Near the Red Lacquer Bridge at Nikko there used to be a path through the woods, with a signboard announcing: "This way to Somen Waterfall: it is well to have beea there once.'
The same might said of the "talkie-movies," for ex-[perience is always valuable, But "there is one difference, "Somen waterfall can be visited not once but many times, with nothing but pleasure. But there is at least ons Person whom it will be very difficult to drag to the talking—pictures again.
'One wishes to be perfectly fair. 'The orchestra was well conveyed though it had the faculty of eventually getting badly on one's nerves is common to all mechanically Produced music, Stroot and animal noises, a train' pulling out of station, and so forth, were also realistic. Amd Tam told that. speeches by practised orators, la. troduced into the news section of the programme, are good. Ail the performances, however, are something of a side line. ' The gre claim of talking pictures is that [they shall enable the to rival the living. Action and words shall go hand in hand for ith" achievement of complete reas ism. If this is not exaggeratits the claims of talking pictures, thea clearly it is by their production of plays that they are to be judged.
The film in which T had my first experience of the fairly average one, the story some what thin, avery' good doseer and fa rather attractive comedy Tt twas at least quite good enough take one's interest and convey th? necessary illusion, so long as it was ron_in the usual manner of films, it was for about three-quarters fof its length, Then suddenly th> orchestra was cut off and fror: somewhere out of the atmosphere proceeded the most grotesque carib Jeature of the human voice one could ell imagine. It suggested the roar. ings of a Titan, born with no roof his mouth and suffering from neurable adenoids. People near me jumped visibly in their seats [and continued to be rocked with by no means silent laughter. Conso Jand half the words were guesswork. Who was speaking we also had to guess. OF course one could teil when it was a man and when a wu, But there was little or nothing to connect the speakers
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.