The History of Film
|
Film History
of the 1920s |
Film History of the 1920s
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
The Box-Office
Top 10 Films of the Pre-Sound Era
Greatest Silent Films
Greatest Films of the 1920s
1920 | 1921 | 1922 | 1923 | 1924 | 1925 | 1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929
Academy Awards Winners (and History)
1927-28, 1928-29, 1929-30
Timeline of 1920s Film Milestones and Turning Points
End of the Silents - Upheavals in the Film Industry with the Early Talkies:
As anticipated, the arrival of sound created great upheaval in the history of the motion picture industry, (as exemplified in the film Singin' in the Rain (1954)). Film studios were confronted with many problems related to the coming of sound, including restricted markets for English-language talkies. Many Hollywood actors/actresses lacked good voices and stage experience, and their marketability decreased. Technically, camera movements were restricted, and noisy, bulky movie cameras had to be housed in clumsy, huge sound-insulated booths with blimps (sound-proof covers), to avoid picking up camera noise on the soundtrack. Artistically, acting suffered as studios attempted to record live dialogue, because stationary or hidden microphones (in either their costumes or other stage props) impeded the movement of actors. Some of the earliest talkies were primitive, self-conscious, crudely-made productions with an immobile microphone - designed to capitalize on the novelty of sound.
Silent
film studios became obsolescent, and new investments had to be made for
expensive new equipment, technological innovations, and sound-proofed
stages. Cameras were mounted on moveable, squeak-proofed dollies, and
microphones were hung from booms that could be held above the action (outside
of the camera's view). Lubitsch's first sound film The Love
Parade (1929) (with Jeanette MacDonald's debut appearance), exhibited
the director's creative adaptation to the requirements of sound film,
and was one of the first backstage musicals with musical numbers that
were integral to the plot. Smoothly directed, Lubitsch avoided making
it stage-bound and over-acted like many of the early talkies. And Rouben
Mamoulian's first film Applause (1929) did creative and revolutionary
things with recorded sound, such as overlapping soundtracks, and using
sounds as cues or signals.
Films that began production as silents were quickly transformed into sound films. All of the studios were forced to follow suit. By 1930, the silent movie had practically disappeared, and by the mid 1930s, film industry studios had become sound-film factories. In 1927, only 400 US theatres were wired for sound, but by the end of the decade, over 40% of the country's movie theatres had sound systems installed.
Many stars of the silent era with heavy accents and disagreeable voices saw their careers shattered (e.g., Polish-accented Pola Negri, Emil Jannings, Ramon Novarro, Clara Bow, Vilma Banky, Colleen Moore, Rod La Rocque, Gilbert Roland, Nita Naldi, Renee Adoree, Blanche Sweet, Agnes Ayres, and John Gilbert), while others like Joan Crawford, Paul Muni, Greta Garbo, Ronald Colman, Lon Chaney, Sr., Richard Barthelmess and Gloria Swanson survived the transition - but elocution lessons from diction coaches became a necessity for some. Other silent stars, such as Mary Pickford, failed to make the transition to talkies and retired in the 30s. Many new film stars and directors that had to be imported from Broadway, would become familiar Hollywood names in the 1930s.
The Use of Color:
Another technological advance, in addition to sound, was the use of color.
In the earliest years of the industry, hand-tinting/painting had been
tried, but it was largely impractical, laborious, and unrealistic looking.
Another process called Kinemacolor used a movie camera and projector
that both exposed and projected black and white film through alternating
red and green filters. In 1915, the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation
was founded by Herbert Kalmus, Daniel Comstock, and Burton Westcott to
develop a more advanced system to colorize motion pictures. The company's
first color process was a two color (red and green) additive system
that used two color negatives pasted or printed together. The first
two-color Technicolor production was The Gulf Between (1917), and
the first commercial, two-color Technicolor feature film made was
the six-reel The Toll of the Sea (1922), also noted as the first
to use a subtractive two-color process. The first feature-length
blockbuster color picture using this same innovative process was The Black Pirate (1926) with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.
By 1932, what began as a two-color system in the mid- and late 1910s
and 1920s evolved into a much richer and vibrant three-color process by
Technicolor. Disney's first Technicolor cartoon, Flowers and
Trees, won Disney his first Oscar for Best Short Film-Cartoon of 1931-32.
The first three-strip, regular exposure Technicolor film was RKO's
and Rouben Mamoulian's Becky Sharp (1935) - the first feature-length,
three-strip Technicolor production.
Many Other "Firsts":
Other film studios rushed into production their own musicals to compete
for box-office returns. MGM quickly followed up with the elaborate, Best
Picture-nominated musical revue Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929),
advertising it as having all of MGM's silent-film stars (Lionel Barrymore,
Joan Crawford, Buster Keaton, John Gilbert, Marion Davies, Bessie Love,
Norma Shearer, Marie Dressler, and more) now "talking and singing",
with hosts Jack Benny and Conrad Nagel - it was notable for an early version
of "Singin' in the Rain". Another of the first "variety"
shows was Warners' The Show of Shows (1929), featuring "all-talking,
all singing, and all dancing", with Winnie Lightner singing the first
renditions of "You Were Meant For Me" (with Bull Montana) and
"Singing in the Bathtub". It also starred Myrna Loy, John Barrymore,
comedian Ben Turpin, 'Eight Sister Acts' and more, and was hosted by Master
of Ceremonies Frank Fay.
