Talk:Sound film

Sound film is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on December 17, 2006.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
November 3, 2006	Featured article candidate	Promoted
January 5, 2010	Featured article review	Kept
September 30, 2018	Featured article review	Demoted

Current status: Former featured article

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)[reply]

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.

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

The phrase "the first feature-length film with a live-recorded vocal sequence" seems confusing to me. "Live-recorded" implies to me that the audio was recorded at the same time the film was exposed, ie: both sound and picture were recorded simultaneously. The text indicates that the Photokinema sound was added to a previously made silent film. Walloon's suggestion above appears more accurate to me, although shouldn't the reference to "sound sequences" be singular in Dream Street's case? Question: Was the Photokinema system a playback only system? How was sound recorded and then assembled for the Photokinema disk? Or, was an entire film's performance dubbed (while watching the film) in a single take to a blank disk after the film editing was complete? Thanks. MRJayMach (talk) 22:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Done. Thank you.—DCGeist 19:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great article

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

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)[reply]

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).[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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":

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

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

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)

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

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.

Universal

Universal was forced into Receivership in 1932.

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

References

^ New York Times May 26, 1930, p. 29.

Notes problem

I don't get it with notes #3 and #6. Can someone tell me what book its referring to? All it says is "Altman (2005), p. 158" and "Altman (2005), p. 158–165." I am guessing its "Rick Altman" and the book is "Silent film sound"? Can anyone tell me if I'm correct or wrong? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.34.106.100 (talk) 00:39, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's a slight problem with presuming Silent Film Sound is the publication, as it is published by Columbia University Press, 2004, but Altman doesn't seem to have a more recent publication, so probably the 2005 in the article is wrong? The second part of note #3 is Roland Cosandey, Who's Who of Victorian Cinema: A Worldwide Survey, ed. Stephen Herbert and Luke McKernan, BFI, 1996. 86.42.124.92 00:59, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Was this perhaps an omission (or deletion) from the references section? Girolamo Savonarola 01:07, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yep--one or the other. I've put it (back?) in.—DCGeist 06:00, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.34.106.100 (talk) 15:49, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism - Clara Bow

Current article has this in it: "Clara Bow's speaking voice was sometimes blamed for the demise of her brilliant career, but the truth is that she was too hot to handle.[77]" Is this intended? --BHC (talk) 11:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've also pointed out that some of the sentences in the article are very opinion filled, flamboyant sounding, and un-encyclopedic. When I attempted to re-write some of these, my work was almost instantly reverted by someone who said something to the effect of "this is a featured article", as if there possibly couldn't be any flaws, and acted as if I had no right to revise anything on "their" page, and the odd sounding phrases like the one you cited stood.

Perhaps I am wrongly assuming bad faith here, but things work out best when egos do not factor into things, and people don't treat the articles as if they are their sole domain. I am not saying that this is the case here, but I am pointing out that some actions taken could lead you to think that may be the case.

To the best of my understanding something having been made a "featured article" and in this case, it was quite some time ago, does not make the entry untouchable. It does reasonably serve as a de facto template, and the structure itself should probably stay that way, but having posted more neutral, as well as more encyclopedic, sounding passages, and having those reverted back to the former opinionary sounding, vernacular filled phrases like: "her brilliant career" "Too hot to handle" "his voice was fine" and silly captions like the one with Dietrich's photo. is discouraging.

Why anyone would fight to preserve that which is not encyclopedic, for no clear reason is baffling! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.62.100.100 (talk) 10:02, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Again this is just how I perceived things at that time, and I am not saying that is how it was intended. I'm just throwing this out there to get feedback.(24.62.100.100 (talk) 10:05, 11 June 2009 (UTC))[reply]

I support your rewrite on the Dietrich caption. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 14:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I appreciate your support. I did my best to preserve the point the original poster was making.(24.62.100.100 (talk) 03:35, 14 June 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Claim about L'Atalante needs clarification and citation

