Talk:Sound film

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Contents

[edit] The Jazz Singer and Sunrise

A few of the claims that I deleted or corrected:

  • Despite the fact that synchronized sound technology had not substantially advanced in the previous five years: See the paragraph right above where that was. The introduction of condensor microphones and amplifier tubes made talking picture practical.
  • The demand for The Jazz Singer was immense, almost unprecedented: Film historian Donald Crafton wrote,
In its national first-run release, The Jazz Singer did well, judged by box-office receipts and the lengths of its runs, but it was in a distant second or third tier of attractions compared to the most popular films of the day and even other Vitaphone talkies.
  • Silent films that were awaiting release, such as F.W. Murnau's Sunrise, were given a synchronized music track and sound effects: Sunrise was released with a Movietone sound track on 16 September 1927, two weeks before the release of The Jazz Singer.
  • Other studios immediately began to produce sound films of their own: No other studio made a talking feature in 1927. In fact, no other studio released even a part-talking feature (RKO's The Perfect Crime) until August 1928, ten months after The Jazz Singer. — Walloon 06:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I deleted this: "The transition from silent to sound films can be seen as one of the first examples of technological network effect." Automobiles and petrol stations, telephones, telegraphs, radio, horses with blacksmiths in every town... there are plenty of examples of technological network effects that predate talking pictures.

[edit] Dream Street

Instead of using terms like "feature-length talkie" to describe Griffith's Dream Street, which means different things to different people, and will cause confusion because to a lot of people "talkie" means dialogue and "feature-length" implies that it had sound throughout, why not use more precision to name what Dream Street was: the first feature-length film with sound sequences. — Walloon 11:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You're quite right. I've phrased it a bit differently—"the first feature-length film with a live-recorded vocal sequence"—so as to follow it with "There would be no others for more than six years." If it was phrased as "the first feature-length film with sound sequences," the proper follow-up would be "There would be no others for more than five years"; the technological and conceptual similarity is stronger however between Dream Street and The Jazz Singer than it is between Dream Street and Don Juan. But again, your basic point is very well taken. Thanks, Dan —DCGeist 14:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jazz Singer's box office

I encourage editors of this article to read "Buying Broadway: The Jazz Singer's Reception," an entire chapter of the book The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926-1931 by Donald Crafton. He carefully discusses how the myth of The Jazz Singer being a smash success was built. He then goes to the historical record and examines the movie's actual performance, based on weekly earnings and total runs, compared to other silent movies of the day, and compared to other Vitaphone features before and after it. An excerpt:

The research detailed in this book should make us question claims about a single film or "event" being responsible for any major change in Hollywood. But the case of The Jazz Singer bears closer scrutiny because its reputation as a catalyst for the coming of sound has rested unchallenged to such a remarkable extent.

Another excerpt:

So The Jazz Singer's performance at New York's showcase movie house [the Roxy] was a bit above average, but the film did not consistently fill the big theater to capacity. It did about the same as the silent film Loves of Carmen.
While the Warners' film was among New York's top entertainment attractions, its popularity did not match Paramount's aerial saga [Wings] or Garbo and Gilbert's clinches [Love]. The Jazz Singer's Broadway run of twenty-three weeks was good, but not exceptional.

Another excerpt:

How did it measure up to other "sound" films?. . . . Since Don Juan, which had opened at the Warners' Theatre in August 1926, there had been three subsequent synchronized features . . . . A review of the seat-adjusted gross receipts for these first Vitaphone programs reveals that the first two features [Don Juan and The Better 'Ole] outperformed The Jazz Singer.

And another:

The film did well in Philadelphia, opening with a $14,000 gross. But earlier in the year What Price Glory? had opened there with $20,000, and Seventh Heaven with $14,500, so The Jazz Singer was not a blockbuster. It had an eight-week run, but the other nondialogue films had enjoyed runs of thirteen and eight weeks, respectively. The film opened New Year's Day 1928 in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Seattle, and Washignton, D.C., with good but not record receipts. . . . At the Orpheum in Chicago, The Jazz Singer was outgrossed throughout its run by the Vitaphone talking feature Tenderloin. In Los Angeles, Wings in second run at the Criteron outperformed The Jazz Singer in its first run. The Lights of New York did better than The Jazz Singer at the Embassy in San Francisco.

