DIFFICULT PERIOD

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 904, 22 February 1930, Page 24

DIFFICULT PERIOD

FUTURE OF BRITISH PICTURES AMAZING TALKIE GROWTH While the year that has just closed has been a period of doubt and difficulty for the British film industry, it looks forward to the future with some degree of assurance, for there are indications that it has now surmounted some of the barriers which have stood in its path during recent years, says the London "Times.” A stern struggle with the American industry in the field of the talking films may possibly come in 1930. The American producers continue to proclaim their faith in the talking picture, and very few silent pictures are now being made by the largest undertakings. They point to the fact that Harold Lloyd has joined the ranks of the speaking film actors with success; that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford have, by this new medium, brought the words of Shakespeare (with modifications) into the picture theatre; and that already 4,000 theatres throughout the world are equipped with sound apparatus by one firm alone, and that, as more than 3,000 of these are in America and 400 in Great Britain, there is an assured market for the talkie for many years to come.

A feature cf the American talkies has been the desire of producers to take the public behind the scenes of stage life, and a whole series of pictures has been devoted to the career of the chorus girl. But the reproduction of dazzling stage spectacles has gone far enough, and the public is apparently tiring of them.