THEATRE STILL SUPREME.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 18028, 24 May 1930, Page 17 (Supplement)

THEATRE STILL SUPREME.

WHERE TALK FILMS FAIL.

NO HUMAN TOUCH.

(By Alan Parsons, in,the London Daily. Mail.) The Cochran 1930 Revue starts with a talking film, at the end of which (after sundry interruptions by Miss Maisie Gay) the chorus of young girls is seen and heard on the screen in song and dance. Suddenly the film disappears into thin air, and there before your eyes are the girls themselves, young and lovely, incomparably real and alive. The change always evokes a burst of spontaneous applause; but it has a special poignancy for me because never, never in any circumstances can a talking picture have the same appeal for me as a flesh-and-blood drama. I am not in any way “knocking” the talking pictures; I lay no stress on the fact that at present the actors seem to my untutored ear mostly to suffer from cleft palates, or that the natural language of the talking film is still the American language. I realise, of course, that the thing is still in its infancy, and that every day brings fresh technical improvement. It would be absurd and highly ignorant on my part to attempt to underrate its importance, though I will go so far to. say that any art which usurps the functions of another

must to a certain extent be degraded art. Can Never Mean the Same. I merely say that no talking picture, however competently made, can ever mean the same thing to me as the •stage play. Let me take an example in point. The story of the Titanic disaster was dramatised by Mr Ernest Raymond and produced as a stage play under the title of “The Berg.” No attempt whatsoever was made to produce shipwreck effects—indeed, at the final moment when the ship is supposed to be sinking the stage had precisely the same appearance as it had in the opening scene. - Yet it affected me profoundly, and another particularly hard-bitten critic sitting on my right was actually in tears. The acting of Mr Godfrey Tearle struck a human note that made all scenic effects entirely unnecessary. Mr Raymond’s work was later produced as a talking film named “Atlantic.” In watching it I found myself profoundly interested by the wonderful photography, showing the shipwreck, the launching'of the boats, and so on; but the human side of the story never really touched me for a moment.

Precious Moments In the Theatre. There have been moments in the theatre which will remain with me all my life as precious memories—l could name countless instances. In each of these cases, no doubt, the actor or actress, perhaps moved by some happening of the moment in his own life, or touched by sudden sympathy with his fellow-player, gave just that little extra of himself which suddenly transformed fine acting into something very like inspiration. Could the actor ever be fired with that sacred flame when confronted by whirling cameras, by arc lights, and microphones? Surely not. Throughout all this talk of the dying theatre the theatre must always be supreme. First came the gramophones, then the films, and then the talking films; each time the death-knell of the drama was rung, yet the theatre is still alive as it was in the days of JEschylus, and will never, can never, die. Nothing that is mechanical can ever usurp the place of the living artist. “The best in this kind are but shadows,” said Shakespeare about actors. That being so, what would he have thought, I wonder, of talking nictures?