Ask yourself: Which film historian goes into the most detail about the release of The Jazz Singer? Which historian relies on several sources of primary documentation? And which does not? — Walloon 00:34, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Success of The Jazz Singer

I was in the proces of writing directly to Walloon, because I know of his particular interest in The Jazz Singer, when I discovered that he'd left this extensive message on the sound film article's Talk page. Below is my message exactly as sent to Walloon, reproduced here as a response to his reliance on Crafton:

Hi, Walloon. I went over the Crafton material carefully and corrected a typo in the quote that appears in The Jazz Singer article. I didn't make any other changes to the article, but I want you to take a look at the data on The Jazz Singer b.o. I've added to the sound film article. The primary source I've gleaned this information from is:
Glancy, H. Mark (1995). "Warner Bros. Film Grosses, 1921–51: The William Schaefer Ledger," Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, March (available online)—see, in particular, pages 4 and 5.
The data, direct from Warner Bros.' internal records, pretty clearly refute Crafton. I currently say in the footnote, "By any measure, The Jazz Singer was one of the biggest films of the decade." I don't go into further detail, but not only was it Warners biggest film before The Singing Fool, but Hollywood's two leading studios put out only three higher-earning films before going fully into sound production in 1929: MGM with The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) and Ben-Hur (1925); Paramount with The Covered Wagon (1923). Of course, earlier there was The Birth of a Nation (1915). As best I can determine, The Jazz Singer was the fifth biggest movie in Hollywood history before The Singing Fool surpassed it. That's a smash by any reckoning.
Crafton is a very smart writer and an able researcher, but I think it's clear he's picked and chosen certain data in order to advance a particular, tendentious argument in this case. There are worthwhile points in his ideological analysis of the promotion and reception of The Jazz Singer, but his fundamental argument simply doesn't hold up when you step back and look at the big picture. Crafton can't change the simple fact that The Jazz Singer was the fifth-biggest money-earner in Hollywood history, and the biggest Warners film ever, before The Singing Fool.
Best, Dan—DCGeist 01:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Addendum: MGM's The Big Parade (1925) was also an enormous hit, making The Jazz Singer number 6 all time before The Singing Fool.—DCGeist 01:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be helpful to analyze an example of Crafton's artful tendentiousness. Let's stop and think about this statement Walloon has quoted: "A review of the seat-adjusted gross receipts for these first Vitaphone programs reveals that the first two features [Don Juan and The Better 'Ole] outperformed The Jazz Singer." "Seat-adjusted gross receipts"?! I assure you, if we review "seat-adjusted" gross receipts, Little Miss Sunshine is outperforming Titanic. What Crafton avoids saying, as he cherry-picks data to his liking from different individual theaters and run periods, is that The Jazz Singer played long and strong all across the country--that's how it grossed $2.6 million, substantially more than any other movie released nationally in 1927.—DCGeist 02:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Show Girl in Hollywood

The caption of the poster for Show Girl in Hollywood says, "The poster shows a camera shooting unboothed and unblimped—simply unrealistic." It isn't unrealistic if the camera is shooting a musical number with a prerecorded playback. The Broadway Melody, filmed in 1928, pioneered that technique. I would have written, "The camera, unboothed and unblimped, may be shooting a musical number with a prerecorded soundtrack." — Walloon 05:11, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Excellent observation! Thanks, Walloon. —DCGeist 05:13, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anny Ondra

Our article on Anny Ondra says that she played in forty sound films, but this article says:

Ondra's British film career was over

--Error 22:37, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Yep. It does. Blackmail was the last British movie she ever made. That's the point of that discussion--her accent made it impossible for her to work in English-language productions with the arrival of the talkies.—DCGeist 22:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Parallel language versions

User:DCGeist asks me for references on the section on Hollywood foreign-language versions. I just wrote what I remembered from the documentary Pioneros en Hollywood apparently bittorrentable from this not-safe-for-work page that I watched in La 2 on 15 October.

Some more info:

  • Luis Buñuel was disappointed for some reason, and after two weeks he appeared at the studio only on Saturdays to get his cash, and expended the rest of his stage as a paid Californian vacation.
  • There was an interesting prison film whose name I forgot with mass scenes (of course, taken from the original version) of prisoners parading on the yard that seemed Expressionist.
  • There was a statistic of foreign-language films shot in (Hollywood?/Joinville?) that I remember that included 1 Japanese film and 4 Croatian ones.

