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{{Short description|
{{Redirect|Talking pictures|the British television channel|Talking Pictures TV}}
{{Redirect2|Talkie|Talkies|the adventure games that feature voice-overs|Adventure game#Expansion (1990–2000)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2013}}
[[File: Gaumont1902.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.3|alt=Illustration of a theater from the rear of the stage. At the front of the stage, a screen hangs. In the foreground is a gramophone with two horns. In the background, a large audience is seated at orchestra level and on several balconies. The words "Chronomégaphone" and "Gaumont" appear at both the bottom of the illustration and, in reverse, at the top of the projection screen.|1908 poster advertising [[Gaumont Film Company|Gaumont]]'s sound films. The [[Chronomégaphone]], designed for large halls, employed compressed air to amplify the recorded sound.<ref>Wierzbicki (2009), p. 74; "Representative Kinematograph Shows" (1907).[http://www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm The Auxetophone and Other Compressed-Air Gramophones] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100918210354/http://www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm |date=September 18, 2010 }} explains pneumatic amplification and includes several detailed photographs of Gaumont's Elgéphone, which was apparently a slightly later and more elaborate version of the Chronomégaphone.</ref>]]
A '''sound film''' is a [[motion picture]] with [[synchronization|synchronized]] sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a [[silent film]]. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures became commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early [[sound-on-disc]] systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in [[sound-on-film]] led to the first commercial screening of [[Short film|short motion pictures]] using the technology, which took place in 1923. Before sound-on-film technology became viable, soundtracks for films were commonly played live with organs or pianos.
The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid-to-late 1920s. At first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as "'''talking pictures'''", or "'''talkies'''", were exclusively shorts. The earliest [[feature film|feature-length]] movies with recorded sound included only music and effects. The first feature film originally presented as a talkie (although it had only limited sound sequences) was ''[[The Jazz Singer]]'', which premiered on October 6, 1927.<ref>[https://jolsonville.net/2013/09/10/the-first-talkie/#more-1016 The first talkie - "The Jazz Singer"], Jolsonville, Oct. 9, 2013</ref> A major hit, it was made with [[Vitaphone]], which was at the time the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-film, however, would soon become the standard for talking pictures.
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By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon. In the United States, they helped secure Hollywood's position as one of the world's most powerful cultural/commercial centers of influence (see [[Cinema of the United States]]). In Europe (and, to a lesser degree, elsewhere), the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, who worried that a focus on dialogue would subvert the unique aesthetic virtues of silent cinema. In [[Cinema of Japan|Japan]], where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance (''[[benshi]]''), talking pictures were slow to take root. Conversely, in India, sound was the transformative element that led to the rapid expansion of [[Cinema of India|the nation's film industry]].
==
{{Further|Kinetoscope}}
[[File:Dickson Film Still 2.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.35|alt=On the left is a large acoustical horn, suspended from a cord that rises out of the frame. A man plays a violin in front of it. To the right, two men dance together.|Image from [[The Dickson Experimental Sound Film]] (1894 or 1895), produced by [[William Kennedy Dickson|W.K.L. Dickson]] as a test of the early version of the [[Thomas Edison|Edison]] [[Kinetoscope#Kinetophone|Kinetophone]], combining the [[Kinetoscope]] and [[phonograph]].]]
[[File:Eric Magnus Tigerstedt.jpg|thumb|[[Eric M. C. Tigerstedt]] (1887–1925) was one of the pioneers of sound-on-film technology. Tigerstedt in 1915.]]
The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the concept of cinema itself. On February 27, 1888, a couple of days after photographic pioneer [[Eadweard Muybridge]] gave a lecture not far from the laboratory of [[Thomas Edison]], the two inventors met privately. Muybridge later claimed that on this occasion, six years before the first commercial motion picture exhibition, he proposed a scheme for sound cinema that would combine his image-casting [[zoopraxiscope]] with Edison's recorded-sound technology.<ref>Robinson (1997), p. 23.</ref> No agreement was reached, but within a year Edison commissioned the development of the [[Kinetoscope]], essentially a "peep-show" system, as a visual complement to his [[phonograph cylinder|cylinder]] [[phonograph]]. The two devices were brought together as the [[kinetoscope#Kinetophone|Kinetophone]] in 1895, but individual, cabinet viewing of motion pictures was soon to be outmoded by successes in film projection.<ref>Robertson (2001) claims that German inventor and filmmaker [[Oskar Messter]] began projecting sound motion pictures at 21 Unter den Linden in September 1896 (p. 168), but this seems to be an error. Koerber (1996) notes that after Messter acquired the Cinema Unter den Linden (located in the back room of a restaurant), it reopened under his management on September 21, 1896 (p. 53), but no source beside Robertson describes Messter as screening sound films before 1903.</ref>
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[[File:Expo1900SoundFilm.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.35|alt=Illustration of a red-haired woman wearing a large hat, an ankle-length yellow dress, and high heels. She is holding a long baton or swagger stick and leaning against a film projector. A gramophone sits at her feet. The top of the illustration reads "Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre". Text to the left of the woman reads "Visions Animées des Artistes Celèbres", followed by a list of performers.|Poster featuring [[Sarah Bernhardt]] and giving the names of eighteen other "famous artists" shown in "living visions" at the [[Exposition Universelle (1900)|1900 Paris Exposition]] using the Gratioulet-Lioret system.]]
Cinematic innovators attempted to cope with the fundamental synchronization problem in a variety of ways. An increasing number of motion picture systems relied on [[gramophone records]]—known as [[sound-on-disc]] technology. The records themselves were often referred to as "Berliner discs", after one of the primary inventors in the field, German-American [[Emile Berliner]]. In 1902, [[Léon Gaumont]] demonstrated his sound-on-disc Chronophone, involving an electrical connection he had recently patented, to the [[Société française de photographie|French Photographic Society]].<ref>Barnier (2002), p. 29.</ref> Four years later, Gaumont introduced the Elgéphone, a compressed-air amplification system based on the Auxetophone, developed by British inventors Horace Short and Charles Parsons.<ref>Altman (2005), p. 158. If there was a drawback to the Elgéphone, it was apparently not a lack of volume. Dan Gilmore describes its predecessor technology in his 2004 essay [
In 1913, Edison introduced a new cylinder-based synch-sound apparatus known, just like his 1895 system, as the Kinetophone. Instead of films being shown to individual viewers in the Kinetoscope cabinet, they were now projected onto a screen. The phonograph was connected by an intricate arrangement of pulleys to the film projector, allowing—under ideal conditions—for synchronization. However, conditions were rarely ideal, and the new, improved Kinetophone was retired after little more than a year.<ref>Gomery (1985), pp. 54–55.</ref> By the mid-1910s, the groundswell in commercial sound motion picture exhibition had subsided.<ref name=Alt /> Beginning in 1914, ''[[The Photo-Drama of Creation]]'', promoting [[Jehovah's Witnesses]]' conception of humankind's genesis, was screened around the United States: eight hours worth of projected visuals involving both slides and live action, synchronized with separately recorded lectures and musical performances played back on phonograph.<ref>Lindvall (2007), pp. 118–25; Carey (1999), pp. 322–23.</ref>
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In 1919, American inventor [[Lee De Forest]] was awarded several patents that would lead to the first [[optical sound]]-on-film technology with commercial application. In De Forest's system, the sound track was photographically recorded onto the side of the strip of motion picture film to create a composite, or "married", print. If proper synchronization of sound and picture was achieved in recording, it could be absolutely counted on in playback. Over the next four years, he improved his system with the help of equipment and patents licensed from another American inventor in the field, [[Theodore Case]].<ref>Sponable (1947), part 2.</ref>
At the [[University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign|University of Illinois]], Polish-born research engineer [[Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner]] was working independently on a similar process. On June 9, 1922, he gave the first reported U.S. demonstration of a sound-on-film motion picture to members of the [[American Institute of Electrical Engineers]].<ref>Crafton (1997), pp. 51–52; Moone (2004); Łotysz (2006).
