Talking Screen (Jan-Aug 1930)

Boarding the Band The old-timers — and some newcomers — join in the grand rush to the microphone, with the screen veterans carrying off most of the spoils By HERBERT CRUIKSHANK BESIDES Ruby Keeler's marriage, Sonny Boy and Georgie Price, Al Jolson is directly responsible for the talkies. He, himself, confesses that but for his ability to Babe Ruth a song via Vitaphone, the screen would still be silent. Or would be silent still. Or silent ... or still ... or both. That is, of course, except for the audible slumber of fired business men, and the gently rhythmic cadences of the chicle chewers. But like Copernicus, Galileo and the manufacturers of Old Golds, Al had to wait some time for the world to recognize the Great Truth with which he had enriched it. It's full three years, come Columbus Day, since Vitaphone thrilled the Warner Brothers. But for only a third of that period have the skeptics been convinced. Prior to that time Hollywood was wearing wide sleeves in order to hold all its laughter. When the Warners opened their new theatre, dedicated to the soundful cinema, Sid Grauman, rival entrepreneur, financed a funeral cortege that paraded dirgefully like a skeleton at the feast. But times have changed. Now Sid is a shorn Samson. And if you ever took on an ocular load of Sid's hirsute adornment, you know just what that means. However, Sid's attitude was not unique. Four out of five had it. And, as usual, the majority proved wrong. Now there are only two fellows who shriek for silence. And Lon Chaney is both of them. The rush to board the band-wagon of sound is like that to help re-elect Jimmy Walker. Everybody's doing it. The late Jeanne Eagels, who, after a row with Equity, calmly went into the talkies and — which makes her case unique — scored a smashing triumph in The Letter. 36 Mary and Doug in a scene from The Taming of the Shrew. They both agree that, but for the talkies, the picture could never have been made — Shakespeare needs more than subtitles. When the screen went "Boom!" Hollywood faw down. The movie people always do things in a Big Way. And the panic was a rout. Producers, directors, stars wandered, yelishocked, talking to themselves. Compared to the Coast situation, chaos was as orderly as an old maid's hope-chest. Then in the crisis the producers did that which they do best of all — spend money. Overnight, millions turned into brick and mortar — and sound stages. Echoes of the clinking gold reached the finely attuned ear of Broadway, and every ham who had ever said "Milord, the carriage waits," or had understudied the ghost's voice in Hamlet, hitch-hiked toward the sounding Pacific. Even the fellow who did the barking for the bloodhounds in Uncle Tom got a movie contract in dog pictures. IN place of the camaraderie traditional in the studios, every lot took on the aspect of a deaf and dumb undertakers' convention. No longer was joy imrefined. The harp that once through Lasky's halls had to get a job fiddling in a downtown nickelodeon. A new simile was born — "silent as a sound stage." "Keep Out — This Means You" meant what it said for the first time in movie history. The distraught picture people were subjected to the arrogance of mysterious wise men from the East — tyrants from the telephone company. Instead of a bellowed "Lights — camera — action," strange words came into being. "Interlock," for instance. Big ones like that. The rafters, high above the stage, were crawling with "experts" who listened in and interrupted through weird mech