THE MOVIETONES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 184, 2 May 1929, Page 5

THE MOVIETONES

REVOLUTION IN FILMDOM IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS FORESHADOWED That the “movietone" or talking picture Is in a fair way to revolutionise the world’s entertainment is the considered opinion of Mr. Stanley S. Crick, managing director of Fox Movietone Ltd. and the Fox Film Corporation (Australasia) Ltd., who arrived by the Ulimaroa from Sydney yesterday on a short visit to New Zealand. Mr. Crick is on what he describes as a business holiday, the main object of his visit to the Dominion being connected with important developments in the movietone or dialogue picture. He will remain in Wellington for some days, and will then go to Auckland before returning to Sydney. Mr. Crick had much to say regarding the movietones, and he foreshadowed some interesting developments in the Dominion in connection with the business of which he is the head in Australia and New Zealand. “Briefly, as I see it,” he remarked, “the only thing doing in the theatre world today is the movietone or talking picture. The so-called ‘legitimate’ stage is being badly hit, with the possible

exception of good, bright musical comedy. I will go almost as far as to predict that in ’two years from now there will be next to no silent pictures on the market. Our company will make no more silent films at the end of the next eighteen months. The movietone or talking picture is the one film of the future.” In Australia, said Mr. Crick, the writing was on the wall. The theatres equipped to handle movietone pictures had been able to double their box-office takings since the beginning of the year. There were many people, who after seeing and hearing the movietones for the first time or so, declared that they did not care for them. On the other hand, there were many who, professing to be faithful to the “legiitimate” theatre, and to dislike the “movies,” had become converts to the movietones. In Sydney and Melbourne there were those who would ‘not go to. anything but the movietones. In Sydney six and in Melbourne five great kinema theatres were now given up to movietone programmes entirely. In Sydney one or two houses could command up to 6s. 6d. a seat, and there was talk of cutting the prices of admission in some of the “legitimate stage” theatres to the prices of the “talkies” to meet their competition. In the United States from 1500 to 2000 theatres had been equipped for movietone programmes, and contracts in respect of upwards of 4000 theatres were being rushed through to completion. Vast technical improvements were constantly being made in the manufacture and production of movietone pictures, he said. Every new film was an improvement on the last. “Our first full dialogue picture, Tn Old Arizona, showed for six weeks at the Regent Theatre in Sydney,” said Mr. Crick. It is a truly marvellous film, and it is the first ‘all-talking’ picture taken out of doors. The ‘Belle of Samoa,’ with its wonderful ballet and the latest song hits would cost a fortune to bring to Australia or New Zealand as a ‘legitimate stage production. As a movietone it is better than the best stage production could be out here, and as such it can be shown in a wayback country township as well as in a great city. That is one thing about the movietone that is going to make its future. The movietone makes it possible to present newsreel, vaudeville, drama, comedy, all in one programme.” x . , An important development mentioned by Mr. Crick was that Mr. William Fox had arranged for the sending to New Zealand and Australia of a Fox movietone “truck.” Mr. Ray Vaughan had recently undergone four months’ training in‘New York, and he was bringing out a plant to make movietones in New Zealand and Australia. His first assigument would probably be in the thermal regions of New Zealand, to make movietones presenting the Maoris singing and taking part in poi dances and hakas in those surroundings. The possibilities of the movietone were endless, said Mr. Crick. The “third dimension’’ movietone was already in sight, and this would utilise the whole proscenium instead of the “silver sheet,” thus presenting the players walking on and off the stage and giving full orchestral effects and dialogue. This would next develop into the stereoscopic movietone, making characters and scenery stand out like reality, and then would follow presentation in natural colours.