“HIDEOUS, FRIGHTFUL”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 478, 6 October 1928, Page 1

“HIDEOUS, FRIGHTFUL”

COSMO HAMILTON TALKS OF “TALKIES” A SLASHING ATTACK (United P.A.■ — Bp Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N'.Z. Press Association) Reed. noon. LONDON, Friday. The big, flourishing studios which have been built up at Elstree, 15 miles from London, with a flare of trumpets, have been shocked by the sudden publicity ; orded to the “talkie films." The effect of the dramatic announcement by prominent playwrights, notably Frederick Lonsdale, that silent films are dead, has been like that of a barrage of machine-guns. Directors, artists, electricians, carpenters, decorators, musicians, and all the inhabitants of the studios 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 to-day that the most perfect talkies will never kill the silent film. After the first flush of novelty, they will take second place on the programmes of the cinemas, and be placed among the news reels and comics.

“Their only purpose will be to reproduce brief remarks of some famous person, an operatic solo, a duet, or a chorus. The vast majority of cinema patrons do not want nervewracking sounds. However perfect they become, their very perfection will render them less acceptable. The public is eager for a story, movement, thrills, and surprises. “I can conceive nothing more frightful than to be asked to sit for a couple of hours without music in order to listen to a play spoken in half a dozen different and probably hideous gramopnone accents by the most famous film stars, who must be used in the talkies until the new school is turned out. “Nothing is more hideous than that a film-lover should be compelled to listen to tramping feet, traffic roar, jangling keys, knocks on a door, the harsh nasal voices of sheiks, gunmen, and cowboys, blonde vamps, and bathing belles.” “I say emphatically that the silent film will nev_r die. The talkies are childish. They have come a decade too late.”