This month at TCM is doing things a little differently with its Star of the Month. Instead of one, it’s selected Silent Stars as the Star of the Month and its an honorable choice. Silent film is so different than sound film, and now so much older than the majority of films available (excluding hold-outs like Chaplin and random entries like The Artist, the last time silent films were regularly made in America was 1928), that it rarely gets the attention it deserves and this is one way to do it. And now, 86 years removed from the last year in which silent movies were an expected commodity, it’s interesting to look back at those moments after The Jazz Singer unleashed the talking picture on the world, and see the reactions and predictions. Below are some headlines from The New York Times to give you an idea about how momentous the event really was.
First, to set the general tone, here’s a headline from early 1928:
TALKING FILMS TRY MOVIE MEN’S SOULS
Yes, it tried their souls! But wait, it gets worse. Here’s a choice line from the article:
“Something like panic has struck the actor colony of Hollywood since the talking films became popular. If the beautiful blondes could only speak intelligibly and in agreeable voices, they would not be so worried.”
That’s right, they equate it with panic and they’re probably not far off the mark. Singin’ in the Rain is a lot closer to reality than most people realize. Reading through these actual stories, it seems Singin’ in the Rain ripped the story right from the headlines, as the cliche would have it. I mean, the whole line about the “beautiful blondes” not being able to “speak intelligibly” seems like a direct inspiration of the Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) story line. In retrospect, they probably worried about actor’s speaking voices more than necessary. After all, audiences were not then, or now, looking for someone with perfect diction and a great speaking voice, they were looking for drama and comedy and adventure and music and the actors who were right for the role. The actors used early on for their eloquence, like George Arliss, were quickly supplanted by the Humphrey Bogarts, the Mae Wests, the James Cagneys, and the Joan Blondells. No one wanted Glenda Farrell to sound like Eleanor of Aquitaine, they wanted her to sound like a fast-talking New York gal. And she did! Going in, though, they didn’t know that and tried to get nothing but well-speaking stage actors, prompting the LA Times to declare, “In Hollywood the Actors’ Equity Association is in the saddle at last,” under the headline:
TALKIE PRODUCERS TURN TO EQUITY; Need for Speaking Players Gives Organization a Firm Foothold at Last.
At the same time, Actor’s Equity worried about movies ruining the theater by taking everyone good.
“Apprehension has been expressed by two officers of the Actors’ Equity and by the President of the American Federation of Musicians, speaking unofficially, about the effects of the imminent ‘talkies’ on the legitimate and vaudeville stage.”
Oh, for goodness sake. Charlie Chaplin, a July, 1928, article, expresses his concerns that the cinema would quickly devolve into “photographed stage plays,” and one story starts off with the suggestion that cinematographers will be put out of work as the sound engineer takes over and the camera gets locked in place. If you ever needed proof that people have unreasonable fears about anything and everything new, just read stories from 1928 about sound in movies. One particularly funny take, though not intentionally funny, is that of United Artists president, Joseph M. Schenck, who believed talking pictures were a fad that would quickly fade. As he said, “Talking doesn’t belong in pictures. Pictures are on a silent ground. Sound reproduction, however, is a great asset to pictures. The sound of a Zeppelin would enhance a drama and a knock on a window would build up a mystery play. But I don’t think people want talking pictures.” I remember the first time I saw Tokyo Story and thought, “The sound of a Zeppelin would really punch up the drama right about now.” If only Joe Schenck had had his way.
And it wasn’t just movie folks getting all twisted around over the talkies. Check out this remarkable headline from 1928:
DR. DARLINGTON SEES ‘DYNAMITE’ IN TALKIES; Fears They Will Spread Bad English–Urges a “Ministry of the Stage.”
The Reverend Dr. Henry Darlington was the head of the Episcopal Actors’ Guild (no, I didn’t know they had one, either) and feared that talkies would teach people to use bad english. As we now know, pop culture are not never have ungoodly infected the what how of our speaking words. What a fool!
In the same article that had Charlie Chaplin worrying about the cinema turning into stuffy “photographed plays” (which, of course, it did for about two years), Douglas Fairbanks made clear he was “unenthusiastic” about talking pictures and cautioned producers to “not be too hasty in putting forth these films.” Still, he said he’d be willing to try anything once. Unfortunately, the early days of sound film sapped the love of making movies out of Fairbanks and a final portion of his career in sound never really happened.
Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. We know now that all their fears were unfounded (except maybe that bad speechifying thing) and that as the technology developed, so did the versatility of the camera, ushering in a new golden age of cinema. Sound didn’t kill the movies, it sent them to the next level and beyond. But it did kill the silents. And this month, TCM celebrates all those stars that made the silents their home. As we inch ever closer to the century mark of sound film, remembering the silents is more important than ever.