ELOCUTION CAMPAIGN

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 127, 3 June 1929, Page 10

ELOCUTION CAMPAIGN

AMERICA "BRUSHING UP"

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YORK, 15th May. America is brushing up her English pronunciation. The,"talkies" are responsible for the resolution to speak better English. English elocutionists are "dummying" for noted cinema stars before the "talkies until the latter, studying assiduously, improve their English diction. The radio has a share in the rejuvenation of English in America. It is now the largest and most universal form of entertainment, and the speech of broadcasters has been occasioning a good deal of concern to the National Broadcasting Company. The American Academy of Arts, in co-operation with the N.8.C., selected Milton Cross from hundreds of radio announcers for the first award of its kind— a medal for good English in announcing over the radio. Listening in to radio announcers, one is astonished at the vast improvement in the English of these announcers in the last four years. In one of them, Graham MacNamee, whose voice, carries right to the Pacific Coast and through Canada, in announcing big events such as title boxing ; contests, the improvement is greatest. At the rate he is going, MacNamee, who is a co-announcer on the "National" with Cross, will ■ pass for an Englishman or a. New Zealander in another year or so. CRITICISM PROVES EFFECTIVE. Your well-informed New Yorker, who is intensely appreciative of the British tradition, does not mind the chaff that comes from England about his English. A recent incident will illustrate this. Mr. Gifford, the American executive concerned with the first trans-Atlantic radio telephone conversation, was reviewing for the "talkies" the experiment that linked New York and London by telephone. He told his "talkie" audience that the London executive, speaking at the other end of the radiophone, observed that the voice was coming through perfectly, but added: "Is there no one there that can speak the English language?" An Englishwoman, who recently made a tour of the world, paying particular attention to radio announcers speech, observed while passing through New York, that the American announcers spoke atrocious English. It was not intended as a jibe, and it was not taken as such. The New York broadcasting authorities immediately set to work to improve the English, and the urge for better English on the radio has now spread across thevcontinent. The need for improvement is most apparent in' Hollywood, where the silence of the films has brought about an apparent reckless style of speech that bans all, or nearly all, the most famous cinema stars from the "talkie." * However, an influx of elocution masters and mistresses from London is effecting great improvement, and one by one the cinema stars are beginning to get "talkie" contracts. i NEW ORDER AT HOLLYWOOD. The most famous "talkie" star is quite unknown to the silent cinema. She is Miss Ruth Chatterton, a legitimate stage performer, whose English is perfect. Born in New York, she spent her early life in musical comedy. She married, in 1924, Ralph Forbes, the young English actor, who came to America to appear in the films, and who met wtih instant success in such productions as "The.Tr- :i f '"S " "Youth and beauty never had such a fling as it did in the mov.es, ' mis .. „.=. "But that day is gone. A pretty girl is easy to look at, but mighty hard to listen to for very long. Now that the movie.have grown up and begun to talk, people want to listen to something more than calflove patter. On the legitimate stage I j used to pitch my voice to reach the imag- i mary deaf old gentleman in the back of the gallery. Now all is changed. The reproducing device gives everyone in the theatre a front-row seat, so far as vocal efforts are concerned." •