In Theda Bara's Tent (as Reviewed by Publisher's Weekly)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Doubts about the sound-on-film system were swept away at the Roxy Theater when we all saw and heard Charles Lindbergh at Roosevelt Field, Long Island, taking off for his historic flight across the Atlantic. The scene was photographed in a single, continuous-pan shot at the moment of Lindberghs takeoff on a gray, overcast morning while a group of bystanders milled around expectantly. A shout was heard, and the plane was seen gathering speed to lift off from the field. When the plane roared into the sky, the audience stood up and cheered.

Kenny and I went to Washington to photograph Lindbergh at his homecoming ceremony. Politicians were eager to accommodate us, letting us take apart the stage their people had set up so we could move it into better light, asking us where they should stand and how long their speeches should be and what kind of clothes would photograph best. We used an immobile sound camera set up on the reception stand and simply turned the camera on when President Coolidge began to talk. He was famously taciturn. Audiences had seen his closed-lipped face on dozens of silent newsreels in which he spoke his few words with sincerity to the crowd. This time, instead of speaking to the crowd, Coolidge turned his back to them and spoke directly to the camera lens using weird, robot-like gestures. He was talking to invisible people in invisible dark theaters. Kenny, concentrating on the task at hand, was cranking away while I was awash with a feeling of unease. We were getting between the people and their elected official. The camera, in a sense, obliterated the real Coolidge and presented the public with a poser, an actor. Would this be the new way: politicians wooing the camera rather than the people? Would there come a time when only photogenic people could hold office? Later, Kenny made me laugh by saying there would come a time when movie stars would run for office.

Lindbergh did the opposite of Coolidge. He ignored the camera and spoke directly to the crowd. When he was done, our microphone inadvertently caught an officials order: Strike up the band! I left that in the final cut.

The two Lindbergh newsreels, his departure and his return, were an immense financial success. Mr. Fox began to expand his chain of theaters and converted them all to Movietone. The Fox Theaters Corporation will build up a chain of theaters that will cover the forty-eight states of the Union, he said at a staff meeting when we were sitting around his conference table, from Maine to California. He spoke to the wall as if watching a film of himself moving his personnel and equipment into various theaters, tearing down the current name and replacing it with Fox. Amplifiers and speakers must be installed at a cost of approximately twenty thousand dollars per theater, Mr. Fox said. All our motion-picture stages, here in New York and in California, are being converted to sound. To finance the expansion of theaters, we have borrowed money. He rose, walked to the window, pulled back the shade, looked out on Tenth Avenue and said to the windowpane, But I rather enjoy being in difficulties. Working them out is a satisfaction to me. He let the shade drop and returned to the conference table. During the entire history of my picturemaking, I have always been under the impression that I was doing something just a little bit more than making money. I was putting entertainment and relaxation within the reach of all. Now, with Movietone, I have an opportunity to do even more for my fellow human beings. It is my intention to help medical students by documenting correct surgical procedures. On Thursday of this week, Fox cameramen in a Chicago hospital will record a surgical operation while physicians explain the procedure. This is the first time in history that a surgical operation has been thus recorded. It is the goal of Fox-Movietone News to introduce audiovisual teaching in the areas of science and mathematics. Just imagine, he said to his invisible movie screen, professors at college coming to our studio and delivering lectures on subjects they have studied for years and that they hope to present to a body of students. We photograph the speaker, and at the same time on the same celluloid, we photograph his voice. That lecture can simultaneously be shown in all the universities of the world, so that the speakers voice may be heard in a thousand classrooms at one time. Movietone will ultimately be one of the greatest factors for education that it is possible to conceive.