REACTION TO TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21224, 2 July 1932, Page 10 (Supplement)

REACTION TO TRAGEDY.

FILM AUDIENCES* LAUGHTER. PENALTY OF REALISM. A recent article drew attention to the fact that the emotional scenes in recent talkies have aroused as much laughter as tears. Some theories on the cause of this emotional reaction are advanced in an English paper, which expresses the opinion that tho laughter that greets would-be solemn emotional scenes is at least 75 per cent, a mask for embarrassment.

It is certainly not now. Talkies have always been laughed at, and that gives us the key to the reason why. There was a moment in " The Singing Fool " when the singer and his wife stood by the bedside of their little boy. The boy died, and the wife uttered a piercing shriek. Immediately after the shriek there came a shout of laughter from the audience. It was not due to the fact that the silent screen had shrieked for the first time. The novelty of the talkies wore off; the novelty of shrieks wore off; but a good shriek of grief could still raise a good shriek of laughter. Heart-breaking scenes in talkies have nearly always occasioned laughter. Why ? Because they were too real. Laughter—uncomfortable and resentful laughter—was the only escape.

Before talkies came tears made the actress seem remote, tragic, and beautiful. Because they were seen and no r -' heard; because they were only half real Talkies made tho actress too uncomfortably lifelike. What with the too-realness that prevents the horror film from horrifying, and the too-realness that make the emotional scene so uncomfortably near that it cannot be borne, the producers are faced with a pretty problem Fifty per cent, of the dramatic high-spots of recent talkies have taken place in silence ever since; in tho climax-scene of " Cimarron " Richard Dix took the body of the little negro boy in his arms and held it in an emotional silc-nce that any sound would instantly have shattered.

Talkies were hailed with wild and joyous enthusiasm as the saviour of the cinema, " because they made everything so real." They did! And now we are finding good cause to start regretting it. I'oo much reality is proving as dangerous as too little.