The American Widescreen Museum Sound Stage
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/sound/sound01.htm
The Transition From Silent To Sound
Warner Bros' Noah's Ark (1929) was
essentially a silent film with a few brief segments that included dialog in the
"modern" parts. The 135 minute film was cut to 75 minutes and re-released in
1957. Oddly this re-release was based only on the silent portions of the film
featuring the story of the ark and totally did away with the dominant modern
story. Fox's Movietone premiered in a feature film in their 1927 production of
Sunrise but the film contained no sync dialog, only
accompanying music score. Not enough to cause the rush to sound that would come
following Warner's The Jazz Singer.
1930 saw sound quickly becoming standardized throughout the
U.S. but silent productions were still being made in small numbers. Universal
produced both sound and silent versions of its timeless All Quiet on the
Western Front. Howard Hughes halted production on his epic
Hell's Angels to change it from a silent to a sound feature,
and took advantage of the break to increase the role of screen newcomer Jean
Harlow. While he was at it, Hughes shot many of Harlow's scenes in two-color
Technicolor. M-G-M, the last major studio to adopt sound had to fill the demand
for product by adding music scores to old blockbuster silents such as their 1925
production of Ben-Hur.
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