TALKIES

Silence has left the city. I remember in the old days when I’d be wearied by the noises of the street, I’d go into a quiet telephone booth, drop a nickel, rest my ear on the receiver and take a nap for a half-hour. The trouble now is that after three minutes they say your time is up.

There were many restful places in the city then. I used to get into the subway, stretch out on the train seat and sleep until the conductor nudged me at the last stop, saying, “Change beds!” Little by little, quiet left the city, but there was always the movies. There a man could retreat from a debating wife and twelve vocal children for a few hours of silence. But now even the screen shoots and shouts at you. We knew all along that walls have ears, but what mouths they’ve developed! Who ever suspected that a phonograph record attached to a roll of film would destroy the last temple of silence and create a new market for ear-muffs!

But we’re living in an age of sound and talk. It all started with the telephone when Bell invented a way of calling a man names from a safe distance. After that came the phonograph, the dictaphone, cuckoo-clocks, peanut-roasters, whistling radiators, until now we have automatic talking salesmen, talking pictures and musical automobile horns. Everybody everywhere has something to say, and if not, can at least make a sound. Today talk is a commodity like salmon, and can be caught, canned and sold. At one time wives were the only talking pictures; now they sit mute with astonishment before the vitaphone.

It took the men to turn hot air into cold cash. Somebody says, “Boogey-boogey!” and right away a thousand microphones, a million amplifiers and a billion electric waves spread the priceless utterance throughout the world to countless eager ears. Then somebody writes a theme-song about it and calls it, “Boogey-boogey, You Frighten Me with Love!”

Sound rules the waves—Britannia is out of luck. The time is at hand when the wizards of gab will branch out into other fields besides the speaking screen. We’ll soon have harmonizing hammocks on the front porch, orthophonic washtubs in the laundry, yodeling door-knobs and talking beds.

Even the lion refused to return until two supervising directors promised him the skunks would be out of the picture.

I can see the day when you will be ushered into a home and the host will remark, “I’ll only be gone a minute to mix the cocktails, but in the meantime you can sit in the parlor and have a chat with my floor-lamp.”

If you’ll try to boast about your new maid because she talks French, your host will eye you pityingly. “That’s nothing,” he’ll sneer. “We have a bureau in the boudoir that speaks six languages fluently, and you should hear our new Persian rug make wise-cracks!”

Of course, there is still room for improvement in the speaking film. When you hear some of the voices on the screen, you feel like calling out: “For heaven’s sake! Change the needle!” Many a soulful kiss sounds as if the lovers are drinking hot soup, and I’ve been told that in his first talkie trial, Rin-Tin-Tin barked like a canary. One famous silent star, however, made a hit in her first talkie. She managed to register deep emotion with her heavy breathing. But it wasn’t passion. She’d been suffering from asthma for years.

Many Hollywood customs have changed. Formerly, in going on location, an actress would powder her nose; now she sprays it. A handsome leading man made his first sound test and was fired. His tonsils showed in the close-ups. A big he-man of the open spaces went back to the river-front when they discovered his voice was soprano. Another old-time star sang a solo accompanied by a violin, but when the picture was shown, a loud drum was heard from the screen that drowned out the fiddle. Everybody began to look for the mysterious drummer until the artist himself finally found that the taps were due to the click of his lower plate rising and falling with his notes.

Think of what smell could do in the future if such a picture as “Noah’s Ark” is remade.

In my own talkie experience I learned that if I patted a woman’s arm it recorded as if I were hitting a gong, and my sweetheart’s footsteps sounded like horse’s hoofs. My greatest problem was to talk toward the microphone, which is concealed in various parts of the scene, outside the range of the camera eye and usually in the opposite direction from the person I was talking to. In one scene with my mother the microphone was hidden under the sofa, so that I first had to bend down and address the sofa, saying, “Mother, please forgive me!” Then I rose and embraced her. After that, the mother bent down and said to the sofa: “My son, I hope you have learned your lesson.” To avoid so much bending, we both finally got under the sofa and only came up for air.

In another picture the sound didn’t synchronize with the action. In fact, nothing synchronized. The rain came a minute too soon and caught me indoors. I was playing the son of an old-fashioned farmer who was driving my wayward sister from the old homestead. The words got ahead of the action, and at the crucial moment, when the father had to say, “Go from my house!” the words came from the mouth of the cow. To this the pig replied: “Oh, Father, have mercy on me!” The father raised a threatening hand, and when I rushed between him and the girl, I cried dramatically, “Moooo!” while my sister shrank away squealing, “Wee-wee!” At this the rooster flapped his wings and said, “Don’t drive my sister from me!” and I threw my arms around the old man’s neck and began to crow.

On the next lot they were shooting a costume talkie that was no better. There I heard a member of Romanian royalty with a Tenth Avenue accent speak to a French ambassador who had a strong Irish brogue. They suspected the British King’s lovely daughter of a secret romance, but when she was challenged to admit it, the English princess said: “Vell, I’ll tell you, mine friends, I vouldn’t say if yes or if not.”

Still, the speaking films are tending toward efficiency. Recently one big star had three doubles for him in a single picture. One talked for him; another sang for him; and a third played the piano. After a while he’ll have so many doubles he’ll just have to telephone in his part of the work, and they’ll send him his salary.

After the talkies get perfected, I would like the inventors to start on an idea I have long cherished—a smellophone, so you will be able to smell your favorite star by his or her special perfume. What realistic touches we could have!

The microphone was hidden under the sofa, so that I had to bend down and address the sofa, saying “Mother, please forgive me!”

Think of what smell could do for animal pictures. Certain animals, of course, would have to be excluded. I understand that in the production of a recent classic, suggested by the success of “Noah’s Ark,” a trifling error cost the producers a fortune. The property man was told to get two animals of each kind, so he brought in two skunks with the rest. Giraffes stumbled and broke their necks, bears fainted, hippos drowned and the other beasts scattered to different lots and studios and couldn’t be corralled for a week. Even the lion refused to return until two supervising directors promised him personally that the skunks would be out of the picture.

Still, with all the possibilities of the new talkie era, I don’t think the speaking film will ever replace the stage. For no matter how beautiful the girls are, how sweetly they may sing or tap their feet, and how good they may look in tights on the screen, you can never wait for them at the stage door.