Evening star., 1929-12-01


acting can never be really great
in the talking pictures-that no
i actor can rise to the heights
when he Is facing a battery OF
microphones and cameras instead OF a
large and appreciative audience OF art
lovers.
1t is said that acting is like marriage
"a give and take proposition. The
actor inspires the audience. which
multiplies the inspiration a hundred
fold and sends it back across the foot
lights. Thus electricity is generated,
and from that power comes the artistry
of a Garrick, a DuSe. a Bernhardt,
Barrymore or an Ed Wynn.
Inspiration of this kind would appear
to be impossible of achievement in the
unromantic confines Of a moving pic
ture studio. There the glamor Of the
theater Is missing. There are no rows
of seats, teeming with dress shirts and
lorgnettes. There is nothing but COM
plicated machinery. from the factories
of Eastman and Western Electric. The
actors efforts are not rewarded with
heart-warming applause. They are
greeted with the hard word, "Cut!"
So it would seem that art under such
unfriendly conditions must be synthetic
and therefore not art at all.
Nevertheless, such Is emphatically not
the case. There is no particular reason
why acting on the screen should be
inferior to acting on the stage. In fact,
there are plenty Of reasons why 1t
should be, and is, considerably better.
AZ X
IN the old silent days In the cinema
there was much more good acting
on the Hollywood screen than there was
on the Broadway stage. The average pic
ture was played with more intelligence,
more general competence, than was the
average play. And this in spite of the
fact that the screen performers had no
audiences to stimulate them. Indeed, q
good proportion Of them had never
faced audiences at all.
To tell the bitter truth an audience
is usually liability rather than an as
set to the actor. If the movie artist
hears no applause, no roarS of laughter,
no sympathetic sobs, neither is he
bothered by constant coughing, whis-
pering, the rattling of waxed paper as
caramels are unwrapped, or the bang
ing of seats as late arrivals make their
impressive entrances.
He is allowed TO work out his per-
formance in beautiful silence, and If he
is wrong the first time, he is given the
opportunity to try and try again until
he Is right-or as near right as his tai
entS will permit him to be. Further
more, once he Is right, he stays right.
He isn't in form one night and of 1t
the next.
Certainly Chaplin, Jannings, Lillian
Gish, Greta Garbo and countless others
of the silent screen have managed to do
their work without benefit of audiences.
And in the talking films, George Arliss,
Douglas Fairbanks, Nina Mae McKin-
ney, Al Jolson, Mary Pickford and
Bessie Love have been similarly success
| full.
1t seemed to me that in the movie
version of "Disraeli' Mr.. Arliss sur
passed his own performance of the
same role on the stage.
X X x
THOSE who see "The Love Parade"
will observe an artist doing his
stuff with all the vigor, all the infec-
tious gayety, all the personal mag
netism that is supposed to be inpos-
sible in the mechanical movies.
That artist is Maurice Chevalier. He
talks to the audience, he sings TO the
audience, he winks at the audience, he
| laughs with the audience. 1t obviously
made no difference to him that the au-
dience didn't happen to be present when
he was performing He possesses an
| imagination, an intense confidence and
a natural, indefatigable grace--and an
actor who is thus gifted needs no
exuberance is his own.
| have no doubt that Chevalier can
sing just as joyously, can laugh just as