THE TALKING FILM.

Waikato Times, Volume 104, Issue 17485, 20 August 1928, Page 6

THE TALKING FILM.

The silent stage has found a voice, a voice which it is using with increasing frequency and effect. The talking film, the growing popularity of which is pronounced in America and Britain, and which will make its appearance in New Zealand shortly, offers the public something distinctly new in the way of entertainment; and though sceptics may doubt ils possibilities, as they doubled those of the cinematograph itself, it is clearly capable of immense future development. It bridges to a great extent the gulf between the cinema and the theatre. Characters can explain themselves and their actions, and so dispense with most of the tiresome captions that punctuate silent films. Opera, Shakespearean drama (the cinema could do real justice to one of Shakespeare’s crowds), and modern plays, perhaps written expressly for the new medium, should in time he well within the scope of the talking film. For already perfect synchronisation has been achieved, and ingenuity may be trusted to surmount sucii minor mechanical difficulties as remain. The cinema has made millions of people familiar with the sights and scenes of the entire world, and with its leading figures. The invention of the talking film gives it another dimension and removes the chief of its limitations. To hear as well as see a prirna donna, if only her simulacrum, on the screen; to listen to the voice of a great orator while watching his gestures and the play of his features —these arc among the opportunities held out by this great new invention.