[[File:Phonofilm1.jpg|thumb|right|alt=All-text advertisement from the Strand Theater, giving dates, times, and performers' names. At the top, a tagline reads, "$10,000 reward paid to any person who finds a phonograph or similar device used in the phonofilms." The accompanying promotional text describes the slate of sound pictures as "the sensation of the century ... Amazing! Astounding! Unbelievable".|Newspaper ad for a 1925 presentation of Phonofilm shorts, touting their technological distinction: no phonograph.]]
On April 15, 1923, at the New York City's Rivoli Theater, the first commercial screening of motion pictures with sound-on-film took place. This would become the future standard. It consisted of a set of short films varying in length and featuring some of the most popular stars of the 1920s (including [[Eddie Cantor]], [[Harry Richman]], [[Sophie Tucker]], and [[George Jessel (actor)|George Jessel]] among others) doing stage performances such as [[vaudeville]]s, musical acts, and speeches which accompanied the screening of the silent feature film ''Bella Donna''.<ref>{{cite book|last=MacDonald|first=Laurence E.|date=1998|title=The Invisible Art of Film Music: A Comprehensive History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e0NYYHWtz6sC&q=lee+de+forest+bella+donna&pg=PA5|location=Lanham, MD|publisher=Ardsley House|page=5|isbn=978-1-880157-56-5}}</ref> All of them were presented under the banner of [[Phonofilm|De Forest Phonofilms]].<ref>Gomery (2005), p. 30; Eyman (1997), p. 49.</ref> The set included the 11-minute short film ''From far Seville'' starring [[Concha Piquer]]. In 2010, a copy of the tape was found in the [[Library of Congress|U.S. Library of Congress]], where it is currently preserved.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.msn.com/es-es/noticias/virales/12-mentiras-de-la-historia-que-nos-tragamos-sin-rechistar-4/ar-BBTeaLx?li=BBpmbhJ&ocid=DELLDHP#page=8|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190207015725/https://www.msn.com/es-es/noticias/virales/12-mentiras-de-la-historia-que-nos-tragamos-sin-rechistar-4/ar-BBTeaLx?li=BBpmbhJ&ocid=DELLDHP#page=8|url-status=dead|archive-date=2019-02-07|title=12 mentiras de la historia que nos tragamos sin rechistar (4)|website=MSN|language=es-ES|access-date=2019-02-06}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://elpais.com/cultura/2010/11/03/actualidad/1288738815_850215.html|title=La primera película sonora era española|last=EFE|date=2010-11-03|work=[[El País]]|access-date=2019-02-06|language=es-ES|issn=1134-6582}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=López|first=Alfred|url=https://blogs.20minutos.es/yaestaellistoquetodolosabe/sabias-que-el-cantor-de-jazz-no-fue-realmente-la-primera-pelicula-sonora-de-la-historia-del-cine/|title=¿Sabías que 'El cantor de jazz' no fue realmente la primera película sonora de la historia del cine?|date=2016-04-15|work=[[20 minutos]]|access-date=2020-02-06|language=es-ES}}</ref> Critics attending the event praised
In Europe, others were also working on the development of sound-on-film. In 1919, the same year that DeForest received his first patents in the field, three German inventors, [[Josef Engl]] (1893–1942), [[Hans Vogt (engineer)|Hans Vogt]] (1890–1979), and [[Joseph Massolle]] (1889–1957), patented the [[Tri-Ergon]] sound system. On September 17, 1922, the Tri-Ergon group gave a public screening of sound-on-film productions—including a dramatic talkie, ''Der Brandstifter'' (''The Arsonist'') —before an invited audience at the Alhambra Kino in Berlin.<ref>Robertson (2001), p. 168.</ref> By the end of the decade, Tri-Ergon would be the dominant European sound system. In 1923, two Danish engineers, Axel Petersen and Arnold Poulsen, patented a system that recorded sound on a separate filmstrip running parallel with the image reel. Gaumont licensed the technology and briefly put it to commercial use under the name Cinéphone.<ref>Crisp (1997), pp. 97–98; Crafton (1997), pp. 419–20.</ref>
=== Advanced sound-on-disc ===
Parallel with improvements in sound-on-film technology, a number of companies were making progress with systems that recorded movie sound on phonograph discs. In sound-on-disc technology from the era, a phonograph turntable is connected by a mechanical [[interlock]] to a specially modified [[movie projector|film projector]], allowing for synchronization. In 1921, the [[Photokinema]] sound-on-disc system developed by Orlando Kellum was employed to add synchronized sound sequences to [[D. W. Griffith]]'s failed silent film ''[[Dream Street (film)|Dream Street]]''. A love song, performed by star Ralph Graves, was recorded, as was a sequence of live vocal effects. Apparently, dialogue scenes were also recorded, but the results were unsatisfactory and the film was never publicly screened incorporating them. On May 1, 1921, ''Dream Street'' was re-released, with love song added, at New York City's Town Hall theater, qualifying it—however haphazardly—as the first feature-length film with a live-recorded vocal sequence.<ref>Bradley (1996), p. 4; Gomery (2005), p. 29. Crafton (1997) misleadingly implies that Griffith's film had not previously been exhibited commercially before its sound-enhanced premiere. He also misidentifies Ralph Graves as Richard Grace (p. 58).</ref> However, the sound quality was very poor and no other theaters could show the sound version of the film as no one had the Photokinema sound system installed.<ref>[[Scott Eyman]], ''The Speed of Sound'' (1997), page 43</ref> On Sunday, May 29, ''Dream Street'' opened at the Shubert Crescent Theater in [[Brooklyn]] with a program of short films made in Phonokinema. However, business was poor, and the program soon closed.
[[File:Don Juan (1926).webm|220px|thumb|right|''[[Don Juan (1926 film)|Don Juan]]'']]
[[File:DonJuanPoster2.jpg|thumb|alt=Illustration of a man dressed in an orange-and-purple Elizabethan costume with puffy shoulders and sheer leggings. Accompanying text provides film credits, dominated by the name of star John Barrymore.|Poster for [[Warner Bros.]]' ''[[Don Juan (1926 film)|Don Juan]]'' (1926), the first major motion picture to premiere with a full-length synchronized [[soundtrack]]. Audio recording engineer [[George Groves (sound engineer)|George Groves]], the first in Hollywood to hold the job, would supervise sound on ''[[Woodstock (film)|Woodstock]]'', 44 years later.]]
