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CUPID struggled along very nicely for several thousand years doing his work with no other equipment ' than a bow and a handful of arrows. Now Hollywood comes along, and, with true Hollywoodian enterprise, proposes to equip the little god of love with a loudspeaker.
Love on the silversheet is no longer to remain dumb. It is to be given words to speak, incidental sound effects to go with the words, and possibly the U. S. Marine Corps Band playing "Indian Love Call" in the distance. Sound effects with screen love scenes are all right. But to allow the talkies to put actual words into the mouths of screen lovers is treading on mighty dangerous territory.
When love ceases to be dumb, it becomes very dumb, — at least, to total strangers who have to listen to it. In poetry, the language of love may be a beauteous thing of flowers, nightingales, and silvery moons, but in real life the language of love is usually a superbly idiotic combination of moonstruck sighs, baby talk, and inarticulate grunts. To the participants such talk is undoubtedly more exquisite than the music of the spheres. To the disinterested bystander, it sounds like an executive session of a home for the feeble-minded.
The greatest charm of love scenes on the screen has hitherto been their silence. Every member of the audience could imagine himself actually in the screen lover's place, and could imagine just what he himself would be saying. The minute you put words into the mouth of the screen lover that illusion is forever
By HAL K. WELLS
From now on, fans may not only see but hear the sizzling of scenes between their more feverish favorites. Above are, at the left, Dolores Costello and Conrad Nagel; Greta Garbo and John Gilbert; and, at the right, Mary Philbin smd Don Alvarado
broken. Instead of being imaginary participants in the action, the audience becomes merely spectators.
I have yet to see a talkie love sequence on the screen that did not bring a ripple of snickers from the audience. Yet, with the talkie accompaniment eliminated, most of those same sequences were beautifully enough done to carry all the old-time thrill to the audience. With the talkies, instead of being thrilling they became merely ridiculous.
Nor is there any apparent way in which producers are going to change this condition in future talking love sequences. Can you, for instance, imagine the spoken words to go with a necking match between John Gilbert and Greta Garbo ? What in the heck could they say that would not be a ridiculous anti-climax to the action itself?
Yes, I know that "Romeo and Juliet," the greatest love epic in dramatic history, owes its charm to its spoken words. But I haven't seen any evidence of William Shakespeare being numbered among the Hollywood writers of today. And, for that matter, I'm willing to bet that if the average motion picture fan had to choose for an evening's entertainment between hearing a distinguished stage company give "Romeo and Juliet," and seeing the latest love epic of Gilbert and Garbo in the silent drama, Juliet and her boy-friend would run a very poor second, might even be lost entirely.
I'm also aware of the fact that the love element gets over very well in the spoken lines of the modern legitimate stage. But {Continued on page 82)
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