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DEVELOPMENT OF THE DIALOGUE FILM 17
stage " acting," we must admit that it had one great merit inasmuch as fresh ideas and new personalities found their way into the studios. It was as if a stimulating wind blew through the exhausted, leaden atmosphere of the film factories.
For some time the response of the public, eager to see and hear this new wonder, remained steady, and the producers were content to make any film so long as it spoke loudly. They congratulated themselves on having backed this new method of appeal, becoming so occupied with speech and sound in their most obvious forms that practically no experiment other than the perfecting of the technical apparatus took place in this new medium.
It is a matter of common observation to appreciate that since talking films have occupied the attention of the studios, the pictorial value of the screen has greatly deteriorated. Directors and cameramen have been so absorbed in arranging and recording the speech of their players that they have neglected the all-important considerations of camera angle and composition. The films of the last year of the silent period were far more pleasing from a pictorial point of view than most of the films to-day.
As was only to be expected, this period of craving for hearing speech soon began to fade, and despite the enormous expense to which the producers had been put by installing sound systems and rebuilding their studios, they found themselves confronted once again with the problem of discovering a still more stimulating method of novelty appeal. Plentiful evidence existed last year and exists to-day that the filmgoing public has tired of