The Play and the Screen
Skinner, R. Dana
Merry-Go-Round RICHARD HERNDON was the first of the Broadway producers to catch the new spirit in musical reviews as promoted by the English Chariot's Review, and by the Garrick Gaieties and the...
...Will the sound of English words decrease the illusion still more, or shall we gradually accept the convention just as we do in the theatre...
...For the rest, the story is handled with exquisite tenderness and a full fund of humor that somehow remains essentially French...
...From the perfection with which a song by Raquel Meller, the drilling of West Point cadets, and the antics of Ben Bernie and his orchestra are conveyed, it is evident that we must now take serious account of the spoken movie as a forthcoming medium...
...Seventh Heaven, on the screen...
...The public, moreover, is getting just a trifle tired of lavishness, particularly when uncontrolled by good taste...
...The very silence of the screen has hitherto been one of its most valuable distinctions from the spoken stage...
...On the other hand, a new field of value will be opened up to actors who have had stage training...
...Merry-Go-Round comes at just the right time to brighten the jaded spirits and to comfort one with the thought that money isn't everything...
...He boasts at first of his atheism, only to discover God through the devotion of a little girl whom he rescues from her brutalizing sister and through the loss of his sight which gives him a higher vision...
...Although Merry-Go^Round lacks much of the comic-strip wit of Americana (meaning that it lacks a libretto by J. P. McEvoy) it is nevertheless unusually sympathetic and delightful entertainment, overflowing with youthful spirits and capable performers...
...The original play was by Austin Strong and the present production is directed by Frank Borzage...
...We have here the elements of an art which will bring the stage and screen closer than ever...
...An audience likes to know what the characters on the stage do not know...
...It has discovered that the quick stepping, mentally alert intimate review makes the evening pass just as rapidly as the ponderous affair of golden costumes...
...Movie scenes are now cut to the bare essentials of action...
...The settings of the new Herndon review are by no means as satirical and amusing as those which John Held, Jr., contrived for Americana last year, but they are adequate as a background and have a pleasing simplicity...
...Evelyn Bennett, whose tomboy personality is lavishly played up, is exceedingly energetic but inclined to overdo things...
...The latter brings back to Diane the medal which Chico bequeathed to her...
...The net result may be to bring a more finely balanced talent to the motion pictures, and to put a premium on qualities that the screen has hitherto been able to ignore, to its own injury...
...The possibility is alluring...
...Merry-Go-Round RICHARD HERNDON was the first of the Broadway producers to catch the new spirit in musical reviews as promoted by the English Chariot's Review, and by the Garrick Gaieties and the Grand Street Follies...
...However much this may soothe the sympathies of the audience, it has the nature of a trick...
...The imagined voice of a beauteous heroine is so much more alluring than the actuality is likely to prove...
...She gives way to despair and a momentary doubt of God...
...Not only is the synchronization of speech and movement perfect, but the quality of the individual voices is even more discernable than over the average radio...
...With speech a new element is brought in—the action of thought and emotion as expressed in words...
...The scenes of the story carry us from the most sordid slums of Paris, through the battle of the Mame with the famous sortie of the Paris taxi-cabs, to the reunion of Diane and Chico in their garret close to the stars...
...We do not have to adjust ourselves to a Roman senator uttering Shakespearean pentametres...
...The freedom of the screen permits many stirring scenes which it would be impossible to render on the stage...
...In Ben Hur, for example, there is nothing to tell us that we are not back in Roman times, witnessing a sort of stirring "news-reel" of events of the day...
...Like the Garrick Gaieties, it is essentially a young persons' evening, from which the monologues of William Collier and Marie Cahill would never be missed...
...The story is permitted to make its own points, with the aid of extremely well-balanced acting and ingenious photography...
...It is never adequately explained how the chaplain could be at Chico's death-bed and never hear of his almost miraculous recovery...
...It is worth the price of admission to hear Philip Loeb, as the junior, carol forth his name of Svonk—as if fearful lest someone would forget him in the rush...
...Even today, it is curious enough in a picture about France, such as Seventh Heaven, to see the lips of the actors forming English words...
...The smallest places may yet have a chance to see and hear Margaret Anglin in the spacious verses of Greek tragedy, and other noted actors in the roles which have brought them fame...
...There is, for example, a quite priceless skit on the ambulance-chasing brand of lawyers—a quartette impersonating the firm of Mockowitz, Gogeloch, Babblekroit and Svonk...