In 1925, [[Sam Warner]] of [[Warner Bros.]], then a small Hollywood studio with big ambitions, saw a demonstration of the Western Electric sound-on-disc system and was sufficiently impressed to persuade his brothers to agree to experiment with using this system at New York City's [[Vitagraph Studios]], which they had recently purchased. The tests were convincing to the Warner Brothers, if not to the executives of some other picture companies who witnessed them. Consequently, in April 1926 the Western Electric Company entered into a contract with Warner Brothers and W. J. Rich, a financier, giving them an exclusive license for recording and reproducing sound pictures under the Western Electric system. To exploit this license the Vitaphone Corporation was organized with Samuel L. Warner as its president.<ref name="Crafton 1997, pp. 71–72">Crafton (1997), pp. 71–72.</ref><ref>Historical Development of Sound Films, E.I.Sponable, Journal of the SMPTE Vol. 48 April 1947</ref> [[Vitaphone]], as this system was now called, was publicly introduced on August 6, 1926, with the premiere of ''[[Don Juan (1926 film)|Don Juan]]''; the first feature-length movie to employ a synchronized sound system of any type throughout, its [[soundtrack]] contained a musical [[film score|score]] and added [[sound effects]], but no recorded dialogue—in other words, it had been staged and shot as a silent film. Accompanying ''Don Juan'', however, were eight shorts of musical performances, mostly classical, as well as a four-minute filmed introduction by [[Will H. Hays]], president of the [[Motion Picture Association of America]], all with live-recorded sound. These were the first true sound films exhibited by a Hollywood studio.<ref>The eight musical shorts were ''Caro Nome'', ''An Evening on the Don'', ''La Fiesta'', ''His Pastimes'', ''The Kreutzer Sonata'', ''Mischa Elman'', ''Overture "Tannhäuser"'' and ''Vesti La Giubba''.</ref> Warner Bros.' ''[[The Better 'Ole (1926 film)|The Better 'Ole]]'', technically similar to ''Don Juan'', followed in October.<ref>Crafton (1997), pp. 76–87; Gomery (2005), pp. 38–40.</ref>
Sound-on-film would ultimately win out over sound-on-disc because of a number of fundamental technical advantages:
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== Triumph of the "talkies" ==
[[File:The Jazz Singer (1927).webm|thumb|300px|thumbtime=16|left|''The Jazz Singer'' (1927)]]
In February 1927, an agreement was signed by five leading Hollywood movie companies: [[Famous
[[File:JazzSingerAndFox.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.15|alt=Advertisement from the Blue Mouse Theater announcing the Pacific Coast premiere of ''The Jazz Singer'', billed as "The greatest story ever told". A photo of stars [[Al Jolson]] and [[May McAvoy]] accompanies extensive promotional text, including the catchphrase "You'll see and hear him on Vitaphone as you've never seen or heard before". At the bottom is an announcement of an accompanying newsreel.|Newspaper ad from a fully equipped theater in Tacoma, Washington, showing ''[[The Jazz Singer]]'', on Vitaphone, and a Fox newsreel, on [[Movietone sound system|Movietone]], together on the same bill.]]
The big sound film sensations of the year all took advantage of preexisting celebrity. On May 20, 1927, at New York City's [[Roxy Theatre (New York City)|Roxy Theater]], [[Fox Movietone]] presented a sound film of the takeoff of [[Charles Lindbergh]]'s celebrated flight to Paris, recorded earlier that day. In June, a Fox sound newsreel depicting his return welcomes in New York City and Washington, D.C., was shown. These were the two most acclaimed sound motion pictures to date.<ref>Gomery (2005), p. 51.</ref> In May, as well, Fox had released the first Hollywood fiction film with synchronized dialogue: the short ''They're Coming to Get Me'', starring comedian [[Chic Sale]].<ref>Lasky (1989), pp. 21–22.</ref> After rereleasing a few silent feature hits, such as ''[[Seventh Heaven (1927 film)|Seventh Heaven]]'', with recorded music, Fox came out with its first original Movietone feature on September 23: ''[[Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans]]'', by acclaimed German director [[F. W. Murnau]]. As with ''Don Juan'', the film's soundtrack consisted of a musical score and sound effects (including, in a couple of crowd scenes, "wild", nonspecific vocals).<ref>Eyman (1997), pp. 149–50.</ref>
Then, on October 6, 1927, Warner Bros.' ''[[The Jazz Singer]]'' premiered. It was a smash box office success for the mid-level studio, earning a total of $2.625 million in the United States and abroad, almost a million dollars more than the previous record for a Warner Bros. film.<ref>Glancy (1995), p. 4 [online]. The previous highest-grossing Warner Bros. film was ''Don Juan'', which Glancy notes earned $1.693 million, foreign and domestic. Historian Douglas Crafton (1997) seeks to downplay the "total domestic gross income" of ''The Jazz Singer'', $1.97 million (p. 528), but that figure alone would have constituted a record for the studio. Crafton's claim that ''The Jazz Singer'' "was in a distinct second or third tier of attractions compared to the most popular films of the day and even other Vitaphone talkies" (p. 529) offers a skewed perspective. Although the movie was no match for the half-dozen biggest hits of the decade, the available evidence suggests that it was one of the three highest-earning films released in 1927 and that overall its performance was comparable to the other two, ''[[The King of Kings (1927 film)|The King of Kings]]'' and ''[[Wings (1927 film)|Wings]]''. It is undisputed that its total earnings were more than double those of the next four Vitaphone talkies; the first three of which, according to Glancy's analysis of in-house Warner Bros. figures, "earned just under $1,000,000 each", and the fourth, ''[[Lights of New York (1928 film)|Lights of New York]]'', a quarter-million more.</ref> Produced with the Vitaphone system, most of the film does not contain live-recorded audio, relying, like ''Sunrise'' and ''Don Juan'', on a score and effects. When the movie's star, [[Al Jolson]], sings, however, the film shifts to sound recorded on the set, including both his musical performances and two scenes with ad-libbed speech—one of Jolson's character, Jakie Rabinowitz (Jack Robin), addressing a cabaret audience; the other an exchange between him and his mother. The "natural" sounds of the settings were also audible.<ref>{{cite web|author=Allen, Bob|url=http://www.amps.net/newsletters/issue23/23_jazz.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19991022042212/http://www.amps.net/newsletters/Issue23/23_jazz.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=1999-10-22|title=Why ''The Jazz Singer''?|work=AMPS Newsletter|publisher=Association of Motion Picture Sound|date=Autumn 1997|access-date=December 12, 2009}}
The development of commercial sound cinema had proceeded in fits and starts before ''The Jazz Singer'', and the film's success did not change things overnight. Influential gossip columnist [[Louella Parsons]]' reaction to ''The Jazz Singer'' was badly off the mark: "I have no fear that the screeching sound film will ever disturb our theaters," while [[MGM]] head of production [[Irving Thalberg]] called the film "a good gimmick, but that's all it was."<ref name="Fleming, E.J. 2005, pg. 78">Fleming, E.J., The Fixers, McFarland & Co., 2005, pg. 78</ref> Not until May 1928 did the group of four big studios (PDC had dropped out of the alliance), along with [[United Artists]] and others, sign with ERPI for conversion of production facilities and theaters for sound film. It was a daunting commitment; revamping a single theater cost as much as $15,000 (the equivalent of $220,000 in 2019), and there were more than 20,000 movie theaters in the United States. By 1930, only half of the theaters had been wired for sound.<ref name="Fleming, E.J. 2005, pg. 78"/>
