Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

THE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSAL APPEAL 23 Widespread attempts have been made to produce multilingual films at large cost but with singularly unfortunate results. In America the problem has been tackled in various ways. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Fox have tried importing players and making German and Spanish versions of their more successful pictures. But most of these films have not been productive of very encouraging results, especially in the South American market, where the speech was violently resented. Paramount, on the other hand, have carried production into the camp of the enemy by opening up huge studios for making foreign versions at Joinville, near Paris. There, directors are engaged to patch together American pictures and French post-synchronized voices, with the result that intelligent Frenchmen look askance at the result. Recently, the Americans have relaxed their efforts to supply the foreign market and have been content with meeting only the demand of the English-speaking peoples. But even this restricted market is in a state of constant fluctuation and many American talking films have been lamentable failures in England. In Europe, both France and Germany are making a big drive in production in their native languages, and considerable co-operation has sprung up between the two countries. Ufa recently announced a large production-schedule of trilingual super films, including American versions for which it has secured a small circuit of theatres in the States. The Tobis company, also, has lately been buying a series of cinemas in America. Bold projects, these, which are not without their humorous aspects. Italy, Sweden and Czecho