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The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American part-talkie musical drama film directed by Alan Crosland and produced by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is the first feature-length motion picture with both synchronized recorded music and lip-synchronous singing and speech. Its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound films and effectively marked the end of the silent film era with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, featuring six songs performed by Al Jolson. Based on the 1925 play of the same title by Samson Raphaelson, the plot was adapted from his short story "The Day of Atonement".
A sound film is a motion picture with 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 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.
Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone is the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one that was widely used and commercially successful. The soundtrack is not printed on the film, but issued separately on phonograph records. The discs, recorded at 33+1⁄3 rpm and typically 16 inches (41 cm) in diameter, are played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film is projected. Its frequency response is 4300 Hz. Many early talkies, such as The Jazz Singer (1927), used the Vitaphone system. The name "Vitaphone" derived from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound".
Blackmail is a 1929 British thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Anny Ondra, John Longden, and Cyril Ritchard. Based on the 1928 play of the same name by Charles Bennett, the film is about a London woman who is blackmailed after killing a man who tries to rape her.
The Singing Fool is a 1928 American sound part-talkie musical drama motion picture directed by Lloyd Bacon which was released by Warner Bros. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The soundtrack was recorded using the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. The film stars Al Jolson and is a follow-up to his previous film, The Jazz Singer. It is credited with helping to cement the popularity of American films of both sound and the musical genre. The film entered the public domain on January 1, 2024.
The Movietone sound system is an optical sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures, ensuring synchronization between sound and picture. It achieves this by recording the sound as a variable-density optical track on the same strip of film that records the pictures. The initial version of this system was capable of a frequency response of 8500 Hz. Although modern sound films use variable-area tracks instead, modern motion picture theaters can play a Movietone film without modification to the projector. Movietone was one of four motion picture sound systems under development in the U.S. during the 1920s. The others were DeForest's Phonofilm, Warner Brothers' Vitaphone, and RCA Photophone. However, Phonofilm was principally an early version of Movietone.
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was an optical sound, "variable-area" film exposure system, in which the modulated area (width) corresponded to the waveform of the audio signal. The four other major technologies were the Warner Bros. Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, as well as three "variable-density" sound-on-film systems, Lee De Forest's Phonofilm, and Fox-Case's Movietone, and the German system Tri-Ergon.
The Godless Girl is a 1928 American sound part-talkie drama directed by Cecil B. DeMille. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The soundtrack was recorded using the RCA Photophone sound-on-film system. The cast features Lina Basquette, Marie Prevost, Tom Keene, and Noah Beery.
Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s.
A part-talkie is a sound film that includes at least some "talking sequences" or sections with audible dialogue. The remainder of the film is provided with a synchronized musical score with sound effects. These films more often than not contain a main theme song that is played during key scenes in the film and is often sung offscreen on the musical soundtrack. During the portion without audible dialogue, speaking parts are presented as intertitles—printed text briefly filling the screen—and the soundtrack is used only to supply musical accompaniment and sound effects.
Photo-Kinema was a sound-on-disc system for motion pictures invented by Orlando Kellum.
Optical sound is a means of storing sound recordings on transparent film. Originally developed for military purposes, the technology first saw widespread use in the 1920s as a sound-on-film format for motion pictures. Optical sound eventually superseded all other sound film technologies until the advent of digital sound became the standard in cinema projection booths. Optical sound has also been used for multitrack recording and for creating effects in some musical synthesizers.
Finding His Voice (1929) is a short film created as an instructional film on how the Western Electric sound-on-film recording system worked. Recording stars Billy Murray and Walter Scanlan, uncredited, provide the speaking and singing voices. Murray also provided the voice for the Fleischer Studios character Bimbo.
Hardboiled Rose is a 1929 American sound part-talkie romantic drama film directed by F. Harmon Weight and released by Warner Bros. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The soundtrack was recorded using the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. The film starred Myrna Loy, William Collier, Jr., and John Miljan.
The Jazz Age (1929) is a sound part-talkie film starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Marceline Day, and Joel McCrea in his first leading role. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The film, directed by Lynn Shores and written by Randolph Bartlett, was released by RKO Radio Pictures soon after RKO was created from Film Booking Offices of America, RCA, and the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain.
Roy Pomeroy was an American special effects artist and film director. One of the only three technicians that founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he was awarded the Academy Award for Engineering Effects for the film Wings at the 1st Academy Awards.
Lucky Boy is a 1929 American sound part-talkie musical comedy-drama film directed by Norman Taurog and Charles C. Wilson, most notable for starring George Jessel in his first known surviving feature picture. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score, singing and sound effects along with English intertitles. The sound was recorded using the Tiffany-Tone system using RCA Photophone equipment. The film's plot bore strong similarities to that of the hit 1927 film The Jazz Singer, which had originally been intended to star Jessel before Al Jolson took over the role.
The Man and the Moment is a formerly lost 1929 sound part-talkie romantic comedy film directed by George Fitzmaurice and starring Billie Dove. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The soundtrack was recorded using the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. The film survives in a copy of the International Sound Version. The sound of the domestic part-talkie version was synchronized to the surviving print of the international sound version. Because of this, many scenes feature intertitles shown immediately after the spoken dialogue conveying the same words. The talking sequences on the international sound version were muted with music and intertitles were inserted to convey the dialogue replaced in the appropriate foreign language. Therefore, intertitles were left in the talking sequences during the restoration to maintain synchronization with the Vitaphone soundtrack. The story is from a 1914 novel by Elinor Glyn, the famous novelist. The film was produced by Richard A. Rowland and released by First National Pictures. A British silent film had been film of the same story in 1918.
Mother Knows Best is a lost 1928 American sound part-talkie film directed by John G. Blystone, based on a novel by Edna Ferber, fictionalizing the life of vaudevillian Elsie Janis. The film was Fox's first part talkie, using the Movietone sound system which had primarily been used for synchronised music scores and effects tracks in Fox features beforehand, although as early as Mother Machree (1928), a single synchronous singing sequence was included in the film. The talking sequences in Mother Knows Best were directed by actor Charles Judels, while the synchronized sequences were directed by John G. Blystone. The film starred Madge Bellamy, with Louise Dresser as her domineering mother, Barry Norton, and Albert Gran.
References
- ↑ Eyman, Scott (1999). The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926-1930. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-6192-6.
- ↑ "www.vitaphoneproject.com/". Vitaphone Project.
- ↑ "www.silentera.com/PSFL/indexes/index.html". Silent Era: Progressive Film List. 2018.
- ↑ "The Emergence of German Sound Film". filmportal.de.
- ↑ Alanen, Anitti (October 10, 2013). "Konstgjorda Svensson / [Artificial Svensson] (2011 SFI restoration)". Anitti Alanan: Film Diary.
- ↑ O'Brien, Charles (2005). Cinema's Conversion to Sound: Technology and Film Style in France and the U.S. Indiana: Indiana, University Press.
- ↑ Hutchinson, Pamela (September 21, 2015). "C'mon Feel the Noise: What Happened When the Talkies Came to Britain?". The Guardian.
- ↑ Gustafsson, Frederik (2017). The Man from the Third Row. New York: Berghahn Books. pp. 31–32. ISBN 978-1-78533-250-0.