Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

The Talkies HaVe a Birtkday 47 Flash, Dynamite, Napoleon, Ranger, Sandow, Silver Streak, and Thunder, have retired to their palatial kennels in Beverly Hills. But "Rinty" has made friends with the microphone and has correlated his gift of pantomime with engaging barks, growls, and sniffs. The initial season of sound has raised many problems for the producers to solve. Lon Chaney, for instance, has flatly refused to open his lips for the sake of recording. Metro-Goldwyn, on the other hand, fears his popularity will be impaired if he does not have access to the ever-increasing number of screens which are going in exclusively for talking pictures. Mary Pickford has fallen in with the demand for voices and is making her first audible film, "Coquette." The opening week's work in this unfamiliar medium is said to have been a terrific strain on her nerves, but she is bravely going through the ordeal to satisfy her fans. Douglas Fairbanks, however, is proceeding with utmost caution and is to have sound effects but no dialogue in "The Iron Mask." Instead he will employ a voice, or voices, in the manner of the chorus in a Greek drama. Another one who is up against it by this unexpected turn of studio affairs is Charles Chaplin. How will the fans reconcile his Picadilly accent with the rags of an underdog? Will his tramp characterizations convince when he begs a hand-out in a voice that belongs in a Mayfair drawing-room? The talkies, too, have very definitely turned back the tide of the foreign invasion. Foreign accents are an obstacle that studios are not anxious to hurdle. It is perplexing enough to decide what they shall do with those stars in whose development they have already invested large sums of money. To find a talking vehicle for Emil Jannings, which will justify his Teutonic enunciation, is taxing every bit of ingenuity of the Paramount scenario staff. Even if they find one it will only temporarily solve the difficulty, since there can only be limited variations to such a type of story. Greta Garbo's future is similarly distressing the MetroGoldwyn chiefs. Lily Damita, Greta Nissen, Lya de Putti, and Camilla Horn are all under the same cloud of uncertainty as to the future. Not only foreign stars, but foreign directors, will be affected by the situation. There will be fewer megaphone importations from now on, unless European directors arrive minus the handicap of un familiarity with English. Of course, there is the consideration that often a story specifically calls for a foreign accent from one or more of its players. How this exigency will be met from now on has been solved by Fox in the all-talking production, "In Old Arizona," without some 1 Photo by Fryer Rejuvenated by the talkies, Conrad Nagel is now going strong. Photo by Paralta David Lee, the Sonny Boy of "The Singing Fool," is the great "discovery" of the talkies. He'll be at the party all right. mention of which any discussion of dialogue pictures would be incomplete. By means of it Fox proves that hereafter an accent will be donned as easily as make-up. American players will be expected to cultivate whatever manner of speech the story demands as part of their qualifications for its roles. Not only is "In Old Arizona" a thoroughly expert example of a talking picture from a technical point of view, and one that sets a high standard for other audible dramas, but it is rich in its contributions to the ranks of the speaking stars. Warner Baxter plays the bandit known as The Cisco Kid, and his voice is as Mexican as a hot tamale. And another thing, if you've been weeping your heart out that "What Price Glory?" was filmed before they knew how to make shadows talk, don't sorrow any more. "In Old Arizona" also features Edmund Lowe, and in his role of the roughneck cavalryman in love with the bandit's inamorata, he slings all the wisecracking patter with which Sergeant Quirt conquered Charmaine. At the talkie's birthday party both Baxter and Lowe will sit near the head of the table. [Continued on page 105]