The article calls it '"The earliest sound film to make most latter-day shortlists for "greatest movie ever made."' What "latter-day shortlists" is this referring to? Who writes them? What constitutes most of them? Without clarification and citation, it comes across as assigning an opinion to an anonymous source. My ^[which?] tag was reverted without an explanation. 24.34.93.81 (talk) 19:12, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It looks as though that is a problem on this page. I deleted items that were blatantly opinionary, and they were restored almost at once. When I put a POV tag on the page pointing out that the page is full of opinion and speculation, that too was removed, even though it wasn't supposed to be! It seems as if some editors here think this is their exclusive page, and make a point of mentioning it's feature page status (from November of 2006). I don't see how this page made featured page status, given it's current condition.(24.62.100.100 (talk) 02:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Neutrality of Article

I have placed this page up for review. There are a number of comments that are clearly un-encyclopedic, and are more fitting to a personal web site. The caption speculating about the Marlene Dietrich is only one example. Poor writing that incorporates opinion, speculation and attempts at narrative humor.

I would also say the page's 'Featured Article' status from 2006, should be re-evaluated. (24.62.100.100 (talk) 23:45, 16 May 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Here are some specific instances of comments that may be considered to lack a neutral point of view. I deleted two of these comments, but they were almost immediately restored by an editor.

If addressing these issues just results in an editing war, then there is little else to do but request a review for neutrality.

"Perhaps Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame (1929) would be better remembered today if costar Marlene Dietrich, instead of kissing their hands, had been invited to sing."

This is totally speculative

"Though much of The Jazz Singer's success was due to Jolson, and its limited use of synchronized sound hardly qualified it as an innovative sound film (let alone the "first")"

We can not say that it due to Jolson, there is no way of determining that. It may, or may not, have been just as successful with George Jessel or Eddie Cantor. The comment is speculative and opinionary.

We are not here to make a determination if the film was innovative or not. That is a matter of opinion. The comment is un-encyclopedic.

"John Gilbert's voice was fine"

Opinionary, un-encyclopedic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.62.100.100 (talk) 00:14, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And then there is this blurb, which another editor has already noted on this page

"Clara Bow's speaking voice was sometimes blamed for the demise of her brilliant career, but the truth is that she was too hot to handle."

So much for "very well written" this comment is extremely un-encyclopedic, and opinionary as well.

The mention of her career being "brilliant" is also an example of a total lack of neutrality, and is un-encyclopedic as well.

(24.62.100.100 (talk) 00:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)) (24.62.100.100 (talk) 00:45, 17 May 2009 (UTC))[reply]

I think, overall, the POV tag may not be appropriate. There may be some statements that are overly flowery in tone but the article as a whole is not editorially slanted. If a tag must be used, I think it should be, simply, {{cleanup}}. But better is to simply fix the phrasing of these sentences one at a time through normal editing. Mango juice^talk 13:21, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Having had a chance to reflect on this, I now agree that the POV tag was not appropriate in this instance. But as you have said, some phrases are overly flowery in tone, and that greatly detracts from the rest of the article. I understand that in the course of contributing to an article, an editor can revert to a more casual style of writing, but it's important that collectively we do what we can to improve the articles. The specific examples I cited are not typical of the rest of the piece, and I think that these flowery phrases adversely impact that rest of the article, as well as it's narrative flow. I may not necessarily be the best editor to make such revisions, but I think that they can be revised to come across as more scholarly.

The blurb about Clara Bow being "too hot to handle", and the comment "Gilbert's voice was fine" can not possibly be taken as "very well written" as another editor insists the entire article is (and that may be true in regards to the article as a whole). You could easily revise these sentences to make them more Wikipedia friendly without altering the point the original editor may have been trying to make. For example:

"Most contemporary film historians now attribute Clara Bow's decline at the box office during the start of the sound era to have resulted from adverse publicity surrounding her troubled personal life, and not from any deficiencies in her speaking voice "

"Despite popular accounts of John Gilbert's voice being high pitched, or of a vindictive Louis B. Mayer having sound technicians sabotaging Gilbert's speaking voice, a short scene from Gilbert's talkie 'His Glorious Night'(1929) reveals Gilbert speaking in an somewhat theatrical manner (which early sound actors were encouraged to speak in), but with a distinctly normal male voice and tonality. Gilbert continued to make sound films until his death in 1936."

