MOVIE WORLD SHOCKED

Taranaki Daily News, 8 October 1928, Page 9

MOVIE WORLD SHOCKED

POSSIBILITIES OF “TALKIES.” ONE AUTHOR IS SCEPTICAL. : By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copj’right. Received Oct. 7, 5.5 p.m. London, Oct. 6. One of the big, flourishing studios built up at Elstree, fifteen miles from London, with a blare of trumpets, is shocked at the sudden publicity accorded the “talkie films.” The effect of the dramatic announcement by prominent playwrights, notably Lonsdale, that the silent films are dead has been like a barrage of machine guns. Directors, artists, electricians, carpenters, decorators, musicians and all the vast inhabitants of the studios are wondering whether Elstree, in which hundreds of thousands have been sunk, is ready to sollapse like a pack of cards. Mr. Cosmo Hamilton, the famous dramatist, declares that the most perfect talkies will never kill the silent film. After the first flush of novelty, he says, they will take second place in the programmes in the cinemas and will be placed among the news reels and comics. They will only be used for the purpose of reproducing the brief remarks of some famous person, an operatic solo, duet or chorus. The vast majority of cinema patrons do not want nerve-racking sounds, however perfect they become. Their very perfection will render them less acceptable to a public eager for a story of movement, thrills and surprises. These must be made subservient to elaborate reproduction of sounds.

lie eould conceive “nothing more frightful’’ than being asked to sit for a couple of hours without music in order to listen to a play spoken indifferently, probably with a hideous gramophone accent by the most famous film stars, who must be used by the “talkies” until that school was turned out. Nothing could be more hideous to the film lover than being compelled to listen to the tramping of feet, the trafiic roar, the jangling of keys, knocks on the door, harsh nasal voices, the shrieks of gunmen, cowboys ,blonde vamps and bathing belles, the ugly voices and the illiterate, the roar and curses. He would say emphatically the silent film would never die.