...Another disadvantage will come in having to endure the speech of those screen actors who, up to the present, have had no training in diction...
...This alone may greatly enhance the standards of the movies, and give them, particularly for small towns, an altogether new educational value...
...The charm of dialogue lies largely in its continuity and flow...
...It likes to take its suspense by proxy, armed all the time with greater knowledge than the characters in the play...
...Then Chico comes back, blinded to be sure, but alive and strong...
...I am told that one musical play of the late season demanded the services of forty-eight stage-hands to handle the elaborate scenic equipment, and that all other items were in proportion...
...Seventh Heaven on the Screen WILLIAM FOX has put that highly successful play of two seasons back...
...If Philip Loeb's bathroom tenor scene is not very original, he at least carries it out with all its mournful triumph...
...In this it is reminiscent of The Last Laugh...
...Whatever the screen may gain in native pictures, it will lose some of its force in re-creating history or foreign illusion...
...It would seem quite probable that spoken movies will have longer scenes, that fine plays, when adapted, will have to retain much of their best dialogue, and that direct writing for the screen by good authors will assume a new importance...
...A more unmannered, simple and moving portrayal than Miss Gaynor's would be hard to find...
...But when all is said and done, it is that group of specialty girls that carries one over the weak spots and gives the performance all the delight of "amateur night" combined with professional ability...
...There is extraordinarily little of an objectionable nature in this review, and it contains much that serves to make it firstclass entertainment for a summer evening...
...They will be better able to compete with sheer charm of feature...
...No longer will an adorable face be enough...
...What the scenario writer seems to have missed in this case is the well-known fact that an audience is just as much interested in suspense for one of the characters as for itself—often more so...
...Before long, we suspect that some of the larger managers will discover that costly tinsel is quite unnecessary to attract the crowds...
...The music by Henry Souvaine and Jay Gorney is rhythmic and purposeful, even if it is vaguely reminiscent of many tunes that have gone before...
...Above all, the performances of Charles Farrell as Chico and Miss Gaynor as Diane have a very real distinction...
...With the exception of a poorly managed ending, it is one of the most touching and beautifully rendered screen stories I have seen in many a day, in which Janet Gaynor plays a typical Gish part with consummate artistry...
...There is also an excellent song rejoicing in the appropriate name of Sentimental Silly, sung in turn by three couples, among them rising the excellent voice of Louise Richardson...
...There is little or nothing of the Hollywood stamp on the film, and much of its charm comes from the omission of needless captions...
...A young lady named Joyce Booth, who appears in several numbers, manages to convince you that she could be an excellent actress in a real part...
...Then the spectator would no longer hold the suspicion that a happy ending had been resurrected, so to speak, from the grave...
...This would be a far better picture, with much less anticlimax, if the audience were allowed to know the circumstances of Chico's recovery...
...Or will the movies take on the continuity of a play...
...It is only the closing episodes which are marred by an artificial attempt to create audience suspense...
...It is well orchestrated and conducted with fine spirit by Gene Salzer...
...It may be recalled that Seventh Heaven is the story of a young worker in the sewers of Paris, and his rise, first to the position of street-cleaner, and then to the summit of love and selfsacrifice entailed by the war...
...Several individual numbers stand out...
...You see Chico dying in the arms of the regimental chaplain...
...Americana, which he produced last year, combined many of the best qualities of each, and added to them a feature distinctly of Mr...
...The mood and the spirit are both those of exuberant youth...
...Herndon's own—a small chorus consisting of specialty artists, girls who could add mightily to the evening's variety by individual stunts...
...And how will spoken words affect the illusion of historical plays—particularly those in which an ancient or foreign language is assumed...
...But the question of the form which the new productions will take is perhaps the most important of all...
...There are many others who deserve mention, but as in all such cases, it is hard to identify them by name in the swift jumble of movement...
...Shall we continue to have scenes that jump all over creation...
...But what will the effect be on motion-picture technique...
...The song of Hogan's Alley as sung by Libby Holman to the pantomime accompaniment of almost the entire company is low-brow, if you like, but somehow it succeeds in conveying an astonishingly authentic mood...
...Among the dancers, Helen Howell and Doris Vinton show decided ability, and one Georgie Ingram seems to have the material of a star...
...The show itself was fairly good, but as it could only meet expenses when playing to capacity houses, it was foredoomed to short life...
...Concerning Spoken Movies THE production of Seventh Heaven is preceded by a brief program of Movietone—a Fox-Case development of movies with speech...
Vol. 6 • June 1927 • No. 6