"Marlene Dietrich's later sound film 'The Blue Angel' featured her singing, and was a huge international success." I think that revisions of some of these phrases would improve the article and it's overall narrative flow. Thank You!(24.62.100.100 (talk) 00:22, 18 May 2009 (UTC))[reply]

1930 onward

This article does a thoroughly fine job of presenting the history of sound film to 1930. What about from 1930 onward? Wikipedia doesn't have any history of sound film between 1930 and the Dolby era of the 1970s. Topics: ERP, RCA & RKO's noise reduction technology from 1930–31; ERP's wide-range recording and reproducing system, and RCA's high-fidelity recording and reproducing system, both from 1932–33; a revolutionary new loudspeaker, the Shearer Two-Way Horn System, from 1936; the introduction of multi-track optical recording in 1937–38; and a history of magnetic sound recording and mixing for motion pictures in the 1950s. — Walloon (talk) 06:54, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. A lot on this page (including a bit of NPOV stuff) could be whittled down, more important information from later eras added, and there are FAR too many pictures on it. Definitely due for an overhaul. The Photoplayer 18:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Stereo has now become the norm for sound motion pictures. I believe this is due to the influence of Star Wars. Walt Disney's Fantasia with its use of "Fantasound" was an early example of a stereophonic film. I think the development of stereophonic sound for motion pictures needs to be included in this article.Smiloid (talk) 17:34, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To maintain this article's focus and a reasonable length, I respectfully suggest that these topics would be more productively covered in a new article, Film sound. That concept and phrase—which currently redirects, inappropriately, to sound-on-film—embraces the full range of technical developments since the transition from silent to sound film, which the present article focuses on.—DCGeist (talk) 17:48, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Film sound and Sound film are redundant. This article isn't "sound films before 1930", it's sound film in general. As Walloon pointed out, there was much advancement in sound after 1930.

There's a lot of superfluous material that can be cut out of this article to accommodate more important information. The list of first sound films in each country should be separated into its own article, for example. The Photoplayer 19:43, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To what list do you refer? I observe no such "list". There is a narrative discussion of the spread of sound film around the world, a cultural and industrial development that is obviously essential to the article topic and integral to the article's structure. (Rather, that should be obvious.)

As for "film sound" and "sound film" being redundant, you are simply wrong.

We have internal evidence: The fact that this article was community vetted and approved as a Featured Article with its present, long-standing focus on the development and institutionalization of sound film. The fact that "film sound" redirects to sound-on-film, not to sound film.

We have external evidence: When scholars discuss all of the various technical aspects of cinematic sound, the conventional phrase is "film sound". When scholars discuss those early films that involved sound in contrast to those that were silent, the conventional phrase is "sound film". For an introduction to the differing use of the terms, I refer you to two of the most respected reference works in the field: David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's Film Art: An Introduction; David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson's The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960.

In sum, the two terms are very different. "Sound film" refers to a specific mode of film-making, a mode that becomes essentially universal and taken for granted by the mid-1930s. "Film sound" refers to a specific technical aspect of film-making, a technical aspect relevant to all films made with sound from its first association with cinema to the present day. That's how the terms are conventionally used in authoritative sources, and that's how they should continue to be used here.—DCGeist (talk) 20:20, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DCGeist, you seem to be taking this all very personally, and in fact, a check of the page history shows that you have written the bulk of this article. In my opinion, you are splitting hairs here with regards to terminology, and the ambivalence towards adding vital information regarding the business model of the sound film as we know it because it might compromise the status of this article as being featured. Technology is a key component of sound films, and therefore must be discussed in an article discussing why the form is the way it is today.

The third paragraph of the article entitled, "The transition: Europe", is exactly what I describe as being a list. It's just a string of "this country's first sound film was..., etc." with no rhyme or reason-- nothing explaining the impact in each country. Okay, so what if G’schichten aus der Steiermark was the first Austrian sound film? What impact did it have on the Austrian or even European film market? How was it received? The paragraph does show that sound film-making became moderately active upon release of The Jazz Singer in Europe, but why? What was the economic impact?

