The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-06-30

man.
 No wonder the entire film cost over $960, ,000 with its tremendous sets, and its salaries for techni- cal men and photographers.
 But money in the movies Is. after all, a relative matter. Grand Hotel" will have to net the profits of four ordinary feature films to pay its way. but 1t is already pay On Broadway alone, 1t plays to a capacity business of $22,000 each and every week. la |. Its success has been so instan- taneous that It will probably earn about $2;boo,ooo during this year alone. ss3.
 And that does not take into account the foreign versions of the film. For when Irving Thalherg first came upon "Grand Hotel" he realized at once that this story, in film form, could be played on every screen in Europe.
 Shoot Foreign Versions
 And those European versions are quite an interesting bit of business In the first days of the talkies, the custom was to make special fore ign Versions of pictures. with an entirely foreign cast.
 This business of shooting scenes in half a dozen languages with half dozen. stars, cost money. and also annoyed foreign audiences. who wanted to zee the American actors and actresses and at the same time have them speak -EuropeanvTlan- guages. 1s.s, s.s5 1ss
 Shooting and re e-shooting Grand Hotei' in half Q dozen different versions was out of the question.
 SoT what Metro oldwyn- Mayer did, was to hold voice tests in France. Italy, Germany and Spain. Then they hired the best of those actors and actresses not to ever appear on the screen, but merely lend. their voices.
 Thus is comes about that in Berlin's version of Grand Hotel" the face will be the face of Gar bO, but the voice will belong to some unknown German actress. who possibly got $50 to $250 ,a week for speaking Garbo's lines.
 This business of synchronizing foreign languages to the film is . highly technical affair. It adds about $l0.000 to the cost of Grand Hoter for every foreign version Already, sas this Is being written. "dranfi Hofel' ia complete In Ger man, Freneh, Spanish and Italian Iversio ohsrall thes main languages of Eur0De. " .F1rst. the foreign actors and act resses were brought to Hollywood and given their lines to memorize. l Then, they sat in the M-gsM pro- | lection room and watched the lip movements of the characters in the | l0riginats version Of ''0rnnd HOtel'' Then they speak their parts 1n- Ito snnlcnophoIles at rehearsala Ewhere the picture Is run off with the sound omitted. v Their voices are then recorded on separate 9tm and the new sound track is adjusted to the, orig inal picture. This fnaI process H6i syHchr6nixation isi an exciustve one with Metro-G Goldwyp- Mayer. {, {, s'sD that is how surand Hotel' will be travelling all over Europe in 3 few months and dupIicatirie ] its American auccess. And 10 well will the voices match | the acting that foreign saudiencea will Implicitly believe that Lewia Stone and Wallace iBeery can speak four different languargcs besides Engiish! 7 a 1t has been said that the stars of "(srand Hotel" 1" the film now at | the Palace. submerged their tenn. | peranents during tho making ul f1rc picfurc. TOSnorrow'e chnFtcr ol I this series tells yCsz OfTa few; isO. jasad 0ufhnrHta-