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Over the course of 1928, as Warner Bros. began to rake in huge profits due to the [[List of early Warner Bros. talking features|popularity of its sound films]], the other studios quickened the pace of their conversion to the new technology. Paramount, the industry leader, put out its first talkie in late September, ''[[Beggars of Life]]''; though it had just a few lines of dialogue, it demonstrated the studio's recognition of the new medium's power. ''[[Interference (film)|Interference]]'', Paramount's first all-talker, debuted in November.<ref>Eames (1985), p. 36.</ref> The process known as "goat glanding" briefly became widespread: soundtracks, sometimes including a smatter of post-dubbed dialogue or song, were added to movies that had been shot, and in some cases released, as silents.<ref>Crafton (1997) describes the term's derivation: "The skeptical press disparagingly referred to these [retrofitted films] as 'goat glands' ... from outrageous cures for impotency practiced in the 1920s, including restorative elixers, tonics, and surgical procedures. It implied that producers were trying to put some new life into their old films" (pp. 168–69).</ref> A few minutes of singing could qualify such a newly endowed film as a "musical." (Griffith's ''Dream Street'' had essentially been a "goat gland.") Expectations swiftly changed, and the sound "fad" of 1927 became standard procedure by 1929. In February 1929, sixteen months after ''The Jazz Singer'''s debut, [[Columbia Pictures]] became the last of the eight studios that would be known as "[[Major film studio#The majors during the Golden Age|majors]]" during Hollywood's Golden Age to release its first part-talking feature, ''[[The Lone Wolf's Daughter (1929 film)|The Lone Wolf's Daughter]]''.<ref>The first official releases from RKO, which produced only all-talking pictures, appeared still later in the year, but after the October 1928 merger that created it, the company put out a number of talkies produced by its FBO constituent.</ref> In late May, the first all-color, all-talking feature, Warner Bros.' ''[[On with the Show! (1929 film)|On with the Show!]]'', premiered.<ref>Robertson (2001), p. 63.</ref>
Yet most American movie theaters, especially outside of urban areas, were still not equipped for sound: while the number of sound cinemas grew from 100 to 800 between 1928 and 1929, they were still vastly outnumbered by silent theaters, which had actually grown in number as well, from 22,204 to 22,544.<ref>Block and Wilson (2010), p. 56.</ref> The studios, in parallel, were still not entirely convinced of the talkies' universal appeal—until mid-1930, the majority of Hollywood movies were produced in dual versions, silent as well as talking.<ref>Crafton (1997), pp. 169–71, 253–54.</ref> Though few in the industry predicted it, silent film as a viable commercial medium in the United States would soon be little more than a memory. ''[[Points West (film)|Points West]]'', a [[Hoot Gibson]] [[Western (genre)|Western]] released by Universal Pictures in August 1929, was the last purely silent mainstream feature put out by a major Hollywood studio.<ref>In 1931, two Hollywood studios would release special projects without spoken dialogue (now customarily classified as "silents"): [[Charles Chaplin]]'s ''[[City Lights]]'' (United Artists) and [[F. W. Murnau]] and [[Robert Flaherty]]'s ''[[Tabu (1931 film)|Tabu]]'' (Paramount). The last totally silent feature produced in the United States for general distribution was ''The Poor Millionaire'', released by Biltmore Pictures in April 1930. Four other silent features, all low-budget Westerns, were also released in early 1930 (Robertson [2001], p. 173).</ref>
=== Transition: Europe ===
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During 1929, most of the major European filmmaking countries began joining Hollywood in the changeover to sound. Many of the trend-setting European talkies were shot abroad as production companies leased studios while their own were being converted or as they deliberately targeted markets speaking different languages. One of Europe's first two feature-length dramatic talkies was created in still a different sort of twist on multinational moviemaking: ''[[The Crimson Circle (1929 film)|The Crimson Circle]]'' was a coproduction between director [[Frederic Zelnik|Friedrich Zelnik]]'s Efzet-Film company and British Sound Film Productions (BSFP). In 1928, the film had been released as the silent ''Der Rote Kreis'' in Germany, where it was shot; English dialogue was apparently dubbed in much later using the De Forest Phonofilm process controlled by BSFP's corporate parent. It was given a British trade screening in March 1929, as was a part-talking film made entirely in the UK: ''[[The Clue of the New Pin (1929 film)|The Clue of the New Pin]]'', a [[British Lion Film Corporation|British Lion]] production using the sound-on-disc British Photophone system. In May, ''[[Black Waters]]'', which [[British and Dominions Film Corporation]] promoted as the first UK all-talker, received its initial trade screening; it had been shot completely in Hollywood with a Western Electric sound-on-film system. None of these pictures made much impact.<ref>Low (1997a), pp. 178, 203–5; Low (1997b), p. 183; Crafton (1997), pp. 432; {{cite web|url=http://www.deutsches-filminstitut.de/f_films/film/f018529.htm|title=''Der Rote Kreis''|publisher=Deutsches Filminstitut|access-date=December 8, 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110624004618/http://www.deutsches-filminstitut.de/f_films/film/f018529.htm|archive-date=June 24, 2011|df=mdy-all}} [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020345/ IMDb.com] incorrectly refers to ''Der Rote Kreis/The Crimson Circle'' as a [[Associated British Picture Corporation|British International Pictures]] (BIP) coproduction (it also spells Zelnik's first name "Frederic"). The authentic BIP production ''Kitty'' is sometimes included among the candidates for "first British talkie." In fact, the film was produced and premiered as a silent for its original 1928 release. The stars later came to New York to record dialogue, with which the film was rereleased in June 1929, after much better credentialed candidates. See sources cited above.</ref>
[[File:BlackmailUSWindowCardOndra.jpg|thumb|left|alt=An advertisement for the movie ''Blackmail'' featuring a young woman in lingerie holding a garment over one arm looks toward camera. Surrounding text describes the film as "A Romance of Scotland Yard" and "The Powerful Talking Picture" |The Prague-raised star of ''[[Blackmail (1929 film)|Blackmail]]'' (1929), [[Anny Ondra]], was an industry favorite, but her
The first successful European dramatic talkie was the all-British ''[[Blackmail (1929 film)|Blackmail]]''. Directed by twenty-nine-year-old [[Alfred Hitchcock]], the movie had its London debut June 21, 1929. Originally shot as a silent, ''Blackmail'' was restaged to include dialogue sequences, along with a score and sound effects, before its premiere. A [[Associated British Picture Corporation|British International Pictures]] (BIP) production, it was recorded on RCA Photophone, General Electric having bought a share of AEG so they could access the Tobis-Klangfilm markets. ''Blackmail'' was a substantial hit; critical response was also positive—notorious curmudgeon Hugh Castle, for example, called it "perhaps the most intelligent mixture of sound and silence we have yet seen."<ref>Quoted in Spoto (1984), p. 136.</ref>