Regardless of technological advances in the last seventy years, the difference in the business model of sound films between 1930 and today is astoundingly different. The fact that most films since the late 1970s have been stereo does make a difference. In 1953, for example, if you were to license the Cinemascope format for your film, you had to use stereophonic sound contractually, as did the exhibitors of such films. If this article is just about sound film as a mode of film-making, then there is a great deal of technical data that is contradicting what you are talking about. Why, for example, the lengthy prose about Edison's patent of sound-on-film? Why not just re-direct to the article, Sound-on-film and say Edison took out a patent for it?

In short, the very things you are arguing against adding are of the same caliber as the material that you or others have written into this article. The Photoplayer 22:14, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Business model should be included—very important driver of technology. Binksternet (talk) 01:29, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As the article goes through FAR at the moment, I'd like to address this point. The distinction between "sound film" and "film sound" is hardly splitting hairs, unless the entire field of professional literature on the subject is "splitting hairs". The sort of changes advocated (but not pursued) by The Photoplayer would result in a vast expansion of the article that would cause major problems of both length and focus. The article's current focus on the development of, transition to, and immediate consequences of sound film is coherent, manageable, and reflects the sort of focus and structure found in the relevant literature, such as Crafton and Eyman. That said, advancements in film sound since the 1930s are certainly of interest. Would any of those who called for detailed coverage of the topic on Wikipedia like to work with me on developing an article that provides such coverage? DocKino (talk) 10:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The musical

I'm not sure if this would go better under "Commerce" or "Cinematic form", but didn't the emergence of the sound feature film spur the development of an entire movie genre--the musical? This point is addressed in the discussion of developments in India, but perhaps could be made clearer in terms of the West. DocKino (talk) 10:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done—and goes very well with accompanying image in Commerce.—DCGeist (talk) 22:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Photo-Drama of Creation

I expanded the following paragraph that was getting deleted for lack of references, and I added references. Subsequently, DocKino twice deleted it, saying it doesn't appear in any standard film reference text. Here is the paragraph:

In early 1914, the first major film presentation with synchronized sound was produced: The Photo-Drama of Creation, an eight-hour show presented in two parts on successive nights. The visual spectacle used five hours of colored slides, silent segments, and three hours of motion film synchronized at times with 96 separate gramophone-based 'lectures' and musical numbers, created to promote the Jehovah's Witnesses' conception of mankind's genesis. The productions packed large legitimate theaters such as the New Masonic Theater in Louisville, Kentucky—a house that would not see another synchronized film until 1927. By 1917, the photo-drama had been seen by some nine million people.

My references:

Carey, Frances. (1999) The Apocalypse and the shape of things to come, pp. 322–323. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0802083250
Kleber, John E. (2001) The encyclopedia of Louisville, pp. 445, 630. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0813121000
Stewart, E. D. (1917) The Overland Monthly, Volume LXIX, Number 2, February 1917, pp. 128–129. "Life of Pastor Russell."

Original editor's reference:

Filmsite.org. Milestones: 1910s, page 2.

Another reference I did not use (but could have) is a court case about this photo-play appearing on a Sunday in August 1914 at the Majestic Theater in Boise, Idaho where it was challenged as entertainment vs. religious service. If it was determined to be entertainment undertaken for profit by a business enterprise, it would not be allowed to show on Sunday in Idaho. In the court case, they noted the non-profit nature of the show and concluded that it was a religious service.

