(See front cover)
¶In Paris last week, artistic Frenchmen worried over a report that members of the Comédie Française were to make talking cinemas for U. S. producers. French cinema exhibitors worried more over the news that all representatives of U. S. producer-members (Paramount-Famous-Lasky, Warner Bros., Fox, United Artists, Universal, Radio-Keith-Orpheum, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) of the Cinema Syndicate de France were resigning in protest over the new French law, effective in September, limiting the importation of foreign-produced films to four for each French film exported.
¶In Hungary, cinemaddicts learned that they would have no talking cinema before next May.
¶In Australia, it was being insisted that U. S. talking cinema producers should give Raycophone, Australian talking mechanism fair play in competition with U. S.-made talking mechanisms.
¶In England, cinema producers, long on expenses and short on production, blamed U. S. talkies for all unhappiness.
¶Hollywood buzzed and bubbled over the Equity (actors' union) attempt to keep actors from signing film contracts that violated Equity rules and Warner Bros, announced a forthcoming super-talkie, titled Show of Shows, featuring John Barrymore and Al Jolson together for the first time on any stage.
Thus Talking Cinema, youngest world industry, thrived lustily, showed symptoms of forcing its parent, Silent Cinema, and its grandparent. Legitimate Drama, back into the sparser portions of the entertainment field.
Springing directly from the Silent Cinema, the Talking Cinema is controlled mainly by strong Silent Cinemen. Great film names, with sound and without, are Fox Film Corp., Paramount-Famous-Lasky Corp., Warner Bros., United Artists. Yet one potent Talking Cinema company backs its speaking present with no silent past. This company is opulent, many-branched Radio Corp. of America. In Photophone it has its own talking mechanism. In RKO Productions, Inc., it has its own production and distribution company. In General Electric and Westinghouse Electric it has tremendous laboratory resources. During 1929-30 there will be made 30 full-length and 52 short Radio pictures, all of which will talk, many of which will also sing. In these pictures will appear Richard Dix, Rudy Vallee, Rod La Rocque, Owen Moore, Bebe Daniels, Betty Compson. Writers will include Ben Hecht, Charles McArthur, Eugene Walter, Viña Delmar. Thus among great film companies must be ranked Radio Corp., and to the list of cinema tycoons must be added the name of short, stocky David Sarnoff, Radio Corp.'s Vice President and General Manager. Inasmuch as Radio Corp. has in the past conducted many a merger, and since, like all young industries, Talking Cinema is much in the merger state, many have been the rumors that Radio Corp. will soon absorb one or another of its competitors. All such rumors Mr. Sarnoff, just back from Europe, last week denied. He was particularly emphatic in denying published reports that he had made a hurried trip to Chicago where, last fortnight, a Radio-Keith-Orpheum convention was in progress and a rumor was rampant that RKO was trying to buy out Paramount-Famous-Lasky.