On August 23, the modest-sized Austrian film industry came out with a talkie: ''G'schichten aus der Steiermark'' (''Stories from Styria''), an Eagle Film–Ottoton Film production.<ref>Wagenleitner (1994), p. 253; Robertson (2001), p. 10.</ref> On September 30, the first entirely German-made feature-length dramatic talkie, ''[[Land Without Women|Das Land ohne Frauen]]'' (''Land Without Women''), premiered. A Tobis Filmkunst production, about one-quarter of the movie contained dialogue, which was strictly segregated from the special effects and music. The response was underwhelming.<ref>Jelavich (2006), pp. 215–16; Crafton (1997), p. 595, n. 59.</ref> Sweden's first talkie, ''Konstgjorda Svensson'' (''Artificial Svensson''), premiered on October 14. Eight days later, Aubert Franco-Film came out with ''[[The Queen's Necklace (1929 film)|Le Collier de la reine]]'' (''The Queen's Necklace''), shot at the [[Épinay-sur-Seine|Épinay]] studio near Paris. Conceived as a silent film, it was given a Tobis-recorded score and a single talking sequence—the first dialogue scene in a French feature. On October 31, ''[[The Three Masks (1929 film)|Les Trois masques]]'' (''The Three Masks'') debuted; a [[Pathé]]-Natan film, it is generally regarded as the initial French feature talkie, though it was shot, like ''Blackmail'', at the [[Elstree Studios (Shenley Road)|Elstree studio]], just outside London. The production company had contracted with RCA Photophone and Britain then had the nearest facility with the system. The Braunberger-Richebé talkie ''[[The Road Is Fine|La Route est belle]]'' (''The Road Is Fine''), also shot at Elstree, followed a few weeks later.<ref>Crisp (1997), p. 103; {{cite web|url=http://www.epinay-sur-seine.fr/epinay/rb010102.asp|title=Epinay ville du cinéma|publisher=Epinay-sur-Seine.fr|access-date=December 8, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100612132000/http://www.epinay-sur-seine.fr/epinay/rb010102.asp|archive-date=June 12, 2010|url-status=dead}} {{cite web|author=Erickson, Hal|url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/164397/Le-Collier-De-La-Reine/overview|department=Movies & TV Dept.|work=[[The New York Times]]|title=''Le Collier de la reine'' (1929)|author-link=Hal Erickson (author)|access-date=December 8, 2009}} {{cite web|author=Chiffaut-Moliard, Philippe|url=http://www.cine-studies.net/r5a0_1930.html|title=Le cinéma français en 1930|work=Chronologie du cinéma français (1930–1939)|publisher=Cine-studies|year=2005|access-date=December 8, 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090316092417/http://cine-studies.net/r5a0_1930.html|archive-date=March 16, 2009|df=mdy-all}} In his 2002 book ''Genre, Myth, and Convention in the French Cinema, 1929–1939'' (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), Crisp says that ''Le Collier de la reine'' was "'merely' sonorized, not dialogued" (p. 381), but all other available detailed descriptions (including his own from 1997) mention a dialogue sequence. Crisp gives October 31 as the debut date of ''Les Trois masques'' and ''Cine-studies'' gives its release ("sortie") date as November 2. Note finally, where Crisp defines in ''Genre, Myth, and Convention'' a "feature" as being a minimum of sixty minutes long, this article follows the equally common, and Wikipedia-prevalent, standard of forty minutes or longer.</ref>
Before the Paris studios were fully sound-equipped—a process that stretched well into 1930—a number of other early French talkies were shot in Germany.<ref>Crisp (1997), p. 103.</ref> The first all-talking German feature, ''[[Atlantik (film)|Atlantik]]'', had premiered in Berlin on October 28. Yet another Elstree-made movie, it was rather less German at heart than ''Les Trois masques'' and ''La Route est belle'' were French; a BIP production with a British scenarist and German director, it was also shot in English as ''[[Atlantic (film)|Atlantic]]''.<ref>Chapman (2003), p. 82; {{cite web|author=Fisher, David|url=http://www.terramedia.co.uk/Chronomedia/years/1929.htm|title=Chronomedia: 1929|work=Chronomedia|publisher=Terra Media|date=July 22, 2009|access-date=December 8, 2009}}</ref> The entirely German [[Aafa-Film]] production ''[[It's You I Have Loved]]'' (''Dich hab ich geliebt'') opened three
[[File:Putevka v zhisn poster.jpg|thumb|alt=A movie poster with text in Cyrillic. A red band spirals through the center of the image, over a green background. Around the spiral are arrayed five black-and-white photographs of male faces at various angles. Three, in a cluster at the top left, are smiling; two, at the top left and at bottom right (a young boy) look pensive.|The first Soviet talkie, ''Putevka v zhizn'' (''The Road to Life''; 1931), concerns the issue of homeless youth. As [[Marcel Carné]] put it, "in the unforgettable images of this spare and pure story we can discern the effort of an entire nation."<ref>Carné (1932), p. 105.</ref>]]
In 1930, the first Polish talkies premiered, using sound-on-disc systems: ''Moralność pani Dulskiej'' (''The Morality of Mrs. Dulska'') in March and the all-talking ''[[Niebezpieczny romans]]'' (''Dangerous Love Affair'') in October.<ref>Haltof (2002), p. 24.</ref> In Italy, whose once vibrant film industry had become moribund by the late 1920s, the first talkie, ''[[The Song of Love (1930 film)|La Canzone dell'amore]]'' (''The Song of Love''), also came out in October; within two years, Italian cinema would be enjoying a revival.<ref>See Nichols and Bazzoni (1995), p. 98, for a description of ''La Canzone dell'amore'' and its premiere.</ref> The first movie spoken in Czech debuted in 1930 as well, ''[[Tonka of the Gallows|Tonka Šibenice]]'' (''Tonka of the Gallows'').<ref>Stojanova (2006), p. 97. According to [[Il Cinema Ritrovato]], the [https://web.archive.org/web/20061013044431/http://www.cinetecadibologna.it/programmi/05cinema/archivio/fcr1992.pdf program for XXI Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero] (Bologna; November 22–29, 1992), the film was shot in Paris. According to the [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021484/ IMDb entry on the film], it was a Czech-German coproduction. The two claims are not necessarily contradictory. According to the [http://www.csfd.cz/film/209-tonka-sibenice/ Czech-Slovak Film Database], it was shot as a silent film in Germany; soundtracks for Czech, German, and French versions were then recorded at the Gaumont studio in the Paris suburb of [[Joinville-le-Pont|Joinville]].</ref> Several European nations with minor positions in the field also produced their first talking pictures—Belgium (in French), Denmark, Greece, and Romania.<ref>See Robertson (2001), pp. 10–14. Robertson claims Switzerland produced its first talkie in 1930, but it has not been possible to independently confirm this. The first talkies from Finland, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, and Turkey appeared in 1931, the first talkies from Ireland (English-language) and Spain and the first in Slovak in 1932, the first Dutch talkie in 1933, and the first Bulgarian talkie in 1934. In the Americas, the first Canadian talkie came out in 1929—''North of '49'' was a remake of the previous year's silent ''His Destiny''. The first Brazilian talkie, ''Acabaram-se os otários'' (''The End of the Simpletons''), also appeared in 1929. That year, as well, the first Yiddish talkies were produced in New York: ''East Side Sadie'' (originally a silent), followed by ''Ad Mosay'' (''The Eternal Prayer'') (Crafton [1997], p. 414). Sources differ on whether ''Más fuerte que el deber'', the first Mexican (and Spanish-language) talkie, came out in 1930 or 1931. The first Argentine talkie appeared in 1931 and the first Chilean talkie in 1934. Robertson asserts that the first Cuban feature talkie was a 1930 production called ''El Caballero de Max''; every other published source surveyed cites ''La Serpiente roja'' (1937). Nineteen-thirty-one saw the first talkie produced on the African continent: South Africa's ''Mocdetjie'', in Afrikaans. Egypt's Arabic ''Onchoudet el Fouad'' (1932) and Morocco's French-language ''Itto'' (1934) followed.</ref> The Soviet Union's robust film industry came out with its first sound features in December 1930: [[Dziga Vertov]]'s nonfiction ''[[Enthusiasm (film)|Enthusiasm]]'' had an experimental, dialogueless soundtrack; [[Abram Room]]'s documentary ''Plan velikikh rabot'' (''The Plan of the Great Works'') had music and spoken voiceovers.<ref>Rollberg (2008), pp. xxvii, 9, 174, 585, 669–70, 679, 733. Several sources name ''Zemlya zhazhdet'' (''The Earth Is Thirsty''), directed by Yuli Raizman, as the first Soviet sound feature. Originally produced and premiered as a silent in 1930, it was rereleased with a non-talking, music-and-effects soundtrack the following year (Rollberg [2008], p. 562).</ref> Both were made with locally developed sound-on-film systems, two of the two hundred or so movie sound systems then available somewhere in the world.<ref>Morton (2006), p. 76.</ref> In June 1931, the [[Nikolai Ekk]] drama ''[[Road to Life (1931 film)|Putevka v zhizn]]'' (''The Road to Life'' or ''A Start in Life''), premiered as the Soviet Union's first true talking picture.<ref>Rollberg (2008), pp. xxvii, 210–11, 450, 665–66.</ref>
