NATIONAL ACCENTS

Hokitika Guardian, 29 December 1933, Page 7

NATIONAL ACCENTS

PROBLEMS FOR PRODUCERS

INTERCHANGE OF PLAYERS.

A plan to solve flic problems of national accents in films intended’Rr botn the British and the American markets is announced by .Mr Sidney B. Kent, president of the Fox Film Corporation. Mr Kent proposes that leading' stars should be exchanged between the two countries.

The interchange will affect, as a -beginning, Warner Baxter and Spencer Tracy, of the Fox Company, ad Madeleine Carroll and Jessie Matthews, oi the Gaumoiit-British Corporation. An experiment will lie made with one picture in ouch country, and, it it is successful, will be extended. “The question of accents is of considerable practical importance.’’ said Mr Kent. “It i s no use making picture's for the international markets 1: people in another country will not accept the accents “There arc some English players who are highly successful in America. There are others whom people in the smaller towns simply cannot understand. Clive Brook in “Cavalcade’ was partly unintelligible to a large percentage of the American population. So wa s Una O’Connor, good though her performance was.

“Diana Wynyard, on the other hand, gave our people no trouble, and tlioy are beginning t° understand Herbert Muudin,

"Just as American accents have been modified to suit international tastes so I think the accents of some—nos all—English players will have to he toned down before their pictures can have the widest possible markets ”