Screenland (Nov 1929-Apr 1930)

for December 19 2 9 15 ml THE EDITOR'S PAGE Will Rogers says: "A horse doctor is the smartest kind of doctor in the world, because he has to know where his patients hurt. The horse can't tell him!" Will, as usual, said a mouthful — Beechnut, please. The same is true of talkie producers. They must be the horse doctors of their audiences. They must gauge to the split second when the spectators will react to speaking scenes, give them time to digest the dialog, and then to settle down for the next bit. Audience reaction is one of the puzzles of talking motion pictures. And from the audience point of view — I hear on all sides comments and complaints about the difficulties of concentration in a talkie theater, what with neighbors who never do recover from the comedian's last wise-crack or else miss it altogether and spend the rest of the evening asking: "What was that he said?" Add to this problem that of faulty acoustics and imperfect sound projection and you have the one real menace to the complete and permanent success of the talking screen. More and better manners in the audience, please! I'll keep quiet if you will! WHAT THEY THINK! Winston Churchill: "The motion picture is a new institution of education spreading all over the world, providing a new process of education and civilization for all peoples. The motion picture is an essential part of the forward march of civilization, and as such is standing in opposition to the brutal passions and hatred which even in our time have wrought conflict between nations." Pola Negri: 'The talkies are the thing the public wants, but the public will soon get tired of them." George Bernard Shaw: "The talkies have come to stay." Lillian Gish: "Whatever the public may feel about movies as they used to be before the sound innovations, I insist we achieved certain beautiful things. I mean that there were moments of beauty in pantomime and beauty in photography. Much of what we did was poor, but if the silent movies had had more time to develop, we might have made a really great and individual art in them. For myself, I still cling to the thought of creating those moments of beauty in pantomime." Roy J. Pomeroy: "Talking pictures will eliminate the stage within 5 years. The stage at its best is a box with lights and painted scenery. Talking pictures present a moving photograph of real things on a stage that is life itself." LATEST DEVELOPMENTS! OVER HERE: Lon Ghaney, who said he would never make a talking picture, is now making a talking picture. Fox's Grandeur Film, which permits the photographing of scenes at a distance while also giving a full view of the expression on the face of every player in a scene of great scope, is a sensation. It allows a latitude and depth never before possible on the screen. We predict that when combined with color the new wide film will 'completely revolutionize the industry.1 OVER THERE: Talkies are the new craze in Paris. In one theater an all-dialog film from Hollywood has been shown to a non-English speaking audience and they loved it! Mitzi, musical comedy actress, returns from her native Hungary reporting that the first talkie shown there resulted in a great public clamor for legislation to prevent future showings for fear they might replace the 'legitimate' theater and destroy native Hungarian art. How about Vilma Banky from Budapest? Native art personified! Elinor Glyn is producing her own talking picture in England, to be called "Knowing Men." Western Electric has made its 3,000th installation of sound equipment in a theater in Barcelona, Spain. D. E.