--Error 23:42, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Given the lack of immediately accessible authoritative sourcing, the subsection will be held here until proper references can be verified:

[edit] Parallel-language films

American studios found that many of their early sound productions were falling short of expectations in foreign-language markets. With quality post-dubbing not yet technologically possible, parallel foreign-language versions were made for a time.

Around 1930, the American companies opened a production facility in Joinville-le-Pont, France, where the same sets and wardrobe and even mass scenes were used by different crews sharing studio time. Foreign unemployed actors, playwrights, and winners of beauty contests were also brought to Hollywood, where they shot parallel versions of the English-language films. These parallel versions had lower budgets in almost all cases; they tended to be shot at night and directed by second-line American directors who did not speak the foreign language. Among those in the Spanish-language crews who would go on to later fame were Luis Buñuel, Enrique Jardiel Poncela, and Edgar Neville. The productions were not very successful in their intended markets:

  • The lower budgets were apparent.
  • Many theater actors had no previous experience in cinema.
  • The original movies were often second-rate themselves, since studios expected that the top productions would sell by themselves.
  • The mix of foreign accents (Castilian, Mexican, Chilean for example in the Spanish case) was odd for the audiences.
  • Some markets lacked sound-equipped theaters.

In spite of the production obstacles, a few parallel versions, such as the Spanish-language version of Dracula compare favorably with the originals.

—DCGeist 05:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Holding place for related, verified info:

Keaton "made Spanish versions of Free and Easy and Doughboys, French versions of Parlor, Bedroom and Bath and The Passionate Plumber, and a German version of Doughboys." (Dardis, p. 185)

[edit] Lead

Great article, but I have some comments about the lead. According to WP:LEAD, it should summarise the whole article. The actual one focuses too much on regional scenes and ignores the whole "Consequences" section. Could someone fix it? Thank you. CG 11:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course, the lead doesn't ignore the whole "Consequences" section at all; rather, via a survey of the most important regional scenes, it covers the most important thematic points in the "Consequences" section in a clear and accessible way. Here is the actual primary guideline from WP:LEAD: "The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, explaining why the subject is interesting or notable, and describing its notable controversies, if there are any." If it ain't broke... —DCGeist 13:01, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In terms of pioneers, I had heard that ...

.. that Józef Tykociński was first synchronzed sound on film, [1]. --Smokefoot 17:49, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, not quite. Eugene Lauste received the first patent for a sound-on-film system in 1907. In addition, Tykociński's process--like Lauste's--clearly went nowhere commercially. However, the reference you provide, as well as another one available via the Wikipedia article on Tykociński suggest that he did give the first-ever public demonstration of sound-on-film, beating out the Tri-Ergon team by three months. I'll do a little more research on the matter and then figure out how to fit him into the article.—DCGeist 18:15, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Done. Thank you.—DCGeist 19:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Great article

Very well referenced and a lot of nice pictures... good job DCGeist.

[edit] Fantastic!!!

One of the best FA's in Wikipedia I have ever read! Truly what a great encyclopedic article should be: comprehensive, informative and entertaining to read. RashBold (talk • contribs) 23:03, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] More Information Needed

An explanation of how “the encoding of sound and its inscription directly onto image-bearing celluloid” actually makes sounds would be helpful, since this is the title of the article.

Thus: “the sound track was photographically recorded and printed on to the side of the strip of motion picture film” – how does it end up making sound?

Similarly – “the variable-area RCA Photophone and Western Electric's own variable-density process”: what does variable-area and variable-density mean and how do they produce sound? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Teneriff (talk • contribs) 03:38, 19 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Tigerstedt

Holding for good sources:

However, the first successful sound-on-film process was implemented by the Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt. His own film "Word and Picture" was presented to a gathering of scientific dignitaries in Berlin in 1914. It was the world's first successful “talking picture”, although his technology was never commercialised. He also solved the problem of amplifying film audio in a large theather hall by making signifcant improvements to the design of the triode vacuum valve by Lee De Forest. Additionally, he went on to develop directional loudspeakers.

