"TALKING" FILMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 237, 6 October 1928, Page 9

"TALKING" FILMS.

INDUSTRY ALARMED

Great Elstree Enterprise May Be Stultified. OPINIONS DIFFER. (Australian ana N.Z. Press Association.) (Keceivea 2 p.m.) LONDON, October 5. The big flourishing studios - built up at Elstree, fifteen miles from London, with a flare .of trumpets, have been shocked by the sudden publicity accorded the "talkie" films and their effect, and by the dramatic announcement o£ prominent playwrights, notably Mr. Frederick Lonsdale, that "silent"'films are dead.

It has been like a barrage of machineguns. Directors, artists, electricians, carpenters, decorators, musicians and all tho myriad inhabitants of the studies are wondering whether Elstree, in which hundreds of thousands of pounds have been sunk, is ready to collapse like a pack of cards.

Mr. Cosmo Hamilton, ! the famous dramatist, declares that even perfect "talkies" will never kill the silent film. After tho first flush of novelty they will tako second place in the programmes of the cinemas, and be placed among the news reels, and comics, i Their only purpose will be to reproduce brief remarks of some famous person or an operatic solo, duet, or chorus. The vast majority of cinema patrons, he says, do not want nerve-wracking sounds. TO BE TAKEN TO. AUSTRALIA. (United Service.) (Received 12 noon.) NEW YORK, October 5. Talking and sound cinemas'are to be installed in 21 theatres in the principal Australian, cities in the New Year.