Evening star., 1954-10-05
On the Air

Whatever else you WdIIt W ody
of him, you will have to admit
that Mario LAMA has quite a
knack for being controversial.
Lip-syncing, or going through
the facial motions while a
phonograph record provides the
sound, is not exactly new to
television. When Mario does it,
however, it is news.
This device came to us early
via the TV disc jockey route.
Before this it was not unknown
to. night club and vaudeville
audiences. 1t even was indi-
rectly responsible for the pro-
fessional union of Dean Martin
and Jerry Lewis.
AS the historians have re-
corded, the team first got to-
gether as an impromptu act in
an Atlantic City night club after
the management had told them
to produce some excitement or
else. A few days earlier Martin
had been imported to bolster the
bill headed by Lewis. who ap-
parently had not been cheering
too many patrons with his pam
tomime to phonograph records.
If Jerry could only have Gre
ated the furor LAMA aroused
with this same business. you
might never have heard of Dean
Martin. You may ponder this
thought briefly during the fol-
lowing asteriskS.
Now pull yourself together and
we can go on. CHS. as you may
or may not have heard by this
time, finally admitted that
LAMA was represented vocally
by some two-year-old phono-
graph records on last Thursday
nights Shower of Stars" pre-
niere. There was no doubt at
the time that he was "sing-
ing" silently to a pre-recorded
sound track. --.-- ---..- ---.-.e
That must have been as OBJ
vious to every viewer as was the
fact that Betty Cradle was doing
the same thing. and it was so
noted here. Naturally there was
no way of knowing how pre- the
pre-recording was. If the critic
had been a bit more alert late
that night, of course, he might
have reported that Lanza's BE
My Love" sounded precisely like
popular record Of several years
back.
This business of recording
music in advance is not. in itself,
cheating any one. The movies
have been doing it for years.
It is obvious to any one who
ever breathed that neither Betty
Cradle nor any one else can
dance through big production
number and still have breath
enough to sing at the same
time.
It may be. though. that the
customers will not let what we
call live" teleyision get away
with 1t. There's no way Of in
suring, In q telecast Of this
sort, that lip movement and
sound will be fiawlessly matched.
In the making of movie, on
the other hand, there is q lot of
Juggling that can be done of
sound track and film. In fact, If
you would like a bit of fine, con-
fusing technical information. the
sound track on a theatrical Aim
is spaced several frames ahead
of the visual image it accom-
panies.
This is because sound travels
more slowly than light and it
must have q head start from the
screen IL it is to reach the loge
seats in a dead heat with the
proper picture. This may make
even large screen television i'm
practical for those with living
rooms as large as the Capitol
Theater. They would sit there
thinking everything is q record
and all the people talk too fast
for the records. This is a minor
ity group, however, that will have
to fight its own battles.
4
The use Of two-year-old phon-
ograph records Is something be-