I'm certain DocKino's concerns are valid, but I believe that there is a time to cleave to the standard texts, and a time to realize they might have missed a point. This picture show had visual elements synchronized with gramophone sound in a manner similar to Vitaphone. Why not list it? It was a breakthrough spectacle and seen by millions. How many millions saw Edison's Kinetophone in 1913? How many millions saw Norton's Cameraphone, or Gaumont's Chronophone or Elgéphone? If otherwise lacking technical sophistication, the Jehovah's Witnesses show was an important milestone in the popularity of sound synchronized with film. In the way it was promoted and presented, it was sophisticated. Binksternet (talk) 16:14, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm the original editor and I would like to add that I added it purely for the reason of being significant. Though I will admit the technology used may have been a little crude, it was an innovation at a time when silent pictures ruled. Besides, it would not be on Filmsite if it were not a real milestone. I thought it would be not be right to not acknowledge what Filmsite states was an important event. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. 96.250.154.201 (talk) 00:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I think that my references and those of Binksternet were more than valid to support the paragraph. 96.250.154.201 (talk) 00:42, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If that paragraph is to go back in the article (and it is) then I should modify it combining the Filmsite entry and other sources: "an eight-hour show presented in four parts on two successive nights, or on one full Sunday." Binksternet (talk) 01:15, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So what you're suggesting is to use words from the actual references? Okay then. By the way, do you mind if I put in the edits you suggested? 96.250.154.201 (talk) 01:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting case. The Photo-Drama of Creation did not involve any technological innovation--the sound recordings were completely distinct from the visuals. However, in terms of exhibition history, it is worthy of note--I've reintroduced it in more summary fashion. (N.B. While it's clear that a lot of people saw it--or a part of it--there's really no documentation for the 9 million figure, not surprising given the method of its distribution. I came across many other figures, and I think we're on most solid ground not wading into that. The film's own article can go into the required detail.)—DCGeist (talk) 20:07, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To DCGeist: Though I appreciate the help that you have given us in this matter (and even though we resolved this months ago), I can no longer say I am satisfied with the current edit. This is because I have finally been able to find a copy of the full Photo Drama of Creation on the internet, and watched the full introduction as well as other portions. Admittedly, due to the film now being nearly 100 years old, there are some skips and even a few sections that have apparently been lost that interfered with synchronization. Nevertheless, in existing portions, the sound runs in perfect (or almost perfect) synchronization with the film.

Frankly, I feel that the current edit simply does not do it justice. Though parts of the film have separately recorded lectures, certain sections are undeniably sound film, and I feel that the current edit denies them the credit of having produced what would be the first widely distributed film in the U.S. with synchronized sound. Thus, I will revise the paragraph so as to better reflect this fact. 96.232.15.171 (talk) 18:05, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

YouTube is not an acceptable source according to our Verifiability policy. Anything can be post-synchronized, so nothing you watch over the Internet comes close to qualifying as an "undeniable" fact about the film's original presentation. None of the historically authoritative works confirm that the film had synchronized live-recorded sound. Our text must and will continue to reflect what those high-quality sources say.—DCGeist (talk) 19:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see your point about both Youtube and and the post-synchronization. Indeed, if it were recorded live, unless they found some other method, those in the film would have to be very stiff in order to be heard by a recording device (and there are no signs of that present, since Pastor Russell moves freely about a stage in several scenes and is heard clearly).

However, is having live recorded sound a requirement in order for a film to be called a film with synchronized sound? 96.232.15.171 (talk) 20:31, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I understand the point of the question. Our current description uses the word "synchronized": "eight hours worth of projected visuals involving both slides and live action were synchronized with separately recorded lectures and musical performances played back on phonograph." Given what our directly pertinent authoritative sources say and what we know to have been technologically feasible at the time, I believe that's as far as we can take the use of "synchronized" in this case.—DCGeist (talk) 02:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My question basically was: Regardless of how the sound was created (live or post-synchronized), as long as it was presented with sound synchronized with the picture, doesn't it deserve the title of being a sound film (or at least a form of it)?

P.S. I am basing this on both the assumption that your "Youtube" comment took issue with whether the sound was recorded live and not with whether it was originally presented with sound, and the definition of sound film (film with synchronized sound or sound technologically linked to the picture). 96.232.140.188 (talk) 15:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still not getting it: "The title of being a sound film"? We discuss the film, we note it was screened around the United States, we describe the important role recorded sound played in its presentation. Before The Jazz Singer (and after it), there were all sort of films whose presentation incorporated recorded sound in different ways. What's important is to describe that variety, not to label item A as a "sound film", item B as "not a sound film".—DCGeist (talk) 16:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When A Man Loves