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=== Transition: Asia ===
[[File:MadamuTonyobo.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.25|alt=A young girl, man, and woman standing outside of a house, all looking up in the sky. The girl, on the left, is smiling and pointing skyward. The man wears a bowler hat and holds a short broom over his shoulder; the woman wears a kerchief around her head. They are surrounded by domestic objects as if just moving into or out of the house.|Director [[Heinosuke Gosho]]'s ''Madamu to nyobo'' (''[[The Neighbor's Wife and Mine]]''; 1931), a production of the [[Shochiku]] studio, was the first major commercial and critical success of Japanese sound cinema.<ref>Nolletti (2005), p. 18; Richie (2005), pp. 48–49.</ref>]]
During the 1920s and 1930s, Japan was one of the world's two largest producers of motion pictures, along with the United States. Though the country's film industry was among the first to produce both sound and talking features, the full changeover to sound proceeded much more slowly than in the West. It appears that the first Japanese sound film, ''Reimai'' (''Dawn''), was made in 1926 with the De Forest Phonofilm system.<ref>Burch (1979), pp. 145–46.
The enduring popularity of the silent medium in Japanese cinema owed in great part to the tradition of the ''[[benshi]]'', a live narrator who performed as accompaniment to a film screening. As director [[Akira Kurosawa]] later described, the benshi "not only recounted the plot of the films, they enhanced the emotional content by performing the voices and sound effects and providing evocative descriptions of events and images on the screen.... The most popular narrators were stars in their own right, solely responsible for the patronage of a particular theatre."<ref>Quoted in Freiberg (1987), p. 76.</ref> Film historian Mariann Lewinsky argues,
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By the same token, the viability of the benshi system facilitated a gradual transition to sound—allowing the studios to spread out the capital costs of conversion and their directors and technical crews time to become familiar with the new technology.<ref>See Freiberg (2000), "The Film Industry."</ref>
[[File:AlamAra.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.15|alt=A young woman with long dark hair walks outside of a tent, looking down at one of two men asleep on the ground. She wears only a shawl and a knee length dress, leaving her arms, lower legs, and feet exposed.|''[[Alam Ara]]'' premiered March 14, 1931, in Bombay. The first Indian talkie was so popular that "police aid had to be summoned to control the crowds."<ref>Quoted in Chatterji (1999), "The History of Sound."</ref> It was shot with the Tanar single-system camera, which recorded sound directly onto the film.]]
The Mandarin-language ''Gēnǚ hóng mǔdān'' ({{linktext|歌|女|紅|牡|丹}}, ''Singsong Girl Red Peony''), starring Butterfly Wu, premiered as China's first feature talkie in 1930. By February of that year, production was apparently completed on a sound version of ''The Devil's Playground'', arguably qualifying it as the first Australian talking motion picture; however, the May press screening of Commonwealth Film Contest prizewinner ''Fellers'' is the first verifiable public exhibition of an Australian talkie.<ref>Reade (1981), pp. 79–80.</ref> In September 1930, a song performed by Indian star [[Ruby Myers|Sulochana]], excerpted from the silent feature ''Madhuri'' (1928), was released as a synchronized-sound short, the country's first.<ref>Ranade (2006), p. 106.</ref> The following year, [[Ardeshir Irani]] directed the first Indian talking feature, the Hindi-Urdu ''[[Alam Ara]]'', and produced ''[[Kalidas (1931 Film)|Kalidas]]'', primarily in Tamil with some Telugu. Nineteen-thirty-one also saw the first Bengali-language film, ''Jamai Sasthi'', and the first movie fully spoken in Telugu, ''Bhakta Prahlada''.<ref>Pradeep (2006); Narasimham (2006); Rajadhyaksha and Willemen (2002), p. 254.</ref><ref name=Tamil>{{cite web|author=Anandan, "Kalaimaamani"|url=http://www.indolink.com/tamil/cinema/Memories/98/fna/fna1.htm|title=Tamil Cinema History—The Early Days: 1916–1936|publisher=INDOlink Tamil Cinema|access-date=December 8, 2009|url-status=
== Consequences ==
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There were consequences, as well, for other technological aspects of the cinema. Proper recording and playback of sound required exact standardization of camera and projector speed. Before sound, 16 [[Frame rate|frames per second]] (fps) was the supposed norm, but practice varied widely. Cameras were often [[Time-lapse|undercranked]] or [[Slow motion|overcranked]] to improve exposures or for dramatic effect. Projectors were commonly run too fast to shorten running time and squeeze in extra shows. Variable frame rate, however, made sound unlistenable, and a new, strict standard of 24 fps was soon established.<ref name=Allen15>{{cite web|author=Allen, Bob|url=http://www.amps.net/newsletters/issue15/15_lets_.htm|title=Let's Hear It For Sound|work=AMPS Newsletter|publisher=Association of Motion Picture Sound|date=Autumn 1995|access-date=December 13, 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000108115255/http://www.amps.net/newsletters/issue15/15_lets_.htm|archive-date=January 8, 2000|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Sound also forced the abandonment of the noisy [[Arc lamp|arc lights]] used for filming in studio interiors. The switch to quiet [[Incandescence|incandescent]] illumination in turn required a switch to more expensive film stock. The sensitivity of the new [[panchromatic film]] delivered superior image tonal quality and gave directors the freedom to shoot scenes at lower light levels than was previously practical.<ref name=Allen15 />
As [[David Bordwell]] describes, technological improvements continued at a swift pace: "Between 1932 and 1935, [Western Electric and RCA] created directional microphones, increased the frequency range of film recording, reduced ground noise ... and extended the volume range." These technical advances often meant new aesthetic opportunities: "Increasing the fidelity of recording ... heightened the dramatic possibilities of vocal timbre, pitch, and loudness."<ref>Bordwell (1985), pp. 300–1, 302.</ref> Another basic problem—famously spoofed in the 1952 film ''[[Singin' in the Rain]]''—was that some silent-era actors simply did not have attractive voices; though this issue was frequently overstated, there were related concerns about general vocal quality and the casting of performers for their dramatic skills in roles also requiring singing talent beyond their own. By 1935, rerecording of vocals by the original or different actors in postproduction, a process known as "looping", had become practical. The ultraviolet recording system introduced by RCA in 1936 improved the reproduction of sibilants and high notes.<ref>Bordwell and Thompson (1995), p. 124; Bordwell (1985), pp. 301, 302.
