Talking pictures : how they are made and how to appreciate them (1937)

Talking Pictures ("Say, I could make a better picture than that!") arises from a very natural source. Motion pictures sprang from nowhere, like a mushroom growing overnight to the height of the Empire State Building, to fill a need for mass relaxation in a highly keyed world. Today the resources of immense studios employing thousands of workers are tapped to produce photoplays which flash across the screen in a little more than an hour, smoothly, easily, with no jars, no waits, no delays. This smooth progression is necessary in a motion picture. The public, seeking to be amused, want this operation completed, for them, in as easy a manner as possible. And it is proper that they should wish this, for they usually come to the theatre to relax after a day of hard work. They are resentful if a clumsily handled story breaks the even flow of their enjoyment, or makes them uncertain of the exact relation between various elements of the plot. They demand a clear, concise presentation. Very early the public learned that the interruptions of the stage (scenery changes) and of the novel (turning pages) are not needed to tell a motion picture story. More and more, as the public have become expertly critical of screen entertainment, they have demanded of film producers a technique that grows seemingly more effortless each vear. This easy forward development of the best motion picture stories has created a superficial public impression that the actual making of a twentieth-century photoplay is quite as easy as its familiar steady movement. The average "movie fan" is amazed when he is told that making a talking picture is by all odds one of the most [2]