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 was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one that was widely used and commercially successful. The soundtrack was not printed on the film itself, but issued separately on phonograph records. The discs, recorded at 33+1⁄3 rpm and typically 16 inches (41 cm) in diameter, would be played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film was being projected. It had a frequency response of 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".
Una Merkel was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress.
Louis Robert Wolheim was an American actor, of both stage and screen, whose rough physical appearance relegated him to roles mostly of thugs or villains in the movies, but whose talent allowed him to flourish on stage. His career was mostly contained during the silent era of the film industry, due to his untimely death at the age of 50 in 1931.
Lillian Hall-Davis was an English actress during the silent film era, featured in major roles in English film and a number of German, French and Italian films.
Donald Gallaher was an American actor who appeared in 25 films between 1903 and 1949. He also directed five films, including Temple Tower (1930). His name is sometimes misspelled "Gallagher".
Freeman Harrison Owens was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the only child of Charles H. Owens and Christabel Harrison. He attended Pine Bluff High School in Pine Bluff, but quit in his senior year to work at a local movie theatre as a projectionist.
Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s.
Ben Bernie and All the Lads is a short film made by Lee de Forest in the De Forest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The film features Ben Bernie conducting his band All The Lads, and features pianist Oscar Levant and saxophonist Jack Pettis. At the time of the filming, Ben Bernie and All the Lads were a featured band at the Hotel Roosevelt in New York City.
The Covered Wagon is a 1923 American silent Western film released by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by James Cruze based on a 1922 novel of the same name by Emerson Hough about a group of pioneers traveling through the old West from Kansas to Oregon. J. Warren Kerrigan starred as Will Banion and Lois Wilson as Molly Wingate. On their quest they experience desert heat, mountain snow, hunger, and Indian attack.
Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes, Song Car-Tunes, or Sound Car-Tunes, is a series of short three-minute animated films produced by Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer between May 1924 and September 1927, pioneering the use of the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" device used to lead audiences in theater sing-alongs. The Song Car-Tunes also pioneered the application of sound film to animation.
Borrah Minevitch, born Boruch Minewitz, was a notable harmonica player, actor, and leader of his group The Harmonica Rascals. The Harmonica Rascals, an ensemble of approximately ten pieces, recorded for Brunswick Records in 1933, and later for Decca Records where Minevitch hired Richard Hayman as an arranger for the Rascals.
Ernest Hilliard was an American actor. He appeared in more than 90 films between 1921 and 1947. He was born in New York City and died in Santa Monica, California, from a heart attack.
Hugo Riesenfeld was an Austrian-American composer. As a film director, he began to write his own orchestral compositions for silent films in 1917, and co-created modern production techniques where film scoring serves an integral part of the action. Riesenfeld composed about 100 film scores in his career.
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.
Kid Boots is a musical with a book by William Anthony McGuire and Otto Harbach, music by Harry Tierney, and lyrics by Joseph McCarthy. The show was staged by Edward Royce.
The musical short can be traced back to the earliest days of sound films.
"Love's Old Sweet Song" is a Victorian parlour song published in 1884 by composer James Lynam Molloy and lyricist G. Clifton Bingham. The first line of the chorus is "Just a song at twilight", and its title is sometimes misidentified as such.
The Clue of the New Pin is a 1929 British crime film directed by Arthur Maude and starring Benita Hume, Kim Peacock, and Donald Calthrop. It was made at Beaconsfield Studios.
Bella Donna is a 1923 American silent film produced by Famous Players-Lasky and released by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on the 1909 novel, Bella Donna, by Robert Smythe Hichens which was later adapted for a 1912 Broadway play starring Alla Nazimova. This film is also a remake of the 1915 Paramount film Bella Donna starring Pauline Frederick. The 1923 film was directed by George Fitzmaurice and starred Pola Negri in her first American film.
Abraham Lincoln (1924) is a short film made in the Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The film was directed by J. Searle Dawley, produced by Lee de Forest, is based on the 1918 play Abraham Lincoln by John Drinkwater, and stars Frank McGlynn Sr. as Lincoln. McGlynn also played Lincoln in the play on Broadway.