I received a message on my own Talk page that is most fruitfully posted here. I reproduce it in its entirety.—DCGeist (talk) 23:50, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Warners was not a major studio at the time. The popularity of Vitaphone with the public made them a major studio over time. They were not on the level of MGM, Paramount, Fox or First National whom they later acquired. The major studios kept cranking out silents for three more years after Don Juan in anticipation of the public treating sound as a fad. The present Warner premises was originally the First National lot. In fact several early Warner pictures of this time have a 'Vitagraph-like' look, Vitagraph was the studio before First National that the brothers acquired. All in all the acceptance of sound didn't happen over night. The acceptance of sync-sound had been treated as a fad by movie audiences the several instances it had been introduced dating back to circa 1894. So yes Warners were on their way with Don Juan,When A Man Loves, The Better Ole, Old San Francisco, The Jazz Singer and others. But they weren't there in 1926. Their three main theatrical assets at this time were John Barrymore(prestige), Rin Tin-Tin(box office profit), Vitaphone(innovation). Koplimek (talk) 23:31, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I fail to see the point of this. The relevant information is already reflected in the article (see, e.g., "In 1925, Warner Bros., then a small Hollywood studio with big ambitions...; "Most American movie theaters, especially outside of urban areas, were still not equipped for sound [in 1929] and the studios were not entirely convinced of the talkies' universal appeal—through mid-1930, the majority of Hollywood movies were produced in dual versions, silent as well as talking. 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"). The article notes as well that "Warner Bros. acquired a controlling interest" in First National in late 1928; the fact that "the present Warner premises was originally the First National lot" is irrelevant to the topic of this article, which is the history of sound film. The specific issue that came up in the article last week was whether the February premiere of Warners' When A Man Loves marked a significant step in the development of film sound. The answer is no, not particularly. It involved no technological advance over Don Juan and made less of an impact at the box office. Adding a mention of it would only weaken the article's focus and narrative flow.—DCGeist (talk) 23:50, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Triumph of the Talkies - use of arcane term "oater"

I had changed "oater" to "western" in the sentence "The final mainstream purely silent feature put out by a major Hollywood studio was the Hoot Gibson oater Points West..." There is no need whatsover to use such an arcane term as "oater" to describe a western genre movie, when the FAR more widely used an recognized term "western" works even better. USER:DCGeist reverted this, his justification being "avoid off-echo with 'West', five capped words in a row; term is era-appropriate and linked for those unfamiliar)." First of all, I was unable to find a working definition for "off-echo", second, concerns over having 5 capitalized words in the same sentence, or using "Western" and "West" in the same sentence are subordinate to distracting the reader by using an unknown word when a very familiar one works better. Even though one can click through on the term "oater" and be redirected to "Western", if makes far more sense, and makes for smoother reading to just use the commonly-understood term for the genre. Finally, it really doesn't matter if "the term is era-appropriate" - this article on the history of film was written in the 21st Century, and should use the common 21st Century terms for easy readability. "French disease" may have been an era-appropriate term for what Franz Schubert died of, but in this day and age we call it syphillus, which is why that is the term used in the Wikipedia article on Schubert when it talks about his illness and death.Mmyers1976 (talk) 17:31, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry you're confused by "oater" and "off-echo". I'll make this simple:

"Western 'Points West'" sounds bad. It's poor writing. If you find "oater" intolerable, you will have to think harder about recasting the sentence.—DCGeist (talk) 17:53, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Third opinion: The use of "oater" there is really awkward and unnecessarily obscure, in my opinion. Stick with "Western", but change the sentence - something like "Points West, by Hoot Gibson, was the finale mainstream..." — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 18:17, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for jumping in. I have half an eye on this page and I concur that "oater" is not the best term, especially for a global readership. And I like archaic and industry terms: I argued to keep one instance of "aviatrix" at the Amelia Earhart article. Here, though, the word under discussion is too much of an insider's usage, unfamiliar to many. Binksternet (talk) 18:21, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Concur with Annyong; no need for "oater". Revision seems fine. Erik (talk | contribs) 21:42, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First sound film

A short film about Conchita Piquer, a world famous Spanish singer at that time, was produced using the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process, in 1923, and was officially released in 1925. The info on IMDB —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.4.46.91 (talk) 08:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could use some sound film

This fine article could do with a few examples of the subject. Old out-of-copyright sound film clips shouldn't present too much of an obstacle to find. Skomorokh 01:33, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First in-flight sound film?

