TELEVISION

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 128, 22 January 1932, Page 7

TELEVISION

PERFECTED IN SECRET CINEMA AND THEATRE THREATENED ^ITH ^EVOLUTION. EXTINCTION EVEN POSSIBLE. (Daily Express Film Critic.) Television has been perfected — secretly. Within a year it may oust ordinary wireless in every home in Ameriea, Europe will be "televised" immediately afterwards. The einema and threatre industries are threatened with r.evolution— - perhaps extinction. Television will burst upon the world as suddenly as the talkies. These astounding revelations were made to me recently by Mr. John Murray Anderson, the famous stage and film producer, who has recently returned from Ameriea, where he was privileged to witnes^ secret television tested in Chicago. Here are more points made by Mr. Anderson: — In Ameriea you can buy a combined radio-gramophone-television set for £100- When television is generally introduced such sets will cost only a fraction of that figure. The television "kings" qre all ready for the great switch over. So far as the broadcasting end is concerned the change could be effected in a few hours. Vast studios for broadcasting television are in course of erection throughout the United States. Great television theatres are going up, tpo. Television talkies on your diningroom wall will have the effect of Jriving thousands of cinemas and theatres out of business. Hollywpod has already Sensed the danger. Every film contract now earries a clause covering "television rights." Great Revolution. "I thought television was still in a qrude experimental stage until I saw the results achieved at those secret tests," explained Mr. Anderson to me. "I am convinced that the next two years will witness the greatest revolution that entertainment has ever kno.wn. ' "I saw Paul Whiteman's band making secret television tests from Chicago. "You decide to send a television broadcast of Whiteman's band to a certain town — say Washington. The switchboard operator plugs in for Washington, a corresponding light comes up on the map, and the band is being heard and seen on the receiving screen in Washington. "You can televise anything — plays, operas, danees, public functions, prize fights, or talkies thenlselves. The reproduction is astonishingly clear. The synchronisation is perfect. "At first television may be epnfined to theatres. One talkie or a stage play could be transmitted to a thousand theatres. "But home television is inevitable, and then how many people will turn out at nights to go entertainmenthunting? That is a question Hollywood would like to see answered. "If you want a. signifieant pointer to the nature of entertainment in the future just study the plans for the great new radio city which is now being built in Fifth-avenue, New York, at a cost of £30,000,000. Radio City. "Radio City represents the greatest entertainment enterprise ever conceived. It will embrace six theatres and an opera house. "In not one of those theatres is provision being made for films. A vast television theatre is being built, while the other theatres are to be devoted to variety and straight plays." How perturbed Hollywood is over the coming of television can be found reflecting in the anxious discussions. It has already been established that blondes do not televise well, while red-heads are impossible. ' Television refuses to "pick up" auburn hair. Red lipstick, too, is taboo. Blue must he used. Then, face powder must be dead white, and men must rub green paste or powder into moustaches before doing a television broadcast. Meanwhile, Hollywood's blonde and red-headed stars have had their worst fears confirmed by the news that two girls, aiready being "groomed" to be television stars, are both black-hair-ed and unknown, with no talkie experience. Another source of Hollywood anxiety comes from the fact that in television a woman's voice may affect her figure. For instance, a squeaky or rasping voice is apt to produce a distorted figure.