—DCGeist 10:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

There is surprisingly little publicly available information on Eric Tigerstedt. However, there is a a minor reference to him on the web-pages by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, Department for Communication and Culture; Reference to Eric Tigerstedt. There are 2 good books on him, one called "E.M.C Tigerstedt 'Suomen Edison', by A.M. Pertti Kuusela, published by Insinööritieto Oy in 1981 (ISBN 951-793-395-9). This book is however out of print. Another one called "AO Lisiä historiaan" by J Kuusanmäki, Kauko Rumpunen & Pertti Vuorinen (ISBN 952-90-9878-2) has one section dedicated to him, under the heading "Eric Magnus Campbell Tigerstedt - Unohdettu merkkimies".
So, it seems that the first successful implementation of sound-on-film was indeed done by Eric Tigerstedt in 1914, beating Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner by a good 8 years. In my opinion, this warrants including him in the article (which is excellent, by the way!) —Grimne 22:50, 15 February 2007 (CET)
Great. Thank you. That's excellent sourcing.—DCGeist 01:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A little history of Hollywood and the Depression

Yes, Zosimus Comes, the stock market itself did recover somewhat through mid-1930 (the market, in fact, took a substantial downturn again in June, well before "autumn of 1930"). The 1929 crash, however--as the article has and will correctly state--helped plunge the country into depression. Let us refer to one of the most respected reference works in the field, The Oxford History of the American People, by Samuel Eliot Morison: "[T]he stock-market crash of 1929 started a downward spiral in prices, production, employment, and foreign trade, which the Hawley-Smoot tariff of 1930 and intensified protection in European countries--everyone for himself--made even worse" (p. 941). An examination of the figures provided by Morison shows that both U.S. retail sales and gross national product dropped steadily from the very beginning of 1930 (p. 942). "[N]ational income dropped from $81 billion in 1929 to $68 billion in 1930...." (Balio [1995], p. 13)--that drop did not occur in just the last couple months.

And the article has and will correctly state the consensus view of Hollywood in relation to the early stages of the Great Depression. "More than a year after the great Wall Street crash of 1929, conventional wisom had it that the movies were immune to the Depression" (Balio [1995], p. 13). And the article has and will continue to properly focus on its subject matter, sound film; not on Technicolor musicals (a perfectly fascinating topic in their own right...for another article), not on the ups and downs of the stock market (again, a perfectly good topic for another article), and not on "gloom and despair" and its "sudden gripping" of the public (i.e., "the studios began to spend profusely and lavishly on Technicolor musicals. On May 26, 1930, the New York Time reported that Warner Brothers had announced that they were going to spend 37 million dollar on pictures for the 1930-1931 season.[1] These ambitions of prosperity were shattered, however, by the autumn of 1930,when the stock market began to decline precipitously and the Great Depression began in earnest. The gloom and despair that suddenly gripped the public quickly turned them off the lavish spectacle of color musicals").

On a personal note, I hope that your recent enrollment In WikiProject Films means that you are prepared to work in a different way. We do not sneakily substitute one image for another on an image source page. We do not write intentionally deceptive edit summaries. We do respect the fact that when one of our fellow project members (you'll note I've been part of the project since last October) has put a lot of work into an article (as I have on this one), takes ongoing responsibility for maintaining its quality (as I do on this one), particularly when they were instrumental in raising it to Featured Article status (as I was with this one), you'll be a bit more proactive in attempting to work with them. That's very different from not "allow[ing] anyone to change or add a thing" to an article. Just as RKO Pictures got to its current state in large part because of a collaboration between GPM from Italy and me, my collaboration with Walloon was instrumental to this article--see earlier threads on this page. Your contributions to The Jazz Singer, another article I've put a lot of work into, seem quite productive, for instance. And, yes, another thing we Project members do is keep our tempers (addressing myself here). So, let's bury the hatchet. I've never had the slightest unpleasantness with a fellow Project member--let's try to work in that amicable spirit from here on out.—DCGeist 06:03, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


The Great Depression did not begin until the last half of 1930. It began to affect the general public, at the earliest, around August of that year. The movie industry, like everyone esle was affected by the Depression and was not "immune":

[edit] Warner Bros

  • 1930: Profit $7,074,621.
  • 1931: Loss $7,918,604
  • 1932: Loss $14,095,054
  • 1933: Loss $6,291,748
  • 1934: Loss $2,530,513

[edit] Radio Pictures

  • 1930: Profit $3,385,628
  • 1931: Loss $5,660,770
  • 1932: Loss $14,095,054; Forced into Receivership
  • 1933: Loss More than $10,000,000
  • 1934: Loss $4,384,064

[edit] Paramount

  • 1930: Profit $18,381,178
  • 1931: Profit $6,000,000
  • 1932: Loss $15,857,544
  • 1933: Forced into Receivership; Declares Bankrupty
  • 1934: Bankrupt (until 1935)

[edit] Fox

  • 1930: Profit $9,500,000.
  • 1931: Loss $4,200,000
  • 1932: Loss $17,000,000
  • 1933: Loss $5,000,000
  • 1934: Loss $3,000,000

[edit] Columbia and United Artists

  • After a profit in 1930, Columbia and United Artists suffered in the same way and both received their worse losses in 1932.