[[File:USN16mmSoundtrack.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.7|alt=Vertical section of filmstrip, showing four-and-a-half frames, each of which reads, "Sea Power for Security. The End." Alongside the frames runs a continuous vertical white band of continuously fluctuating width.|Example of a variable-area sound track—the width of the white area is proportional to the [[Sound#Perception|amplitude]] of the audio signal at each instant.]]
With Hollywood's wholesale adoption of the talkies, the competition between the two fundamental approaches to sound-film production was soon resolved. Over the course of
<blockquote>
Tobis-Klangfilm has the exclusive rights to provide equipment for: Germany, Danzig, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Holland, the Dutch Indies, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Finland. The Americans have the exclusive rights for the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Russia. All other countries, among them Italy, France, and England, are open to both parties.<ref>"Outcome of Paris" (1930).</ref>
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=== Commerce ===
[[File:BroadwayMelodyPoster1.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.15|alt=Movie poster featuring fifteen young women in dance outfits. The first appears to hold the word "The" in large letters. The other fourteen hold up the individual letters that spell out "Broadway Melody". Accompanying text reads, "All Talking, All Dancing, All Singing! Dramatic Sensation."|Premiering February 1, 1929, [[MGM]]'s ''[[The Broadway Melody]]'' was the first smash-hit talkie from a studio other than Warner Bros. and the first sound film to win the [[Academy Award for Best Picture]].]]
In September 1926, [[Jack L. Warner]], head of Warner Bros., was quoted to the effect that talking pictures would never be viable: "They fail to take into account the international language of the silent pictures, and the unconscious share of each onlooker in creating the play, the action, the plot, and the imagined dialogue for himself."<ref>"Talking Movies" (1926).</ref> Much to his company's benefit, he would be proven very wrong—between the
Even as the [[Wall Street crash of 1929|Wall Street crash]] of October 1929 helped plunge the United States and ultimately the global economy into [[Great Depression|depression]], the popularity of the talkies at first seemed to keep Hollywood immune. The
[[File:AcabaramSeOsOtariosAd1.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=Movie poster featuring an illustration of a goateed man wearing a straw hat, plaid shirt, short polka-dotted tie, short pants, and boots. The accompanying text is in Portuguese.|Poster for ''Acabaram-se os otários'' (1929), performed in Portuguese. The first Brazilian talkie was also the first anywhere in an [[Iberian Romance languages|Iberian language]].]]
Just as the leading Hollywood studios gained from sound in relation to their foreign competitors, they did the same at home. As historian Richard B. Jewell describes, "The sound revolution crushed many small film companies and producers who were unable to meet the financial demands of sound conversion."<ref>Jewell (1982), p. 9.</ref> The combination of sound and the Great Depression led to a wholesale [[shakeout]] in the business, resulting in the hierarchy of the Big Five integrated companies (MGM, Paramount, Fox, Warner Bros., RKO) and the three smaller studios also called "majors" (Columbia, Universal, United Artists) that would predominate through the 1950s. Historian Thomas Schatz describes the ancillary effects:
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In the first, 1930 edition of his global survey ''The Film Till Now'', British cinema pundit [[Paul Rotha]] declared, "A film in which the speech and sound effects are perfectly synchronised and coincide with their visual image on the screen is absolutely contrary to the aims of cinema. It is a degenerate and misguided attempt to destroy the real use of the film and cannot be accepted as coming within the true boundaries of the cinema."<ref>Quoted in Agate (1972), p. 82.</ref> Such opinions were not rare among those who cared about cinema as an art form; Alfred Hitchcock, though he directed the first commercially successful talkie produced in Europe, held that "the silent pictures were the purest form of cinema" and scoffed at many early sound films as delivering little beside "photographs of people talking".<ref>Quoted in Chapman (2003), p. 93.</ref> In Germany, [[Max Reinhardt]], stage producer and movie director, expressed the belief that the talkies, "bringing to the screen stage plays ... tend to make this independent art a subsidiary of the theater and really make it only a substitute for the theater instead of an art in itself ... like reproductions of paintings."<ref>Quoted in Crafton (1997), p. 166.</ref>
[[File:Westfront 1918 Weber poster.jpg|thumb|alt=Black-and-white movie poster featuring a stylized illustration of the profiled head of a helmeted man on the right, facing left. Behind him, and progressively to the left, are the front parts of three more such profiles, with nearly identical helmet tips, noses, lips, and chins. The title below is followed by the line "Vier von der Infanterie".|''[[Westfront 1918]]'' (1930) was celebrated for its expressive re-creation of battlefield sounds, like the doomful whine of an unseen grenade in flight.<ref name=Kaes />]]
In the opinion of many film historians and aficionados, both at the time and subsequently, silent film had reached an aesthetic peak by the late 1920s and the early years of sound cinema delivered little that was comparable to the best of the silents.<ref>See, e.g., Crafton (1997), pp. 448–49; Brownlow (1968), p. 577.</ref> For instance, despite fading into relative obscurity once its era had passed, silent cinema is represented by eleven films in ''[[Time Out (magazine)|Time Out]]'''s Centenary of Cinema Top One Hundred poll, held in 1995. The first year in which sound film production predominated over silent film—not only in the United States, but also in the West as a whole—was 1929; yet the years 1929 through 1933 are represented by three dialogueless pictures (''[[Pandora's Box (1929 film)|Pandora's Box]]''
