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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77870 ***
+
+
+                               TALKIES
+
+                           By Eddie Cantor
+
+                          Star of “Whoopee”
+                     and author of “Caught Short”
+
+                     Illustrated by L. T. Holton
+
+
+Silence has left the city. I remember in the old days when I’d be
+wearied by the noises of the street, I’d go into a quiet telephone
+booth, drop a nickel, rest my ear on the receiver and take a nap for a
+half-hour. The trouble now is that after three minutes they say your
+time is up.
+
+There were many restful places in the city then. I used to get into the
+subway, stretch out on the train seat and sleep until the conductor
+nudged me at the last stop, saying, “Change beds!” Little by little,
+quiet left the city, but there was always the movies. There a man could
+retreat from a debating wife and twelve vocal children for a few hours
+of silence. But now even the screen shoots and shouts at you. We knew
+all along that walls have ears, but what mouths they’ve developed! Who
+ever suspected that a phonograph record attached to a roll of film
+would destroy the last temple of silence and create a new market for
+ear-muffs!
+
+But we’re living in an age of sound and talk. It all started with
+the telephone when Bell invented a way of calling a man names from
+a safe distance. After that came the phonograph, the dictaphone,
+cuckoo-clocks, peanut-roasters, whistling radiators, until now we have
+automatic talking salesmen, talking pictures and musical automobile
+horns. Everybody everywhere has something to say, and if not, can at
+least make a sound. Today talk is a commodity like salmon, and can be
+caught, canned and sold. At one time wives were the only talking
+pictures; now they sit mute with astonishment before the vitaphone.
+
+It took the men to turn hot air into cold cash. Somebody says,
+“Boogey-boogey!” and right away a thousand microphones, a million
+amplifiers and a billion electric waves spread the priceless utterance
+throughout the world to countless eager ears. Then somebody writes a
+theme-song about it and calls it, “Boogey-boogey, You Frighten Me with
+Love!”
+
+Sound rules the waves--Britannia is out of luck. The time is at hand
+when the wizards of gab will branch out into other fields besides the
+speaking screen. We’ll soon have harmonizing hammocks on the front
+porch, orthophonic washtubs in the laundry, yodeling door-knobs and
+talking beds.
+
+[Illustration: Even the lion refused to return until two supervising
+directors promised him the skunks would be out of the picture.]
+
+I can see the day when you will be ushered into a home and the host
+will remark, “I’ll only be gone a minute to mix the cocktails, but in
+the meantime you can sit in the parlor and have a chat with my
+floor-lamp.”
+
+If you’ll try to boast about your new maid because she talks French,
+your host will eye you pityingly. “That’s nothing,” he’ll sneer. “We
+have a bureau in the boudoir that speaks six languages fluently, and
+you should hear our new Persian rug make wise-cracks!”
+
+Of course, there is still room for improvement in the speaking film.
+When you hear some of the voices on the screen, you feel like calling
+out: “For heaven’s sake! Change the needle!” Many a soulful kiss sounds
+as if the lovers are drinking hot soup, and I’ve been told that in his
+first talkie trial, Rin-Tin-Tin barked like a canary. One famous silent
+star, however, made a hit in her first talkie. She managed to register
+deep emotion with her heavy breathing. But it wasn’t passion. She’d
+been suffering from asthma for years.
+
+Many Hollywood customs have changed. Formerly, in going on location, an
+actress would powder her nose; now she sprays it. A handsome leading
+man made his first sound test and was fired. His tonsils showed in the
+close-ups. A big he-man of the open spaces went back to the river-front
+when they discovered his voice was soprano. Another old-time star sang
+a solo accompanied by a violin, but when the picture was shown, a loud
+drum was heard from the screen that drowned out the fiddle. Everybody
+began to look for the mysterious drummer until the artist himself
+finally found that the taps were due to the click of his lower plate
+rising and falling with his notes.
+
+[Illustration: Think of what smell could do in the future if such a
+picture as “Noah’s Ark” is remade.]
+
+In my own talkie experience I learned that if I patted a woman’s arm it
+recorded as if I were hitting a gong, and my sweetheart’s footsteps
+sounded like horse’s hoofs. My greatest problem was to talk toward the
+microphone, which is concealed in various parts of the scene, outside
+the range of the camera eye and usually in the opposite direction from
+the person I was talking to. In one scene with my mother the microphone
+was hidden under the sofa, so that I first had to bend down and address
+the sofa, saying, “Mother, please forgive me!” Then I rose and embraced
+her. After that, the mother bent down and said to the sofa: “My son, I
+hope you have learned your lesson.” To avoid so much bending, we both
+finally got under the sofa and only came up for air.
+
+In another picture the sound didn’t synchronize with the action. In
+fact, nothing synchronized. The rain came a minute too soon and caught
+me indoors. I was playing the son of an old-fashioned farmer who was
+driving my wayward sister from the old homestead. The words got ahead
+of the action, and at the crucial moment, when the father had to say,
+“Go from my house!” the words came from the mouth of the cow. To this
+the pig replied: “Oh, Father, have mercy on me!” The father raised a
+threatening hand, and when I rushed between him and the girl, I cried
+dramatically, “Moooo!” while my sister shrank away squealing,
+“Wee-wee!” At this the rooster flapped his wings and said, “Don’t drive
+my sister from me!” and I threw my arms around the old man’s neck and
+began to crow.
+
+On the next lot they were shooting a costume talkie that was no better.
+There I heard a member of Romanian royalty with a Tenth Avenue accent
+speak to a French ambassador who had a strong Irish brogue. They
+suspected the British King’s lovely daughter of a secret romance, but
+when she was challenged to admit it, the English princess said: “Vell,
+I’ll tell you, mine friends, I vouldn’t say if yes or if not.”
+
+Still, the speaking films are tending toward efficiency. Recently one
+big star had three doubles for him in a single picture. One talked for
+him; another sang for him; and a third played the piano. After a while
+he’ll have so many doubles he’ll just have to telephone in his part of
+the work, and they’ll send him his salary.
+
+After the talkies get perfected, I would like the inventors to start on
+an idea I have long cherished--a smellophone, so you will be able to
+smell your favorite star by his or her special perfume. What realistic
+touches we could have!
+
+[Illustration: The microphone was hidden under the sofa, so that I had
+to bend down and address the sofa, saying “Mother, please forgive me!”]
+
+Think of what smell could do for animal pictures. Certain animals, of
+course, would have to be excluded. I understand that in the production
+of a recent classic, suggested by the success of “Noah’s Ark,” a
+trifling error cost the producers a fortune. The property man was told
+to get two animals of each kind, so he brought in two skunks with the
+rest. Giraffes stumbled and broke their necks, bears fainted, hippos
+drowned and the other beasts scattered to different lots and studios
+and couldn’t be corralled for a week. Even the lion refused to return
+until two supervising directors promised him personally that the skunks
+would be out of the picture.
+
+Still, with all the possibilities of the new talkie era, I don’t think
+the speaking film will ever replace the stage. For no matter how
+beautiful the girls are, how sweetly they may sing or tap their feet,
+and how good they may look in tights on the screen, you can never wait
+for them at the stage door.
+
+
+[Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the February, 1930 issue
+of _Redbook_ magazine.]
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77870 ***