BEST VOICES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 296, 15 December 1928, Page 19 (Supplement)

BEST VOICES

ALL BELONG TO MEN The recent London production of “The Terror” as a talking film has set people talking about voices. Most of the voices in this film ar© rather painful to English ears. But, then, so are many of the voices heard on tho London stage. ¥<•11 can count lhe really fine voices of Ihe English theatre almost on one hand. Most of them arc men’s voices, writes a London critic. Matheson Lang has a fine voice, and so have Godfrey Tearle, Seymour Hicks, wonderful in hi s light and shade end in his whispering. Henry Ainley, whose health is reported to be improving, and Lawrence Anderson, at present in “Thunder on the Left.” Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson’s voice is still marvellously silvery. There is not. an outstandingly fine speaking voice among the actresses nt presi'iit in London. Jsobel Elsoin, Yvonne Arnaud (most attractively broken English), and Edith Evans have excellent, voices, of course, and Evelyn Laye speaks uncommonly well in musical comedy, but now that Madge Titheradge has retired (how deliciously husky she was'.), Irene Vanbrugh is abroad, and Phyllis NeilsonTerry is not yet in town, the stage is practically barre-n of greet feminine voices. Many of the younger actresses ai© annoying with their standardised affectations and mispronunciations. It is true, to be sure, that modern plays do not call for rhetoric, or declamation, or heroic speech, but this does not. excuse the voice-poverty of the stage. Beautiful voices are always a delight; it is just as pleasurable to listen to Mr Ainley in a lounge suit© part as in Shakespeare. But. if speech has deteriorated on the stage salaries have gone up —“Gone up out of all reason.” according to William Mollison, the producer. Constance Talmadge’s Confessions. “I was the stupidist child ever bom. “I spent my schooldays learning nothing and pulling wool over the teach“1 was kidnapped ana all but headed for a life of sin when 1 was seven, “1 had the most hectic First Love in the world, bar none. 1 was nearly murdered, and the gentleman in question bears a scar to this day. “I’m tired of being the ‘Life of the Party.’ I'm not the person people think I am. I have another face and I'm going to show it —for the first time. “These are the five factors in my life I’ve never realised before. Never.” Censorship of Talk Films Who will censor the talking film—the film censor or the Lord Chamberlain? (asks a London paper). “The Terror,” the first complete play to be produced in talking picture form, was presented at the Piccadilly Theatre, and it raises a new problem. So far the task has been left to the Board of Film Censors, but it is likely that in future the Lord Chamberlain will arrange for one of his representatives to bo present when a talking film comes before the board. Producers of talking films hope that the Loid Chamberlain will make an early decision. Their position is difficult, for if a large part of a talking film were rejected they would have to make the film again.