Show HIE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE SUNDAY MORNING APRIL 27 1930 ft Only about one actor in 25 has a voice personality that clicks in talkies I and Hollywood scouts are spending $4000 a test in their search for new stars who can speak as well as look their parts before camera and mike i iv The oje and Words by GILBERT SWAN Sketches by GEORGE CLARK the two years during winch the “voice Sherlock of the talking picture have been stalking the highways and byways of the Broadway theater in search of Hollywood material they have left a trail of most interesting information For heard instance bar every new voice that is from the screen however minor the role the sum of $4000 is spent 1 his nund you does not include the future salary paid the player nor the wages of the sleuths the directors and all the rest — it‘s the mete physical cost of selecting one voice for one picture 1 he greatest overhead cost is run tip in tlie discovery of one character for a certain part 1 he player m " ? question may never again appear in another film but the cost is $4000 or thereabouts IJ'ACH just the same voice test given the Broad- - personalities costs $150 or in mere physical effort of ParaAnd Sam Blumenstock mount’ Astoria plant tells me that the average of success there is one person in 25 Allrert Lewis who listens and looks for the Fox Broadway department has similar figures 1 selected to or each of the more play a given role only one in 100 which are extremely complicated tests that are given today Most of them take two hours nothing like pictures ever knew before the newcomer is given ever) possible break for the studios are desperate for but not one in 25 ever gets a part as a result nev talent out hope or promise of film engagements 'Are the Scouts asleep can’t Btoadway pla'' What’s it all about? tograph? "In the history of pictures there never was such an opportunity for new talent" Blumenstock told me "We get almost desperate for it You have no idea how bard we look and bow bard we try “The tests that are given today are like nothing the pictures ever Do you realize that knew before most of the tests take nearly two hours? Look around at the staff of men required for the test —watch how the monitor gives the newcomer every possible break — bow we try to bring anything out of them if it’s there for the talkies — how the voice is recorded from a dozen angles and at varied ranges "Of all the people I have personally tested here there has been only one natural IN f £ 4 thing afterward I beard that another company had kept her xuit m Hollywood for a year paid her $300 It a week and never took a single shot of her seemed that she screened a lot like one of their stars and they didn’t want her to go to work for anyone else What then are they looking for? Here’s a sort of hint That First of all "voice personality” word personality is coming to the fore in a Sex appeal or whatever you very large way care to call it used to involve a little hip wigToday the “man gling and a little eye rolling in the big cage” listens first and looks afterward The casting director of course does both but the really important moment comes with when all the running off of the "playback concerned can hear just how everything sounded Voice personality also depends on the cacharacter pacity of an actor to suggest a through the inflection and quality of the voice 64TUNNY the mouth a has become terribly important matThe ter I also find eye of the average person in a movie theater being as yet ento tirely accustomed the new medium watches the lips and mouths of the players otherwho Actors wise might have qualified have often failed because their mouths took on peculiar expressions while they their were speaking V MrhJ y gets a contract for future pictures One out of hundieds It’s not the old casting job of yesRosila Moreno mas I teryear when each chief of casting had a notebook of "types” and charfound to have everything ' —looks acting dancing acter players and all that That "voice and a voiec personality’’ angle has brought more singing cha nges than anyone dreamed of even that registered "it” six months ago I he characters being drafted at the moment must not only look like the character landed as one of the most they must sound like the character And in personalities important lines there’s the rub the talking pictures today Then there’s the John Barrymore already of "voice had deserted the big street HECK down if you care to the amazproblem similarities" For one Catherine Dale Owen had ingly few Broadway headliners who have reason or another the survived the two years of the talkies done nothing extremely imof dozens recording the for theater a Of the hundreds to pass through the Asin portant shows folk of stage season or so toria Long Island pdant for instance there them to have "the are probably a dozen ranking stars and of standardized voice” these Claudette Colbert and Ruth Chatterton ND there eliminating This may or may stand out Walter Huston to lie sure has the screen’s musical !e a mechanical not made his mark as a character ('layer Charlie the li't attractions which one day fault Ruggles has done juvenile characters in a half Lven in just about ends will be corrected But dozen pictures Helen Morgan lias made three tlie niuuc revue and singin tlie meantime it is or four