The Martin and Osa Johnson page claims "In late 1934 the Johnsons participated in a promotion for Baboona. Celebrated WWI "Ace of Aces" Eddie Rickenbacker was enlisted to fly an Eastern Air Lines plane round-trip between Newark and Miami. In the process they set a new speed record and Baboona became the first sound movie to be shown during flight." There's no citation. Is this information correct? It seems a little late considering the first in-flight silent movie was either 1921 or 1925 according to this YouTube clip, and sound films had been around a fair few years before 1934. 86.159.192.149 (talk) 15:29, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Talkies treated with suspicion?

The statement in the lead, in the context of the early 1930s, that "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 soundless cinema" does not seem to be supported by the content. The article describes the enthusiastic adoption of talkies in several countries. It adds "Throughout much of Europe [in the 1930s], conversion of exhibition venues lagged well behind production capacity, requiring talkies to be produced in parallel silent versions or simply shown without sound in many places", but that is not at all the same as "treating with suspicion". The article mentions adverse effects on musicians and some performers - again, not the same thing. The article does mention the doubts of Jack Warner and Viktor Shklovsky (in 1926 and 1927, not the 1930s). It mentions (undated) comments of Hitchcock criticising "many early sound movies" - not at all the same as treating the new development with suspicion. The sole support is Paul Rotha's comment in 1930 - hardly "many filmmakers and critics".

A better summary would be "In Europe talkies were adopted enthusiastically", with a sentence at the end of the second para such as "Some filmmakers and critics, in the United States and elsewhere, doubted whether the new development would be a commercial or aesthetic success, but by 1930 talkies had achieved critical approval as well as profitability." --Mhockey (talk) 22:47, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New internal link: Phonoscène

fyi--Gozor136 (talk) 14:13, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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Sound-on-tape

This article entirely glosses over a third system besides sound-on-film and sound-on-disc, which was sound-on-film aka "twoband" or "double system" to record livesound, with the following milestones:

1954: Pilottone
1957: Neo pilottone (introduced with the Nagra III tape recorder). By the early 1960s, many 16mm and Regular8 cameras were on the market (especially in Western Europe) with either pilottone or neo pilottone capabilities. By the late-1960s, there were also a number of Super8 cameras using either pilottone or neo pilottone (notably, the two Leitz cameras Leicina Super and Leicina Special), up until Kodak came up with an ownmagnetic sound-on-film system for Super8 in 1972/73. Pilottone cameras could be used either with reel-to-reel recorders, or with more consumer-friendly cassette tape recorders, made by companies such as Nagra, Uher, and Stellavox.
By the mid-1980s, twoband was largely replaced with SMPTE timecode.

According to sources such as [2], the early 1980s saw a peak demand in commercial lip-sync copying of old two-band film sound recordings onto magnetic sound-on-film systems, probably because the old twoband playback gear was starting to fall apart and was not being serviced anymore. These commercial services required machinery that could properly decode aka "resolve" the pilottone sync signal in order maintain lip-sync while copying the sound onto sound-on-film. --2003:EF:170E:A495:98E8:44D9:627:9617 (talk) 04:19, 18 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

First talkie: The Jazz Singer or Der Brandstifter?

The introduction says that The Jazz Singer was the first feature film originally presented as a talkie. However, Der Brandstafter was also a feature film, wasn't it? Should that be corrected or is there something I am missing?
Tojaw (talk) 09:43, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Reading Culture

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 11 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sejava (article contribs).

Giovanni Rappazzo

There is no mention of him, who had a patent that expired in 1924 and was stoled by Fox. So typical for anglosaxon 79.30.170.34 (talk) 08:50, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[1] New York Times May 26, 1930, p. 29.

[1]