[edit] Universal

  • Universal was forced into Receivership in 1932.

[edit] MGM

The only major film company to post modest profits throughout 1931 to 1934. Notice, however, how profits rose in 1930 (when you claim the Depression had already begun) and went down in 1931, when the Depression in fact had begun:

  • 1929: Profit: $12,107,026
  • 1930: Profit: $15,000,000
  • 1931: Profit: $12,000,000
  • 1932: Profit: $8,000,000
  • 1933: Profit: $1,300,000

Zosimus Comes 23:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

As the depression did not begin to set in, as you have mentioned, until late 1930, is it not possible that the 1930 fiscal year profits (which does not necessarily correlate to the 1930 calendar year to begin with) would already have a strong enough stride for the first two or three quarters to be enough to carry the rest of the year's losses? Girolamo Savonarola 02:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Zosimus, it's really unclear what you're attempting to prove with all these figures that supposedly contradict what's in the article.
  • Fact: The stock market crash of 1929 helped plunge the country into depression (see my cite above; I can easily provide others if you need them).
  • Fact: The economy was clearly sliding from the very beginning of 1930 (see my cite above; I can easily provide others if you need them).
  • Fact: The Hollywood studios posted record profits in the 1929-30 fiscal year (covering October 1, 1929-September 30, 1930), as your figures above help confirm (what you identify as "1930" is, in fact, that 1929-30 fiscal year).
  • Fact: As a result of their impressive profits during the first two-thirds of 1930, Hollywood was largely regarded as "immune" to the building depression--that building depression already evident in the months-long slide in retail sales and GNP (see my cite above; I can easily provide others if you need them).
  • Fact: Late in 1930, as the depression grew severe, reality hit the studios with attendance dropoffs, and soon Hollywood was no longer regarded as immune to the country's broader economic state. We all agree on this.
All of the above is accurately reflected in the article. I've added "at first" to the "seemed immune" clause for clarity.—DCGeist 18:18, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


People often look back in hindsight and rewrite history to conform to what they know would occur. The truth is that no one expected a Depression to occur in late 1929 or the first half of 1930. Sales of phonograph records, cars, radios, clothes, etc. etc remained stable until the middle of 1930. Wages remained stabled until early in 1931 and lay offs only began late in 1930. The only people who were immediately affect by the crash of 1929 were those who has foolishly put all their money in the stock market. The rest of the public continued life as usual and the majority of people believed that the crash was only a temporary economic downturn. The Stock Market rebounded steadily immediately after the crash. Stocks rallied in November and this rally continued into December, recouping 1/3 of the stock market loss. Early in 1930, there were great expectations of a quick business revival. (Just look over some newspapers from January of 1930 and you will see no dire predictions or any hint that anything was going wrong with the economy). Hopeful expectations plus what appeared to be a normal increase in business in anticipation of a healthy spring trade pushed Big Board stocks up more than $4 billion in January, 1930, to a new total of $69 billion. In the spring of 1930, credit was ample and available at low rates. Auto sales did not actually decline below the good levels of 1928 until the end of May, 1930. Total NYSE stocks reached just under $80 billion by April 10, 1930, making up about 73% of its losses since its September, 19, 1929 highs. The Big Board had surged about $30 billion in five months, a gain of about 65%. Its loss from its September, 19, 1929 highs, was just about 12%.
If people had known what was coming, they would not have continued with business as usual and businesses would not have been so open to invest and spend as if the stock market crash had never occurred. Popular legends and Hollywood movies would have us believe that immediately after the crash large numbers of people jumped out of windows and the rest were laid off in droves and everyone was standing in bread lines... unfortunately the reality is hardly that simply or picturesque. Looking back at what occurred in 1931-1933, it is easy to dismiss the recovery of 1930 and the real state of affairs at that time.Zosimus Comes 05:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
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