The Bioscope (Jul-Sep 1931)

23rd YEAR. SUBSCRIPTION s Home 10 '6 per annum. Abroad 30/ per annum. “Independence and Progress ” (FOUNDED BY JOHN CABOURN) Faraday House, 8-10, Charing Cross Road, London, W.C. 2. Telephone : Temple Bar 7921, 7922. Telegrams : “Gainsaid, W estrand London.” No 1297. Vol. LXXXVI1I AUGUST 1 2m, 1931 PRICE 6d. In Brief rf ’O T AL gross trading profits of B.I.P. * and A.B.C. show a joint increase of £250 ,000 on the previous year’s figures. Page 18 A NEW school for film artists and technicians is to be opened in London by British Cinematograph Training Studios, with which Sinclair Hill is associated. Page 19 SUBSTANTIAL reductions in service ^ charges, to operate on October 4th, are announced by Western Electric. Page 19 J UPINO Lane states that his new production unit has been completed, and will include Stanley Lupino. Page 19 A N attempt to reduce overhead costs ** by a system of “ unit production” is to be tested by David Selznick in Hollywood. Page 18 A NNE GREY has been signed by Julius Hagen to play with Denis Neilson-Terry in the forthcoming Twickenham production “A Murder at Covent Garden.” Page 22 I JNION Theatres, biggest Australian circuit, has passed its half-yearly dividend, due largely to the present state of depression. Page 21 A NEW process of film faking used by Hollywood technicians is described by Randall Terraneau, just back from the American studios. Page 18 A LEX AN PER Korda, well-known international director, is preparing the scenario for a Paramount British Production of Kipling's “ The Light that Foiled.” page 22 A N N UAL report of New Era discloses a loss of £37 ,530 , due, the directors state, to writing off all silent film stock. Page 30 Killing “ Refanement ” This week brings a thought or tw'o for the wailers who since “ talkies ” came across the waves have never ceased to lament that “ the pure well of English undefiled ” has suffered pollution by the projection (literally) of the American nasal organ and its trumpetings. American Broadcasting authorities have made a beau geste. They have decided — as they had a perfect right not to do — that they will henceforth call themselves “ over the air ” a “ Broad-CH //-sting ” concern instead of a “ Broad-CT /.//-sting ” one. Most English people will agree that they have made an improvement, and that the abandonment of the long nasal American “ A ” sound will wreak no verbal disfigurement on English as she is spoke in U.S.A. Hollywood also is toning down the more rasping sounds accompanying broad American speech. Is not some measure of reciprocation on the part of British film producers and artists now due ? The fact is indisputable that there is revulsion among British listeners — whether to radio or films — against the kind of Americanised English which has a saw edge to it. But just as there has been Americanese and Americanese, even more so has there been English and English. And from the first unsibilated sounds of the British film, the insistent outcry against the doubtful euphony of the competitive commodity from across the Atlantic, has almost drowned the less noisy but equally well founded grouse which the masses of British picturegoers have been trying to air against the affectations of speech often foisted upon them in the name of English “refanement.” If we are to believe, as it seems we must, that the height of flattery is imitation, the odds are against the dulcet accents of the “ oh-sonaice-Englishman ” and in favour of the daw'dling, drawling, gumpunctuated lip of the “ ninety-per-cent. -all-American.” Sez we ! For it is a patent fact that in the smallest hamlet and most crowded city of Great Britain to-day the juvenile who doesn’t “ go crackers over summat ” stands very little chance of escaping introduction by his associates to that most luscious American fruit “ the raspberry.” And it was in 1928 we heard the first American “ talkie ” ; were told, albeit by none other than the great (still remembered) A1 Jolson, that we “ hadn’t heard nuthin yet.” The Isis has flowed its centuries through the Garden of English culture, but Oxford and Cambridge have never yet made forcible appeal to the imitative instincts of Bow and Wigan. Clearly the day of compromise is near. British audiences do not want raucous American. Neither do they wrant the sickly accents ; the affected intonations ; the irritating snobbery of speech, which so many anxious young British players are apt to pass off for real English . When these players have learned that lesson they may become stars ! Hollywood, Elstree, Shepherds Bush and all may as well appreciate that the great British public calls for screen dialogue in good sound robust English, with that ring about it which is reminiscent of centuries of roast beef and hearty ale. That is the kind of English which America will quickly learn to love and imitate. It will become the language of the Transatlantic tribes.