Juk Oakie who was barely known to ing puture field there has oice 7 he must the footlights of the Gay White Way having pointed out that the been little lasting success now suggest th sounds almost voice had small music show roles after leaving lus I annie Bnce Sophie Fuckcharacter like some exactly job as a W all Street messenger is one or t!r Iber Lddic Dowling whom Rudy Helen Chandler to s and if the tu'o can't be made to match other on voice already ” nv'st recent to hang out lus name in large letVHlee JesseP Georgie sen's "If i Id Duck brought the1 screen all off ConfuHelen Kane her way ters Vic Morgan and an assortis one of the most success sion it is held would through and may hang on for a time ment of blues singers and recent Broadwaijites giabbed result from the casting But notice that out of these and a few have specialty performers off by the talkies of two or more such noof others I might mention only three or four were out and to come unexpectedly faded made qne picture — sometimes two— ' voices in one picture where That happened only a big leaguers of the legitimate stage out T he audience g might Patlie got Ann Harding and live transient A couple of weeks ago Lillian Roth the youngster from Farl which voice was trouble out have Moreno Routa of figuring the Milname Ina Claire FoX got the versatile Paul Muni "Vanities" Marie Saxon Marilyn girl by w hirh She had came in from the vaudeville stage who was struggling in small parts on the "big ler and half a dozen others seem to go merrily And it s equally funny that tests have shown looks — been dancing itself has singstreet" and Helen Chandler who hadn’t been voice the But drama everything acting barely along of the bet "it" voices of the theater to I some the test role When got to her fair a Hollywood scratched got since overnight recognition ing given come through mirvelou'ly in recording whereShe a regular rave letter from the big boys W'arners got T et dozens and dozens whose names are m Ibsen’s "The A'dd Duck" as the photography does not suggest a person And she’s the first player I’ve went right out George Ailiss and A1 Johon 'radically shouted up and down the world s It’s all getting to be with that tv je of voice made without heard a contract of en having Chester Morris who had never knocked any to have get secretly greatest amusement avenue a successful less firt withcomplicated a more or prettv of the producers very col in New York tered and left the various screen test rooms picture (Copy r ghl 1530 Vy loer'VVetW Mifeazlne — lrinlfii In t C‘ boop-de-oojs- ’s lovelv-lookm- jV Nb v r' JL’ THE of Car-roll- s - ' Col- is re- - Claudette hert garded as an ng example of 4 harmony between voice arid appearance n Not the tvpe of beauty but a type which matched her rich perfectly voice silent-scree- stage-traine- d ROADWAY believes for instance that Marion Harris the blues singer has one of the greatest “it" voices to be found in But the And thus it recorded the theater camera so it was claimed took away illusions the voice had created The player did not photograph according to the suggestions of her voice On the other hand if you were’ to observe the highly successful Miss Colbert off stage you would note that she does not in the least conform to the standards of yesteryear’s silent On the stage and off she is picture heroines extremely beautiful but the wide high cheekbones might not have clicked in the days of the silent drama In the talkies however she looks exactly as she should so they tell me Considering the type of voice she possesses This voice to the best of my memory is slow paced and mellow — a very grand voice indeed This was a case where Miss Colbert’s long stage training gave her a voice which was so full of personality that it was able to triumph over a tradition of screen "prettmess” established in the days when the moving picture public demanded little of Us idols but regularity of feature Literally carloads of talent have shipped themselves westward in tlie past couple of year or have drifted into the nearby testing rooms only to learn how difficult it seems to be to fit a voice to a given role H CTORS of considerable experience are strangely enough among tlie most timid and in facing the mechanical setup necessary for a test” says A1 Lewis of tlie Fox lot "It’s simply the old Put any of these psychology of the audience people on the stage and stick a couple of people in seats — even if it’s only the janitor and a couple of usliers — and the actor will go right But stand him up to face a bit of maalong chinery and he’s scared to death ”1 lalf of them are at a loss what to say and Take such an experienced trouper what to do He couldn't think of anything as Lee Tracy to recite and was quite undetermined as to So he what scene he might decide to do walked back and forth discussing various ideas and arguing over their possibilities “All the time the camera was on him and the He didn’t know it record was being made The result was one of the most natural recordings I have ever made “A big percentage think they have to change their vocal pitch or do some fancy accenting T he fact is that hundreds of the old silent screen stars are coming back as talking picture prrformersbecause their voices and enunciacome tions unspoiled by any manipulation human and realistic manner through in A -- |