Motion Picture News (Oct-Dec 1930)

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Vol. XLII NEW YORK CITY, NOVEMBER 22, 1930 No. 21 WHEN ITS GABBLE TIME IN HOLLYWOOD IT TOOK the philosophers of old to appreciate the fact that silence is golden and the young and often foolish picture business a series of costly and experimental heartaches to arrive at the same conclusion. Now that all doubt has been removed about the demise of sound as a novelty and the industry has learned that talkers don't have to be that in the pure, literal sense of the word, you are about to witness a change in the production formula that will do much to make product hew closer to the line of public demand. ♦ > + Talkers Minus Some Talk TALKERS will talk, but they won't have so much to say. They will be constructed to embrace those natural pauses, those periods of relief which the dramatist who knows his job utilizes to interlude the properly constructed stage play. Where once sound pictures squawked and groaned and conversationalized until there was no rest for those who braved the theatre's portals, you will be enabled to offer your public — and you'll be smart if you talk about it — motion pictures that tell their piece more in terms of images and less in terms of dialogue. ♦ ♦ ♦ The All-Gabber Faces Execution LOOK at it this way if you like: Producers have learned the lesson of the heavily worded picture. They have been made to realize — through the box-office — that one of the serious faults with talkers of the current crop is their inclination to talk the audience to despair. Don't get the idea that this forum thinks silents are to replace sound. That may or may not happen, but the odds in favor of the completely silent film are too remote to worry about when box-offices are suffering" from a current pernicious anemia. The point is that the one hundred per cent, gabber is a dead issue and that natural sound effects will take the place of superfluous words now added to the script because it seems the thing to do. A ♦ + That's Only Part of the Job AXD, further, it is important to dissipate any thoughts in your mind that this is a cure-all for production. It isn't. We again go over published ground in explaining what we think must be done to make pictures better. They must be fewer in number. There must be a wholesome, as well as a wholesale, encouragement of individual — independent, if you like — effort. The vicious Hollywood system of charging one man with the final word on fortyeight, fifty-two or seventy pictures must end because not even a combination of Thalberg, Schulberg and Sheehan, retaining the best features of each, can do it. ♦ > ♦ In the Land of Utopia THERE must be a diversity in locale, which means that Hollywood should be knocked off its pinnacle and made to understand that three thousand miles of land connect it with New York. There must be fewer yes men and more of the other kind and there must be a house cleaning to uproot the incompetents that flourish by political patronage. Then, dear dreamer, there might be some hope. KANN. Published weekly by Motion Picture News, Inc. Founded in September, 1913. Publication. Editorial and General Offices, 729 Seventh Avenue, New York City. B. /. Hudson, President and Publisher; Maurice D. Kann. Editor; Charles F. Hxncs. Managing Editor; Robert Hage, News Editor; James P. Cunningham, Technical Editor; Raymond E. Gallagher, Advertising Manager. Los Angeles Office, Hotel Roosevelt. H oily wood ; William Crouch, Western Representative. Chicago Office, 910 So. Michigan Avenue, Harry II. Holgnist, Central West Representative. Subscription Prices: $3.00 Per year in United States, Mexico, and all V. S. Possessions. Canada. $5.00, Foreign, $10.00. Copyright, 1930, by Motion Picture News. Inc.. United States and Great Britain. Title registered in United States Patent Office and Foreiqn. Entered as second class matter at the Post Office, New York. April 22, 19^6, under Act of March 3, 1879.