The first sound feature film to receive near-universal critical approbation was ''[[Der Blaue Engel]]'' (''The Blue Angel''); premiering on April 1, 1930, it was directed by [[Josef von Sternberg]] in both German and English versions for Berlin's [[Universum Film AG|UFA]] studio.<ref>Kemp (1987), pp. 1045–46.</ref> The first American talkie to be widely honored was ''[[All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 film)|All Quiet on the Western Front]]'', directed by [[Lewis Milestone]], which premiered April 21. The other internationally acclaimed sound drama of the year was ''[[Westfront 1918]]'', directed by [[G. W. Pabst]] for [[Nero-Film]] of Berlin.<ref>{{cite web|author=Arnold, Jeremy|url=http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article.jsp?cid=93569&mainArticleId=176230|title=''Westfront 1918''|publisher=Turner Classic Movies|access-date=December 13, 2009}}</ref> Historian Anton Kaes points to it as an example of "the new verisimilitude [that] rendered silent cinema's former emphasis on the hypnotic gaze and the symbolism of light and shadow, as well as its preference for allegorical characters, anachronistic."<ref name=Kaes>Kaes (2009), p. 212.</ref> Cultural historians consider the French ''[[L'Âge d'Or]]'', directed by [[Luis Buñuel]], which appeared late in 1930, to be of great aesthetic import; at the time, its erotic, blasphemous, anti-bourgeois content caused a scandal. Swiftly banned by Paris police chief [[Jean Chiappe]], it was unavailable for fifty years.<ref>Rosen (1987), pp. 74–76.</ref> The earliest sound movie now acknowledged by most film historians as a masterpiece is Nero-Film's ''[[M (1931 film)|M]]'', directed by [[Fritz Lang]], which premiered May 11, 1931.<ref>''M'', for instance, is the earliest sound film to appear in the 2001 [http://www.filmsite.org/villvoice.html ''Village Voice'': 100 Best Films of the 20th Century] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140331174817/http://www.filmsite.org/villvoice.html |date=March 31, 2014 }} poll and the 2002 ''Sight and Sound Top Ten'' (among the 60 films receiving five or more votes). See also, e.g., Ebert (2002), pp. 274–78.</ref> As described by [[Roger Ebert]], "Many early talkies felt they had to talk all the time, but Lang allows his camera to prowl through the streets and dives, providing a rat's-eye view."<ref>Ebert (2002), p. 277.</ref>
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*Lastra, James (2000). ''Sound Technology and the American Cinema''. New York: Columbia University Press. {{ISBN|0231115164}}
*Walker, Alexander (1979). ''The Shattered Silents: How the Talkies Came to Stay''. New York: William Morrow and Company. {{ISBN|0-688-03544-2}}
== See also ==
{{Portal|Film|1920s|1930s|1940s|1950s|1960s}}
* [[:Category:Film sound production]] for articles concerning the development of cinematic sound recording
* [[Dubbing (filmmaking)]]
* [[Foley (filmmaking)]]
* [[History of film]]
* [[List of early sound feature films (1926–1929)]]
* [[List of film sound systems]]
* [[Musical film]]
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* Freiberg, Freda (1987). "The Transition to Sound in Japan", in ''History on/and/in Film'', ed. Tom O'Regan and Brian Shoesmith, pp. 76–80. Perth: History & Film Association of Australia (available [http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/hfilm/FREDA.html online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060821124505/http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/hfilm/FREDA.html |date=August 21, 2006 }}).
* Freiberg, Freda (2000). "Comprehensive Connections: The Film Industry, the Theatre and the State in the Early Japanese Cinema", ''Screening the Past'', no. 11, November 1 (available [http://www.screeningthepast.com/2014/12/comprehensive-connections-the-film-industry-the-theatre-and-the-state-in-the-early-japanese-cinema/ online]).
* [[Harry M. Geduld|Geduld, Harry M.]] (1975). ''The Birth of the Talkies: From Edison to Jolson''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. {{ISBN|0-253-10743-1}}
* Glancy, H. Mark (1995). "Warner Bros. Film Grosses, 1921–51: The William Schaefer Ledger", ''Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television'', March.
* Gomery, Douglas (1980). "Economic Struggle and Hollywood Imperialism: Europe Converts to Sound", in ''Film Sound: Theory and Practice'' (1985), ed. Elisabeth Weis and John Belton, pp. 25–36. New York: Columbia University Press. {{ISBN|0-231-05637-0}}
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* Ruhmer, Ernst (1901). "The Photographophone", ''Scientific American'', July 20, 1901, vol. 85, no. 3, p. 36. ([https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951001389779w;view=1up;seq=42 available online]).
* Ruhmer, Ernst (1908). ''Wireless Telephony In Theory and Practice'' (translated from the German by James Erskine-Murray), New York: C. Van Nostrand Company. ([https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b33006;view=1up;seq=7 available online]).
* Russell, Catherine (2008). ''[[The Cinema of Naruse Mikio: Women and Japanese Modernity]]''. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. {{ISBN|0-8223-4312-6}}
* Saunders, Thomas J. (1994). ''Hollywood in Berlin: American Cinema and Weimar Germany''. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press. {{ISBN|0-520-08354-7}}
* Schatz, Thomas (1998). ''The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era''. London: Faber and Faber. {{ISBN|0-571-19596-2}}
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* Wierzbicki, James (2009). ''Film Music: A History''. New York and Oxon, UK: Routledge. {{ISBN|0-415-99198-6}}
* Wlaschin, Ken (1979). ''The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World's Greatest Movie Stars and Their Films''. New York and London: Salamander/Harmony. {{ISBN|0-517-53714-1}}
{{Refend}}
== External links ==
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* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061104160706/http://lavender.fortunecity.com/hawkslane/575/dialogue-and-sound.htm "Dialogue and Sound"] essay by film historian and critic [[Siegfried Kracauer]]; first published in his book ''Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality'' (1960)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100103075638/http://www.filmportal.de/df/37/Artikel,,,,,,,,EF98757B0E65695AE03053D50B37602C,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.html "The Film to Come"] essay by producer and composer Guido Bagier; first published in ''Film-Kurier'', January 7, 1928
* [http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/sound/rca01-cover.htm ''Handbook for Projectionists''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090921144743/http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/sound/rca01-cover.htm |date=September 21, 2009 }} technical manual covering all major U.S. systems; issued by RCA Photophone, 1930
* [http://members.optushome.com.au/picturepalace/FilmHistory.html "Historical Development of Sound Films"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091222075347/http://members.optushome.com.au/picturepalace/FilmHistory.html |date=December 22, 2009 }} chronology by sound-film pioneer E. I. Sponable; first published in ''Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers'', April/May 1947
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060905024521/http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/ar169.html "Madam, Will You Talk?"] article on the history of Bell Laboratories' early research into sound film, by Stanley Watkins, Western Electric engineer; first published in ''Bell Laboratories Record'', August 1946
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