TALKING PICTURES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 197, 23 August 1935, Page 10

TALKING PICTURES

RELENT DEVELOPMENTS DEMAND FOR MUSICAL FI LAIS AUCKLAND, August 9. The opinion that full-length talking pictures in colour had nut come to stay was expressed by Mr. S. S Crick, manager of the Fox Film Company of Australia, whu passed through Auckland to-day on his return from a visit tu Huuly wood. \ “I would say definitely not,” he answered when the question was put to him. They weic too costly to produce and in any case the public eye had been trained to black and white for drama, and it would bo difficult to change it. The latest development was in audiotecanicolour, he said. There was no talking with these, but they were used with great effect to express moods of music. Constantly changing scenes from various countries gave the theme which was the expression of the music accompanying them. Mr. Crick said that as yet there was no falling off m the popular demand for musical piuductions, but the public was demanding more and more high clas> music. Film companies had as yet shown

no tendency to produce full-length operas, but they were using excerpts from them in many coining films, in which were starred famous operatic artists.

There had been big developments in sound-recording equipment, said Mr. Crick. There were now machines which could reproduce sound in great volume without distortion. The film industry was once again going ahead after a period of financial stress. The biggest development in the film industry in recent times had been the 'separation of Twentieth Century from United Artists and their linking up with the Fox Corporation, said Mr. Crick. This had caused a turmoil in the industry, but had been to the benefit of Fox, which was now expanding production. They now had under their banner Fox, Twentieth Century, Gau-mont-British, and Bollessen. productions.

Quite an assortment of odd percussion instruments are played by Nicolaus, coloured rhythmist in Paramount’s “The Big Broadcast of 1935” and they range from frying pans to washboards. The oddest is a set of five tuned wooden gourds.

Charlie Ruggles has a collection of pipes running into hundreds. He keeps them in specially built shelves around the walls of his ranch home in San Fernando Valley. “Just a hobby,” Charlie states.

Josef von Sternberg, talented director at the Paramount Studios, who has guided the destinies of Marlene Dietrich in her Paramount pictures, writes his own scripts, supervises his photography, designs the. sets and conducts the music of all his productions. Ma-c West Plans Vacation. Upon tile completion of her current Paramount picture, “Now I’m a Lady,” Mac West expects to make a brief trip to Alaska to get “local colour” for her next picture, which yill probably have an Alaskan setting in the days of the 1898 gold rush. Miss West has made only one quick trip to New York since she arrived in Hollywood almost three years ago.