New Blood For British Talkies

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 714, 13 July 1929, Page 9

New Blood For British Talkies

H.M.V. Company will Enter Film Business POWERFUL CO-OPERATION

Negotiations are now being f concluded between His Mas- j tec's Voice (the British Gramophone Company) and the Brit- j ish and Dominions Film Corp - f oration for the co-operative production of talking and sound films for a period of years.

BHE agreement provides for the complete coordination of the technical recording and musical experts of His Master’s Voice and their array of the world’s greatest artists and orchestras for all talking picture operations carried out at the British and Dominions Film Corporation studios. The programme includes the complete output of full-length talking, sound and musical pictures, together with many short subjects and musical prologues. The combination will have the benefit of calling upon all artists and orchestras who record exclusively for

His Master’s Voice. This means that many of the greatest singers and symphony orchestras in the world will be available for music pictures. These orchestras include: The London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Opera House Orchestra, the Berlin State Opera Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, La Scala Orchestra of Milan. The British and Dominions Film Corporation, the first British company to make a full-length talking picture, "Black Waters,” and their new studios at Elstree, to be completed in a few weeks, are specially designed for talking picture production on the very latest scientific lines. The first subject to be handled by the new combination will be an English revue to be staged by Mr. Albert de Courville, who has produced many successful musical plays and revues. SPLENDID OPPORTUNITY Mr. Herbert Wilcox, production chief of British and Dominions Films Corporation, Ltd., states: “I regard this combination as a fundamental move to take advantage of the splendid opportunity the talking picture situation offers to England. On our part we shall have the benefit of 30 years’ recording experience behind the Gramophone Company. Such technical help on recording should enable us, from the very outset, to produce the world’s best talking pictures. “We shall have also the immediate benefit of record processing done by experts, and an array of artists which will provide for all tastes and which only His Master’s Voice can command. In selecting an English revue for the initial subject I believe we shall offer to the English-speaking world a film both acceptable and entertaining.”