The Talkies

That blatant vegetarian and seer, George Bernard Shaw, has never set foot in the U. S. and swears that he never will. Yet, last week, his face was seen and his voice was heard in Manhattan. The Movietone of the firm of William Fox accomplished the trick. Mr. Shaw was caught walking idly in his garden. Suddenly he stopped, faun-like, and looked into the camera as if it were just a jolly surprise. Then, with his beard close to the camera, he began to talk and confess to the public what a genial and gentle old fellow he really is. He made faces, explaining that he can look like Benito Mussolini and then, in a jiffy, look like his benevolent self. He pulled out his watch, said goodbye; and the audience felt sure that it had been fondled on the knee of a Great Old Grandpop.

This is, far and away, the most convincing thing that has been done by the talking cinema. Mr. Shaw's voice was clear, natural, and perfectly synchronized with his facial movements.

The "talkies" are produced on a machine made by the Western Electric Co. William Fox's talkies bear the trade name of Movietone; those of the Warner Brothers are labeled Vitaphone.

While a person's actions are being recorded by the camera, his words (or songs) are caught by a microphone and sent through an amplifier. In the Movietone, these captured sound waves are changed into light variations which are recorded within the camera on a one-tenth-inch strip down one side of the action-taking film. Thus, the completed talking film differs from an ordinary film only in this lean strip of light and shade. In a theatre, as the film is run off, a reverse process makes the words (or songs) that the audience hears. Horns behind the screen are connected with the projection room. Vitaphone captures sounds, not on the film, but on a wax disc similar to a phonograph record. Some theatres have projection machines that can use either Vitaphone or Movietone productions. Mr. Shaw is not the only famed person whose voice and face have been caught by Movietone. Others: Benito Mussolini, Lloyd George, Edward of Wales, Ferdinand Foch, Raquel Meller, Beatrice Lillie, Vatican Choir, Calvin Coolidge, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, John Joseph ("Black Jack") Pershing. Movietone has also produced two excellent comedies: Funnyman Robert Benchley (of Life) in The Treasurer's Report and a piece of suburban folklore called The Family Picnic.* In these, the conversation and the accompanying action-noises run without interruption through the entire film. Many critics believe that comedies and news features are the only entertaining vehicles for the talkies. In full-length drama-films, Movietone uses synchronized orchestra accompaniment, occasional songs, but no spoken dialog. Vitaphone has put dialog into its The Lion and the Mouse, Glorious Betsy, Tenderloin. These films run along quietly and then, at dramatic moments, burst into dialog. The effect is startling, but often annoying. Vitaphone plans the following new talking and singing films: Al Jolson in The Singing Fool, Fannie Brice in My Man, Dolores Costello in Noah's Ark.

In Hollywood, people talk of a revolution in the cinema industry. Paramount, United Artists, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Universal, Pathe are going to make talkies. Searches are under way to find actors and actresses who make pleasant noises as well as pleasant faces. Oldtime favorites have been tested, classified, told to practice talking before their bedroom mirrors. It is likely that many of the talkies will be filmed in Manhattan and vicinity.

Three problems confront the makers of talkies: 1) Women's voices. At present, most of them have a lisp or a husky sound when heard over the Vitaphone. 2) Dialog. Subtitle writers can be stupid, but writers of dialog that is heard should be clever. 3) Sound and Quiet. The abrupt changes in the middle of a film from mute lips to sound-emitting lips are annoying, unreal. (Perhaps the full-length films can be divided into talking acts and nontalking acts.)

The New Pictures

The Red Dance. Hollywood has the fixed idea that, in every cinema about Russia, the handsome grand duke must inwardly love the down-trodden peasantry and must outwardly love one peasant girl. The upshot is that, inevitably, the grand duke and the girl escape across the border to avoid being butchered by the shaggy Soviets. In The Red Dance they do it in an airplane. And yet, the film is first-class entertainment. Dolores Del Rio and Charles Farrell are a capable pair, though they do not look very Russian. To Ivan Linow went the sympathy and the praise of the audience. He plays the part of a vodka-guzzling peasant, who thinks no woman worth more than a horse, and who becomes one of the Soviet dictators. But he makes possible the escape of the grand duke and the girl because, deep-down, he loves the girl. The film has a Movietone orchestra accompaniment.

The Magnificent Flirt. Laid in Paris, it leaves much to the imagination and runs along pleasantly and silkenly. The plot concerns a count (Albert Conti) who appreciates the attractions of a demimondaine (Florence Vidor); but he does not want her daughter to marry his young nephew. A tourist from the U. S. (Ned Sparks) also figures divertingly. Good acting, filmed with originality.

Wheel of Chance. Richard Barthelmess plays twin brothers: one is an able district attorney; the other is an unfortunate youth on trial for the murder of his mistress. The outcome of the trial shall remain a secret in these pages. But it shall be revealed that the mistress (Margaret Livingston) meets a painful end. She was a bad woman who drove dozens of men to roulette and worse. In fact, the district attorney himself once thought of butchering her. The story is typical of the heart-twitchings of Authoress Fannie Hurst. There is a subtitle in it: "Life, like roulette, is a game of chance."

*At the Globe Theatre in Manhattan, The Family Picnic is included in the same program with Mr. Shaw's talkie and Dolores Del Rio's The Red Dance (see THE NEW PICTURES). Few better programs are to be found anywhere in the U. S.