GOOD OR BAD?

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 75, 21 December 1928, Page 24

GOOD OR BAD?

THE VOICE IN THE MOVIES AN INTERESTING ARGUMENT There is consternation. in Hollywood; but there is joy in London (remarks the “Literary Digest”). The talking films have come as a winter blight upon the petted darlings of the screen, but London feels competent to speak to the point. At least Frederick Lonsdale, the playwright,. is telling the English so, and in. the “Daily Mail” is urging his countrymen to realise their capacities. “The coming of the talking films has wiped out our leeway,” he says, "and enabled us to start even with America again.” Money has been the stumbling-block in the past, and money he now summons to the aid of natural English advantages such as these: “To begin with, we speak the orthodox English that the Americans themselves seem to prefer. Secondly, we have the best dramatists in the world, and they will all find themselves writing before long for talking films. Thirdly, we have more than our share of the best actors and, possibly, actresses. “Lastly, we have, in addition to some of the most charming and exquisite scenery in the world, all sorts of his-. toric architectural backgrounds which in America can only be reproduced un- . satisfactorily at enormous expense. Add to this our proximity to the Continent and all that it offers to the camera, and it will be seen how real are our advantages.”

Mr. Lonsdale was in America recently, and investigated the new devices, and declares himself devoted henceforth to film authorship. This is how he sees the present predicament: “People in this country who regard the ‘talkies’ as a wild dream or an ingenious toy are blinding themselves to what is already an accomplished fact. Those who have seen one of the current early talking pictures—and later ones will, of cov.se, be much better—know that the /ent film is dead. “This was proved to me beyond all shadow of doubt by one simple experiment. I- was shown in New York a film half of which was accompanied by dialogue and appropriate sounds. The second half was silent. Its flatness and dullness by contrast were positively ludicrous. “It is a mistake, too, to suppose that the dialogue is necessarily shrill, mechanical, or scratchy. One of the actors whom I saw and heard in a film was O. P. Heggie, and nothing could have been more impressive than the dialogue as he spoke it. The Reproduction was marvellous, perfect—it was exactly like listening to the man in an ordinary theatre, or, better still, in one’s own draw'ing-room. “Ethel Barrymore, America’s greatest actress, also has a voice which reproduces perfectly. For years leading American producers wanted her in films, but, although she had all manner of tests, she had to give up the idea as hopeless. All the men in the business agreed that she was not a movie type. “But sec her in talking films and she is a different being; the moment she opens her mouth she acquires a new and dynamic personality. There is not the slightest doubt that she will soon be as popular throughout the world as the possibly more beautiful but less accomplished young Women of Hollywood have been in the past. And I met or heard of at least a dozen other people who had in the same way failed in previous screen tests only to be offered enormous sums now to do talking pictures.

“The Hollywood beauty actors and actresses, on the other hand, will soon be as dead as the third and fourth rate touring companies whom the talking films will supplant. Some of the present kineina stars can speak lines —John and Lionel Barrymore, Madge Kennedy, Donald Colman. H. B. Warner, and Pauline Frederick are obvious examples. But the majority will find that a pretty profile and shapely legs no longer atone for a Bowery accent or a voice that simply does not get over at all.

“Hollywood realises this, and the whole place is in a panic—most of the players for the reasons I have suggested, and the producers because all accepted scales of values have been upset, because the highly-paid star of to-day may be the extra of to-morrow and vice versa, and, above all, because they are desperately afraid that England will steal a march on them.” Mr. Frank J. Wilstach in the New York “Times” tries to comfort the disheartened by showing that exaggerated emphasis is placed on the voice even

in the talkies. In doing this he uses the two Barrymores, and,: incidentally, contradicts Mr. Lonsdale in respect to one of them:

“When a theatrical manager desires an actor for a certain part, it is very well known that the last thing thought of is his voice. And when an actor has a part to learn, he does not run off to an elocution-teacher. What he does is to memorises his lines and attempt to speak them intelligently. It is not so much a matter of voice-culture as it is brain-culture. The actor must put into his voice the thought that the author has put into his story. Lionel Barrymore lately called attention to this fact when he said: ‘The voice is the least consequential thing in talking pictures. It is what the actor has in his head that counts.’ In short, all that is necessary is to put intelligence into what one has to say. “We hear a good deal,, too, about: voice tests. Suppose, for example, that Ethel Barrymore and Mrs. Fiske should appear in disguise for one of these for one of these examinations. . What chance would they have to get by? Miss Barrymore’s vocal fog would be laughed out of the studio. And Mrs. Fiske, whose inability to be heard beyond the fifth row of the orchestra, would be a fine spectacle taking a ‘test’ —except, of course, for a two-reel whispering divertissement. “One would have to seek far and wide on the speaking stage to find voices which would pass an elocutionary test, Joseph Jefferson had this in mind when he said something to the effect that a fine voice ruined more actors than strong liquor I Only a few years ago Maude Adams was the most popular actress on the American stage. It certainly was not Miss Adams’s voice —that is, so far as beautiful diction g Oes —that carried her into great public favour. The thing that came across the footlights in Miss Adams’s case, as was lately said by one of the Illuminati, was the strength of weakness, so to say: the power of innate goodness, the clear-eyed fearlessness of innocence.” To bolster up the argument with examples from the past, Mr. Wilstach draws upon the long history of the stage for confirmation:

“What has been aptly said of the theatre is, undoubtedly, going to be found true of the talking picture—that is, that people go to the theatre to see acting. They do not go there to listen to an actor or actress hypnotised by the melody of his or her vocal cords. If this were the case there would be schools of elocution on every corner.

"Of course, it is no handicap to an actress to have a beautiful diction. If she has a voice as harsh as a harp played on by a hammer, she will have small chance —and yet there have been actresses who have succeeded despite the fact that their enunciations were a torment to the ear. Sophie Arnould, an actress famous during the time of Louis XIV., was one of these. It was said of her that she had as fine an asthma as ever was heard. It is hoped, however, that many of our motion-pic-ture actresses will be found endowed like the charming Peg Woffington and the festive Mrs. Jordan of ages agone, whose voices were attuned for ripples and dainties of diction. The late Ellen Terry’s voice charmed birds off the bushes. Julia Marlowe, besides being a great actress, has a voice that ‘murmurs rnolian sounds with fetching ten-derness-words dripping like honey from her lips.’ Miss Marlowe, when on the stage, was a great actress because she succeeded so magnificently in getting the author’s thought into her speech.

“A magical charm of utterance means nothing in a play, and will mean less in a picture. It is the humour in a scene, or the pathos of a situation rather than the flexibility and melody of the voice, that must be conveyed. That this is true is instanced in the case of the late Lotta Crabtree. She won an enormous popularity.. I have asked many people who saw her many times, and not one person could tell what her voice was like. But not one expatiated minutely upon her personal magnetism. All of which goes to prove

that real acting is something from the head, and something from the heart, rather than mere vocal harmonics. “One discovers, when one comes to look into the matter, that beauty of diction played a very small part in the success of many a famous histrio. We learn that Colley Cibber had a squeaking voice, apt to crack, and that Thomas Betterton’s was low and grumbling. All of David Garrick’s biographers tell how his voice failed him in the great roles he attempted. Edmund Kean’s was described as harsh and husky and was wont to mount into a squeak. It may be a surprise to some to learn that the great John Philip Kemble was constantly haunted by dramatic critics on account of his painfully singular enunciation. During the time of William Charles Macready and Edwin Forrest it was the business of the actor to give an imitation of the martial music of a trampling host.”