TALKIE” TROUBLES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18617, 12 July 1930, Page 18

TALKIE” TROUBLES.

“LANGUAGE DIFFICULTY.” American producers of “talkies” are beginning to be seriously alarmed about the foreign market for their films. At first talking pictures were such a novelty that crowds flocked to them in any country where they were shown, whether the language spoken by the actors was comprehensive or not but this mood quickly passed, and the producers now realise that they must face and solve the problem of making stories in different languages, says the "Manchester Guardian.” It will not do to add French or Spanish dialogue after the film has been made; the fact that the lips say one thing

while the auditor hears another is too j painfully apparent. i Certain films are now being made in which the actors repeat their scenes I four times, speaking successively Eng- ! lish, French. Spanish and German. These are mainly comedies in which a minimum of intelligible conversation is necessary. The actors know . only English, and usually very little of that; they are taken in hand by expert linguists, and are trained, parj rot-like, to repeat the phrases for each j scene—phrases which, once uttered, | are promptly forgotten, j More serious dramas, of course, canj not be handled in this way. For ! them, native casts of Spaniards, Frenchmen, or Germans are being assembled. A scene is made first by | the American actors, and then they j step aside while the same action is recorded consecutively by each of the i foreign language groups. The second and all successive versions can be ! made at very small additional cost, I since the scenery, and even some of j the costumes are used over again. ! and the "business” camera arrangements. and lighting, need to be worked ! out only once. The same director may 1 even make all three of four versions with rive aid of a few interpreters. Development in Paris. An ambitious experiment of this sort is now being started in Paris, with American capital and with Americans in charge of operations. European actors are often multilingual, and when they are not it is a simple matter to import a complete cast from Germanv, Spain or Italy to Paris, and keep them there a few weeks. Similar work is being done in Hollywood itself, which swarms with actors from every country of Europe. One of the largest producing companies has announced j that it proposes to spend more than i £1,000,000 on foreign language films this I year. One of these, already made, is i called “Monsieur le Fox” (sic!), and has been done in German. French, | Italian and Spanish. The director was | Mr Hal Roach, and the star in all ! four versions is Gilbert Roland, who is, i I believe, a Mexican by birth. Buster ( Keaton has made a German version of his new film, “Free and Easy.” Vilma j Bankv, the Hungarian actress, whose I accent makes it necessary for her to | play only immigrant girl parts in Engi lish films, has made “A Lady to Love” in German. Andre Luduet, a French actor, has done over the film, “Unholy Night,” in that tongue. Greta Garbo is to make pictures in French and German. This Swedish star has accomplished the difficult feat of learning to speak English with hardly a trace of accent, and her first talkie is “Anna Christie,” from the stage play by Eugene O'Neill. Everyone in the American film industry now agrees that the talkies have come to stay, and the overwhelming majority of the kinema houses are equipped to produce sound. The cost of making the films has been much reduced since the studios dis- ■ covered that elaborate precautions i against noise are not only unnecessary, j but undesirable; voices reproduce bet- ! ter against a background of normal i sounds than in the quiet pf the tomb. »The most popular type of story at present is the old-fashioned Wild West ! melodrama, made out of doors. The j directors’ only trouble—and it is some-

times a very serious one—is to keep aeroplanes from circling overhead and adding the anachronistic roar of their motors to a story laid, perhaps, in the eighteen-fifties.

The leaders of the industry, who take the talkies for granted, have two other problems over which they are very much concerned —coloured movies and the wide-angle or "grandeur” film. It is predicted that within six months a majority of the American films will be entirely in colour, as many of them already are, and that within a year the double width film, which, when projected, fills a screen almost as large as the proscenium arch of the average theatre, will be in common use. The equipment necessary for these innovations Is very expensive, both to the producer and to the theatre operator, but it is expected that competition will force them both into general acceptance.