Picture Play Magazine (Jan - Jun 1931)

22 The Future of Melody Films He has had the cooperation of I lammcrstcin on various of his siii Then there will be the Rudolph Friml effort to combine music with spectacular and dramatic interest in "The Lottery Bride." Friml is another operetta composer, with a long and hit-bespangled career, including at various stages, "Firefly," "High Jinks," "Katinka,*' "Rose-Marie," and others. He is recognized as one of the most brilliant and original composers. One can also sec remarkably interesting prospects for "Men of the Sky." by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach. The former wrote the music for one of the most famous of all stage successes, "Show Boat." Kern is regarded by many as one of the most inspired of composers of the lighter order to-day. There are besides. "New Moon," a Romberg work starring Lawrence Tibbett, "A Lady's Morals," inspired by the life of Jenny Lind, for Grace Moore's debut; "Monte Carlo." featuring Tcanette MacDonald and «** Jack Buchanan, and directed by Ernst Luhitsch ; "The Playboy of Paris," Maurice Chevalier's latest adventure, which includes, I believe, only a couple of songs ; "The Hot Heiress," written by Rodgers. Fields, and Hart, who did a musical version of "The Connecticut Yankee" for the stage, and wrote "Ten Cents a Dance" ; and "Just Imagine." by De Sylva, Brown, and Henderson of "Sunny Side Up" note. These appear among the most outshining. The Jenny Lind music, one might mention, is by Oscar Strauss and Herbert Stothart. Strauss, needless to recall, composed "The Chocolate Soldier." It looks as if the studios were being far more discriminating in whom they choose to provide tunes for the screen than they were in the beginning. There isn't the wholesale importation of the Tinpan Alley composers of a year ago. Not so long past these same Tin-pan Alley ites were being shipped hack by the carload to Xew York. They had their gay little day. but most of them failed to deliver what was wanted by the movie public. Here's what one producer told me about the whole affair: "The trouble with those boys was that they were selfish. All they wanted was to have the pictures plug their songs, so they would have a big sale of the sheet music and the phonograph records. They'd stick in a song wherever it suited them. They used vaudeville methods of introducing a number, literally forcing it upon the audiences. "To be sure, we were at fault, too. We let them get away with it, perhaps even encouraged it in the beginning. The song came first half the time, the picture afterward. We overestimated the public's capacity for listening to tunes, and disregarded the fact that these tunes often marred the plot of the picture by slowing down the action. Many of the song films were consequently so dull and tedious that people walked out of the theater, or refused to go at all. "This season the studios have different ideas of musical pictures. The music will be logically introduced. It will form a part of the action of the picture. The singer will be natural about it, and that doesn't mean that every hero is to be a cabaret or vaudeville performer, either, or that every story is to be a back-stage story. We shall endeavor to create an environment for music at the beginning of the production, and let the rest carry itself along." Examples of this more recent tendency can be found "Children of Dreams." Here the characters are the gypsylike fruit pickers of the California orchards. They are a nomadic type, and it is entirely believable that they may sing as they work. Furthermore, they have to djRnd on their own efforts for amusement and entertainment during off hours. It is logical that those with talent should display this talent in songs and dances. The later scenes of "Children of Dreams" transport one to the opera house. Here the singing is again wholly in order. In both this operetta and in "Viennese Nights," Hammerstein and Romberg have endeavored to fashion a musical aspect to the picture right at the start. and it is their belief that this can be done with any number of romantic plots. Kern's musical film. "Men of the Sky." is a story of France and Germany during the war, and Kern himself told me that the aim is to keep all the music atmospheric. Whenever melody is heard it will appear to be part of the setting. It will emanate either from a cafe or