I love movies.
I was shaped as a writer more by movies than by books, save for Tolkien and Andre Norton.
Above all, I was shaped by Steven Spielberg's E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and other movies by Spielberg like that.
And all the movies that I grew up with have one thing in common.
They all have sound.
Yes, the special effect that we all take for granted.
And one movie revolutionized movies in terms of sound.
1927's The Jazz Singer.
This was the first movie with spoken dialogue, in sound and not captions.
It had songs, in full voice and full sound.
What is more, it starred the great Al Jolson.
Al Jolson was the Elvis of his day.
He brought the style and techniques and creativity of 'Black' Vaudeville to 'white' audiences- including those who would have never been allowed to see a 'Black' singer... and those who never would have.
He sang in blackface. But he was unlike any other performer in blackface.
For the 'Black' character he played was sympathetic.
You did not laugh at him.
You cried for him.
Al Jolson was the John Lennon and Bob Dylan of the day.
This was a cultural revolution.
Al Jolson was also the Elvis of his day.
No one could, then or now, deny his talent.
The movie was a hit.
An immense hit.
The studios- all of them- poured immense amounts of money into developing sound technology further.
For The Jazz Singer was not the first movie to rely solely on dialogue.
It did not happen with just one movie.
It happened gradually, through lots of hard work.
And the technology was not fully developed yet.
There were songs- in glorious full-voiced sound.
There was spoken dialogue in full sound- a little bit of it, usually introducing the songs.
But most of the movie relied on captions, just like any silent movie.
The technology was not fully developed yet.
This was an experiment.
And not the first.
For 1927's The Jazz Singer launched a revolution.
But it was not the first film with sound.
Way back at the end of the 19th Century, people like Thomas Edison experimented with film with sound.
It was easy, just record sound on a phonograph record to go along with the movie.
The problem?
Getting the sound in synch.
Every time you played back the movie, you had to start the phonograph at exactly the same time as the film.
What a frustration!
In the 1920's, someone invented a process which did away with this frustration.
If you could record the sound on the film itself- you would only have to synch the two that once, and it would play back perfectly every time.
And that is what someone figured out how to do- to record the sound onto the film itself, so you would only have to synch the sound and the video just once!
And then they put out short films.
Of course.
This was an experiment.
They started small.
Short films.
Then, when the short films proved popular, they introduced sound effects and instrumental music into a full-length movie.
No need to get the human voice right just yet.
No need to synch more than a few select sound effects.
Then- The Jazz Singer.
More than just sound effects.
The human voice!
In glorious song- and in dialogue, briefly, introducing Al Jolson's musical performances!
That was a sensation.
It was the biggest hit movie the world had ever known!
And so, of course, all the studios then threw as much money as they could at developing the technology, until it could be practical to replace captions entirely with sound- and have music playing throughout the movie, like John William's great orchestral scores!
This was the revolution.
But it took time.
After The Jazz Singer became such a huge hit, though, there was no way that particular revolution would fail!
And Al Jolson's revolution did not fail, either!
For 'Black' people have far more sympathy in 'white' America than they did in 1918!
Two revolutions, one movie!
And both revolutions are a fundamental part of the world I grew up in!
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson
P.S. Thank you to The1920sChannel and their video Myths and Misconceptions About the 1920s! That is where I learned about the gradual development of sound in movies!