ACCENTS OF ACTORS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 280, 26 November 1932, Page 18 (Supplement)

ACCENTS OF ACTORS

NATIONAL DISLIKES. GOOD ENGLISH IN DEMAND. Some very unusual things are hap pening on the movie front. Unprecedented actions are being made by producers and players alike, and it nearly all boils down to one thingaccent, says a writer in the Weekly Telegraph, England. You see, years ago, in the far-off silent days, it didn’t really matter how much a motion picture actress dropped her aitches or slurred her gees. The girls from Rothcrhithe or Brooklyn had equal chances with the debutantes from Kensington and Riverside Drive, providing they possessed the ability to “einotp,” and even in the early talkie rush the illiterate were able to scramble through—at least, those with a microphone voice. Then came the influx from the legitimate stage, with traditional accents and their own histrionic ideas. The original film players were gently put on one side for these intruders, but they closely studied all the good qualities of these foreigners and worked hard to regain their lost prestige. One by one the stag© folk were welcomed to tho studio, feted, and returned to the footlights. Only the top-liners were retained, such as Tom Walls. Ralph Lynn, Ruth Chatterton, and Tallulah Bankhead. “What,” asks the conscientious director, “docs constitute the perfect picture voice?”—for the box-office opinions in England have never agreed with those in America. Just as we are frightfully tired of Hollywood’s gangster jargon, so do the Yankees heartily detest our Oxford twang. The producers found much solace in the success such as Garbo, Chevalier, and Dietrich, enjoyed bj r stars with a foreign accent Here was a galaxy of luminaries who were practically international in their •appeal, and it is very interesting to note how all the studios carry a colony of “ broken-English ” artists. To my mind, the accents of Ronald Colman and Gilbert Emery constitutes the finest male voices on the screen today. They are distinct, unaffected yet impressive, and, what is more import ant, essentially suited to monosyllables, a special feature of the present-day talkie dialogue. Strangely enough, America itself is getting tired of its Dowcry dialect. The demand is for good English. Not the music-hall cockney, or the George Clarke diction, but solid, genuine mi 1dle English. So Hollywood stopped, looked, listened, and acted. Already in its midst, the British colony contained such persons as Clivtf Brook, Leslie Fenton. Ronald Colman, Lillian Bond, Reginald Denny, Ernes! Torrence, and George Arliss. They soon grabbed Tallulah Bankhead and Elissa Landi. Neither of them British, I agree, but they were cradled on the London stage and that was a sufficient credential. Heather Thatcher went on holiday to the film city and before she had time to take her shoes off she was rushed into a part with Robert Montgomery. C. Aubrey Smith and Fred Kerr arc two further old London stalwarts who went to Hollywood on pleasure, and have never known a day’s idleness since. And so it goes on. Glance at the cases of recently imported films anJ notice the number of main supporting characters who belong to this country. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer have recently signed up Charles Laughton to appear in “Payment Deferred,” the play he opened at the London St. James’ Theatre last year. And then, to beat everything, Samuel Goldwyn has chosen an English stag'i actress to play opposite Ronald Colman in his next film, “Cynara. ” This Phyllis Barry, a Leeds girl, who migrated from tho Tiller Dancing Troupe to find success in Australia and finally in Hollywood. The Universal studios are going all out for British talent in their forthcoming film productions, not only on, tho acting side, but in the directing and scenario departments as well. James Whale, the English director of “Frankenstein” and “Journey’s End,” has just completed J. B. Priestley’s “The Old Dark House,’’ with a. British cast including Boris Karloff (whose real name is William Henry Pratt), Lillian Bond, Ernest Thesiger. Eva Moore, Charles Laughton, and Ravmond Massey. Both R. C. Sherriff and John Balderstone have been busy on tho writing staff at Universal City, and tho books of H. G. Wells, Conan Doyle, and R. L. Stevenson are now being adapted for tho autumn programme. Frederick Lonsdale and Ivor Novell* will never be out of work whilst pictures are made nt. tho M-G-M studios. Their snappy and pungent stylo of writing is always in demand for the Misses Shearer and Crawford nnd Robert Montgomery. At the Burbank studios. Roland Pertwee is now under contract, and one of his latest original screen stories is “ I Like Your Nerve,” starring Douglas Fairbanks, junr. The late Edgar Wallace would havft completed our circle of English om»grants in Hollywood had ho survived tho sudden illness which deprived the film city of the most prolific writer it had ever known. Stuart Erwin’s first introduction to the stage was playing five parts in one show which included a boarded Russian, a Gorman and a Negro. Clark Gable and Jean Harlow have been assigned to the two leading roles in “Red Dust,” Mctro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s version of Wison Collison’s play. Miss Harlow recently appeared in “Boast of the City” while Gable recently completed the loading male, role in Norma Shearer’s “Strange Interlude. ’ ’ Charles Laughton will enact his original stage role in tho Metro-Gold-wmy-Mayer production of “Payment Deferred.” E. T. Doll and E. S. Forster arc the authors of “Payment Deferred,” which had a successful run on Broadway last season. Maureen O’Sullivan will have the loading feminine ■••ole under direction of Lothar Mendes.