The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926-1930 [Paperback]

Nowadays the "talkie" seems, like some other technological breakthroughs, to have obliterated its less-advanced predecessor, the silent movie, in one fell swoop. The reality, of course, is more complex. As Scott Eyman writes in his prologue to The Speed of Sound, "To examine this period of unparalleled industrial change, it is necessary to reverse the perspective, to give a fair, detailed idea of what silents were like to the people who made and watched them, and how talkies permanently changed the creative and personal equations." Eyman's eye-opening book fulfills this mission. He focuses on just five years--1926 through 1930--but tells the story on many levels. We learn about the technology, the details of actors' and technicians' lives, the elaborate business machinations associated with the rise of sound, and the resulting transformation of not just the movies but Hollywood itself. The Speed of Sound fills a gap in any film buff's library. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

The transition from silent film to sound has been covered in many histories of Hollywood but nowhere so thoroughly and delightfully as here. The author of such biographies as Mary Pickford: America's Sweetheart (LJ 2/1/90), Eyman combines a historian's zeal for detail and context with a storyteller's talent for the perfect illustrative anecdote. The author deftly juggles a number of stories, including film-by-film accounts of key transition directors King Vidor and F.W. Murnau. He also manages to describe the technical aspects of his story without bogging down in the kind of jargon that would put a lay reader to sleep. A remarkable book that belongs in every film history collection.?Thomas Wiener, "Satellite DIRECT"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Cinema's transition from silents to talkies has inspired many myths, but Eyman maintains that no aspect of film history has been so slighted. Al Jolson's explosive performance in The Jazz Singer (1927, and silent with a few sound sequences) is usually credited with ushering in sound, but it was the all-talking Lights of New York (1928)--"a dreadful little movie," Eyman says--that threw the industry into a tizzy (primitive synchronized sound devices date from as far back as 1905). Eyman captures the tenor and the terror of the times, as panicked studio executives and theater owners made the investment in sound, huge stars underwent humiliating voice auditions (fewer careers were shattered than legend claims), and technicians searched for ways to conceal microphones and otherwise adjust to the technology. The transformation was total, from the escalation in importance of writers to the appearance of food in theaters. A fascinating account of what Eyman terms "the destruction of one great art and the creation of another." Gordon Flagg --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Eyman follows his highly acclaimed Ernst Lubitsch (1993) with an astute look at the most significant upheaval in Hollywood history: the arrival of talking pictures. Legend has it that Al Jolson's impassioned monologue to his mother in The Jazz Singer was the first time that anyone talked in the movies and the event that saved Warner Brothers from bankruptcy. Eyman's meticulously researched history of the coming of sound punctures those misconceptions and many others. In fact, as Eyman documents, there were early experiments with sound films shortly after the turn of the century. But there were technical, financial, and sociological reasons for the initial failure of these experiments. Not until 1926, when Sam Warner and William Fox became the champions of two competing versions, did sound films become commercially viable. And that breakthrough would engender hundreds of short films, involving everyone from Gertrude Lawrence and the Metropolitan Opera to singing canaries. Eyman deftly traces the race among competing inventors to get their various methods accepted, the unease with which most of the studios watched the contest from the sidelines, and the chaos that ensued when ``talkies'' finally came in. The constraints necessitated by early sound-recording technology turned the once imperious directors of the silent film into prisoners of the their sound engineers. But there were directors who refused to allow their cameras to be chained down, and as Eyman reports, a few early talkies succeeded as art as well as novelty. Eyman is particularly good at conveying the beauty of the fully developed art that was silent cinema; in the years 192627 as sound began to supplant silence, Hollywood produced silent films of such accomplishment as Sunrise, Seventh Heaven, The Crowd, and The Docks of New York. Eyman tells this story with wit and skill, detailing a surprisingly overlooked but crucial period in Hollywood history. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

"An admirably clear and vivid journey through Hollywood's most turbulent era."--Kevin Brownlow "Fascinating...colorful and richly researched."--Gavin Lambert, 'Los Angeles Times' "Anyone with an interest in accurate film history or a desire to know what really happened in the era of the transition to sound would enjoy this book. You ain't read nothing like it yet."--Jeanine Basinger, 'Washington Post' "An indispensable and long overdue piece of film history. 'The Speed of Sound' is also a page-turner of a story."--Joan Mellen, 'Baltimore Sun' "Eyman combines a historian's zeal for detail and context with a storyteller's talent for the perfect illustrative anecdote. The author deftly juggles a number of stories, including film-by-film accounts of key transition directors King Vidor and F. W. Murnau...A remarkable book."--'Library Journal' "An astute look at the most significant upheaval in Hollywood's history...Eyman tells his story with wit and skill."--'Kirkus Reviews' "Eyman's history of the four-year transition from silent to sound film reads at times like two books expertly cut and fitted together: a solidly researched, always interesting narrative of the decline of the silent era intercut with the crazy, entertaining story of the rise of talkies."--'Publishers Weekly'

A chronicle of the epic story of the transition from silent films to talkies. Debunking the myth that Hollywood was transformed overnight in the wake of the popularity of "The Jazz Singer" in 1927, Eyman shows how the industry at first resisted and then only reluctantly accepted the arrival of sound. For a long time after "The Jazz Singer", in fact, there were still some actors, directors, and even filmgoers who refused to embrace the new technology. But the sense of wonder which sound inspired in audiences, causing them to abandon the visual dynamism of silent film in favour of the crudely recorded and stiffly filmed movies of sound's first wave, meant that change was irrevocable. This text explores the technology and politics behind the introduction of sound, how this innovation affected Hollywood, and how the talkie revolution led inexorably to the modern movie industry.

Scott Eyman is the books editor for the 'Palm Beach Post'. He is the author of 'Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise' and 'Mary Pickford: America's Sweetheart', among other books.

In this "techno-history," Eyman discusses how the advent of sound revolutionized the film industry. Much film writing is either sappy or esoteric, but this book is accessible, well written, humorous and informed. Adams Morgan does a serviceable job but is hampered by the dull, muffled audio. Y.R. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.