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NOLLYWOOD MOVIES 19
An Airplane Photograph of Part of Hollywood, Calif.
Films and IV orld
LOS ANGELES, says a copyrighted editorial in the New York Times , rejoicing by anticipation in fifth place among the cities as successor to Cleveland, should pause a moment to ponder the mutability of human things. There is under way a process which forecasts for the young giant of Southern California a somewhat slower growth in the next ten years than during the last two decades.
That omen is the talkies. It is by no means certain that Hollywood will retain her unchallenged monopoly in the film industry of the nations. At the present moment she queens it in greater splendor than ever. Her sound films are believed in some quarters to threaten the very existence of ►he living theatre. They have already drawn to the Coast much of the vocal acting talent of Broadway. But the signs of a reaction are at hand. American film producers now in London are reported to be engaged on elaborate production schemes for the British talkie market. Arrangements for the French and German speaking publics have already been made. English actors now employed with the Fox interests at Hollywood will go home to take part in the new program. The same thing has already been reported of French talent at Hollywood.
The talkie seems destined to restrict if not quite to break up the unity of mankind established by the movie. The silent film is the most universal single interest ever evolved by the race, more comprehensive, when measured by range and mass, than any. one religion, empire, language in history. A Chaplin film, a Pickford and Fairbanks film, a “Western,”
Unity
is as intimate to audiences in the Congo interior and on the Labrador coast as to audiences on Pennsylvania Avenue and in Piccadilly. Now the universal brotherhood of the sign language is menaced by the advent of the sound film — the story of Babel Tower all over again.
It is not mere national pride that makes Frenchmen and Germans and Italians ask for talkies in their own tongue. It was inevitable that they should rise in demand for the new esthetic thrill. The magic of the spoken word is felt by all men. The natives of the Zambesi, when they have made acquaintance with the voice from the screen, will not be solely content with Hollywood jazz and opera. If there are enough of the Zambesians to make it worth while they will have their own words and music turned out for them.
Industrial and business centres, once they have taken root, are hard to kill. They may suffer with a change in conditions, but they do a good deal of adapting before they cry quits. There are still many years ahead for the textile mills of New England and Lancashire, the money market in London, the luxury trades in Paris. So Hollywood, because of historic advantages, will remain the capital of the film industry for a long time to come. But her monopoly will not be so complete. The talkie is developing minor producing centres for foreign markets, even like the Ford plants abroad. The nature of the talkie makes such decentralization feasible because its plots are more of interiors than of the open air. To that extent the talkies are independant of the California sunlight.