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The Film Abroad
grasp the meaning of a picture without written titles which use the native idioms. The other method keeps the familiar faces and actions of American stars, but substitutes a sound track in the native tongue prepared in the country concerned. This system is most popular in European countries. Both of these methods are used successfully.
The extent of the American participation in the foreign industry is shown by the figures of one company. This company serves more than one hundred and twenty-eight exchanges in forty-eight sovereign countries. These exchanges are privately managed and financed locally. They usually distribute films made within their own nation along with those they buy from American makers. A survey of reports from foreign exchanges again emphasizes that the film is a truly remarkable international medium of communication.
There seems to be no such thing as a specific appeal for any particular geographical division. A picture which is popular in one country will be popular the world over; subject to rare individual conditions, the entire civilized world reacts substantially the same to dramatic situations. Musical films often attain greater popularity outside the United States than within, because motion picture audiences in other lands are sometimes more keenly attuned to music.
This is also true of the art of pantomime. The great ability of Laurel and Hardy in voiceless gesture has made them even more popular abroad than they are in the United States. Americans are not so appreciative of pantomime as other nationals.
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