aestheticism will be followed by impressionism, and the screen will give us the most audacious and unnatural chromatic experiments: green people, red mea dows, yellow seas. None of these experiments should be dismissed as senseless or useless, however; they will all help us, amid the indignant howling of the crowd, to gain a perception of the function of color in cinematography; and then at last we shall come to the final phase, though we of the present day shall probably not be here to see it, when this new wealth of the cinema will find its equilibrium. The colors will not be either "natural" as we want them today or "artificial" as some are already demanding, but will lie spread on the palette of the future director, leaving to him the full joy of creating for the delight of the spectator. in "Intercine". — Corrado Pavolini Korda Tells Why He Seeks The Unusual in Film Stories TF the British film industry is to expand and grow, we must not just copy American ideas, but strike out on our own. I do not make "different" films like "Things to Come" or "The Ghost Goes West" in an effort to be unusual, but because I think films of this nature make the most money. I am a plain business man. I have observed audiences. I seem them grow weary of hokum. The eternal triangle of Tom, Dick and Marv doesn't interest them any more. It is true that if Tom, Dick and Mary are famous stars a certain proportion of the public still go automatically to see any film in which they appear But the film won't make a hit — it will leave the audience dissatisfied. If, on the other hand, one can advertise that "Things to Come" has been written bv a famous author like H. G. Wells, I believe the public will go out of its way to see it. They'll make a point of not missing it, for they know that Wells will give them new food for thought. He'll stir them, grip them, reason with them, entertain them. It is most essential that inspiration be allowed to take its own course in every department of film creation. When I choose directors I seek the cleverest ones I can find, give them stories which suit them and then allow them a free hand. I recently persuaded Rene Clair to work for me. "The Ghost Goes West," a really satirical and fantastic story, was entirely suited to his capabilities. He can handle fantasv with the perfection of Walt Disney and his buoyant French humor makes him a clever satirist. Yes, the public likes creative entertainment — and so I give it to them. — Alexander Korda