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THE ART OF SOUND PICTURES
and then takes a speaking part. Later, she switches back again from speaking to silence. Study this picture with care and you will almost certainly observe that the first shift from Corinne silent to Corinne talkie is not genuinely offensive. But the shift back from talkie to silence is thoroughly obnoxious.
Notice particularly the silent sequence, in which we see Corinne’s sister drop in for an evening visit with hubby and the baby just when the newlyweds want to be left alone. The absence of speech here is enough to infuriate a rabbit. Having previously heard the hoarse, hard voice of the cynical and cunning sister, we are bewildered at the miracle by which she has been suddenly stricken dumb. For this we may thank God but not the director.
The problem of placing music against dialogue is a delicate one. In the early months of the talkies, every producer was strongly tempted to use a great deal of singing. Songs were known to be popular, but that was not the only reason for introducing them. They came in handy by way of economizing on dialogue, which is very difficult to write. Up to the summer of 1929, there was a marked preponderance of stories some of whose leading characters were singers and had to sing at length in the development of the action. An excellent illustration of this is Weary River, in which Richard Barthelmess played the role of an underworld youth who composed lovely music. The more discerning motion picture critics objected to a repetition of the song Weary River throughout the presentation.
If you want to see how the theme song should be handled, see The Pagan. Here, it is treated far more