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

Talking Pictures patient inquiry and sustained investigation. Co-operation from this department and a knowledge of its possibilities are connected with all other divisions within the studio. The questions which appear early in this chapter are but few of many which arise. To appease any curiosity which may have arisen, the following answers are submitted. i. Who invented the Chinese ricksha? Ans. A white missionary designed it for the use of his invalid wife. 2. In what year did ice cream make its first appearance? Ans. Ice cream was invented in 1851 by a dairyman in Baltimore, IVId., who wanted some method of using his surplus cream. 3 . Were mustaches usual for British gentlemen at the time of the French Revolution? Ans. Ronald Colman, who played Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities, normally wears a mustache. As theatregoers are accustomed to the Colman mustache the question was important. It is a fairly consistent rule that when wigs became popular, mustaches went out, and vice versa. But the time of Sydney Carton was a transition period. By careful tracing, Nathalie Bucknall found that while mustaches came back shortly afterwards, definitely Sydney Carton would have been clean shaven. Mr. Colman accepted the dictates of the research department and went to the barber. 4. What was a <cJimmy Skinner"? Ans. Slang is by no means a new thing. It seems to have been more generally used in the days of Dickens than now. In the time of David Copperfield a "Jmrnv Skinner" was [88]