The first all-color sound musical production (in two-strip Technicolor)
was Warners' and director Alan Crosland's backstage musical On With
the Show! (1929), famous for Ethel Waters singing "Am I Blue?"
Another popular early musical was the first of a film series -
director Roy Del Ruth's Technicolor The Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929)
- it was the second full-length color sound feature film ever made.
It was famous for "Tip-Toe Through the Tulips With Me" and "Painting
the Clouds with Sunshine" by Nick Lucas, who also starred
in the film. It was a remake of the silent, non-musical comedy film about
chorus girls, The Gold Diggers (1923) - and it was followed by
Mervyn LeRoy's musical remake The Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933).
The first major, feature-length Hollywood sound film with an all-black
cast was King Vidor's first talkie - MGM's Hallelujah (1929), but
it was initially shot as a silent. It was the first film with a
dubbed, asynchronous soundtrack added later in the studio - a technological,
post-production advancement. In 1928, the first film-related hit
record was Al Jolson's Sonny Boy, sung three times in Jolson's
second feature film, the part-talkie, part-silent high-grossing tearjerker
The Singing Fool (1928).
In 1929, Disney started his Silly Symphony animated cartoon series,
first with the memorable The Skeleton Dance (1929). In the
same year, the first synchronized talking animated short/cartoon
(as opposed to a cartoon with a soundtrack), Bosco The TalkInk Kid
(1929), was produced by animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising (Harman
also created the enduring Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes
cartoon series).
The first original film musical and the first musical/sound film
to win the "Best Picture" Academy Award was MGM's The Broadway Melody
(1929) starring Charles King, Anita Page, and Bessie Love. it was
also MGM's first full-length musical feature (in a long succession
of distinguished musicals) and the first widely-distributed sound
feature.
The
first all-talking (or all-dialogue) picture was a gangster film
- Warners' experimental entry with sound and dialogue was director Brian
Foy's crude Lights of New York (1928). Nonetheless, it had 24 transitional
titles. [All ten of 1928's 'all-talking' films were made at Warners.]
The first all-talkie picture in Great Britain, Blackmail (1929),
was made by British director Alfred Hitchcock. The film was originally
released as a silent film, but the studio pressured Hitchcock into adding
dialogue sequences (with innovative post-synchronization techniques) for
a talkie version. The suspenseful film was advertised by posters: "See
& Hear It - Our mother tongue as it should be - SPOKEN! 100% Talkie.
100% Entertainment. Hold everything till you've heard this one!"
The
first speaking cartoon with synchronized sound was Walt Disney's
(and lead animator Ub Iwerks') Steamboat Willie (1928), debuting
the cute character of Mickey Mouse. Strangely, Mickey's first sound
cartoon didn't include Mickey's voice -- he didn't speak until his ninth
short, The Karnival Kid (1929) when he said the words: "Hot
dogs!" [Walt's voice was used for Mickey.]
Influential Organization Formed To Self-Regulate the Industry: The MPPDA
In 1922, the Hollywood studios formed the Motion Picture Producers
and Distributors of America (MPPDA) - a trade organization
to lobby politicians, self-regulate the industry, and to counter negative
publicity from a rash of scandals (e.g., the infamous Roscoe "Fatty"
Arbuckle rape/murder case in September, 1921, and Mabel Normand's three criminal
cases - one involving the murder of lover-millionaire William Desmond
Taylor in 1922), and other mysterious events (the drug overdose of morphine-addicted
silent film actor Wallace Reid in January, 1923, and the death of movie
producer-director Thomas Ince onboard newspaper magnate William Randolph
Hearst's yacht The Oneida in November, 1924). The MPPDA's main purpose
was to re-shape the industry's public image, to settle issues or common
problems, and to keep the industry afloat amidst growing concern to shut it down.
Producers appointed conservative Will H. Hays, the former Postmaster General of the US,
to be the head of the MPPDA, to begin efforts to clean up the motion picture industry before the public's anger at declining morality depicted in films hurt the movie business. Hays later set up the Hays Production Code
in March, 1930 to monitor acceptable behavior and keep films wholesome by enforcing a standards code, to further control the conduct of actors and regulate film content.
The Beginning of the Academy Awards:
The non-profit organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences (AMPAS) was founded in 1927 with Douglas Fairbanks as president,
to recognize and reward excellence within the film industry. The AMPAS
organization established the Academy Awards in the late 1920s and first
announced them in February 1929, and then distributed them in mid-May
of 1929 for films opening between August-1927 and late July-1928.
In
the first year of the Academy Awards' presentations, separate awards (not
known as Oscar quite yet) were given for Best Production (now termed Best
Picture). There were two "Best Picture" winners: the financially successful
anti-war film, William A. Wellman's Wings (1927) for Best Production
and Sunrise (1927) for Best Unique and
Artistic Picture (a category that was immediately dropped). Wings (1927),
coming at the end of a cycle of films about WWI, featured exciting
aerial combat sequences and starred Clara Bow and a young actor named
Gary Cooper. These films were the only silent films ever to win
the Academy Award for 'Best Picture'. The Jazz
Singer (1927), declared ineligible for the Best Picture award,
was given a special award for revolutionizing the industry.
Film History of the 1920s
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
