Talkies Offer Endless Variety

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 625, 30 March 1929, Page 21

Talkies Offer Endless Variety

World’s Best Shows Now ‘‘A Iways on Tap AUCKLANDER’S CRITICISM T SAVE seen two or three \ j ‘talkie’ ■programmes soon i | to he presented in New Zea- j | land,” writes Mr. D. D. j j O’Connor, entrepreneur, in an \ j interesting letter to an Auck- | j land friend. | “I am getting in early to \ ! tell you about them.” S YOU go into the theatre you slear the overture, which is very similar to 1 a Pretty good gramo- j 1 phone record or radio UE CsjPggjsd version of a big orchestra. After a few minutes your ear gets accustomed to it, and for the ■ rest of the evening you never miss j the actual theatre orchestra, which can now kiss itself good-bye for ever. \ The synchronisation is absolutely perfect—no stops to change music, aud If part of the film is cut out the corresponding music is also cut. This is only the smallest feature of the new invention. EXCITEMENT “There are some gazette horseraces and football matches in which the “radio” megaphone quality is somewhat in evidence, but with the picture in front of you as you hear the crowds yell there is quite a deal of excitement. The old form of gazette is dead and buried. “Now then! Mr. Bernard Shaw appears walking toward the camera along a gravel path. He takes out his handkerchief and blows his nose. You can hear it! He comes a little nearer. You can hear the gravel crunch under his step. He speaks. “After the very first word it is impossible to believe that he is not actually present in front of you. The words come directly out of his mouth. No ‘radio’ tone this time. Shaw, of course, knows how to speak. Every word is carefully enunciated, and every phrase carefully thought out—that Is, nearly always. “‘AHEMS’ AND ‘WELLS’” “But it is just the little hesitations, the ‘ahems’ and ‘wells,’ that make it so realistic, and so different from a gramophone record. After ten minutes of this you have actually met Bernard Shaw, and know him for the rest of your life. So with King George, Mussolini, Taft, Coolidge and others. “Then Mr. A 1 Jonson, the famous American comedian. All of a sudden his work reaches millions of people who could never have hoped to hear him in the flesh. Also another very droll American comedian, whose work could not have been reproduced by any other medium. • “You can imagine Wilkie Bard’s best sketches, each elaborately presented, as it has to be done only once, with Incidental music and every possible accessory. Of this class of entertainment absolutely nothing is lost. There will be no need to import vaudeville stars at hundreds a week. They will only need to do the “act” once, and it Is available for the world. BIGGER BALLETS “Big ballets can now be bigger than ever, with the best orchestras the world can get together. Lecturers, with elaborate explanatory apparatus, illustrations and diagrams, will be always on tap. Martinelli, the principal Italian tenor of the day, sings at the Lyceum in Sydney with a volume that nearly lifts the roof off without losing any tone quality.