FILMS AND THE STUDIOS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 608, 9 March 1929, Page 25

FILMS AND THE STUDIOS

RASH PROPHECY— If he has been reported correctly, David Wark Griffith, dean of American producers, promoter of film "spectacles,” and inventor of the famous “close up,” has essayed a prophecy as rash as it is surprising. In Sew York a week ago he contended that talking pictures would put the legitimate stage out of business within five years. Had the author of this remarkable statement been any other director, producer, or motion picture executive he could be laughed at or ignored completely, but the voice of the man who made “Intolerance” and “The Birth of a Sat ion” command attention even when it broadcasts wild improbabilities. There seems not the slightest reason to doubt that Griffith is wrong in thus estimating the power of talking films as they stand, to-day. A'o one can foretell the future in an age of mechanical marvels, but the talking picture of 10.18-29—the picture soon to be introduced in Auckland—cannot hope to kill the legitimate theatre. On the contrary the available evidence indicates that “ talkies ” will not entirely replace the silent screen. There is no doubt that they will lorver stageland’s boxoffice receipts by tightening the entertainment market already they have injured the vaudeville circuits of the United States—but any new and novel attraction would have a similar effect. Talking films have a future of wondrous possibilities in their logical realm, but they have yet to consolidate their position on the screen. Talk of competition elsewhere is absurdly premature.