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5 unusual facts about Sound film


Forrest Taylor

Forrest Taylor (December 29, 1883 – February 19, 1965) was an American character actor whose artistic career spanned six different decades, from silents through talkies to the advent of color.

Johnny Sorrow

Formerly a silent film actor, Sorrow was forced into retirement by the new "talkies," and turned to a life of crime.

Lisa Roma

According to the Los Angeles Examiner (May 5, 1930), the operation was performed in expectation that she would appear in the "talkies" as a singer.

Marjorie Bennett

Bennett began acting in films 1917 and later made the transition to talking pictures with bit roles in Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949) and Washington Story (1952).

Truck Hannah

Truck Hannah played himself in two Paramount films, Warming Up (1928, one of Paramount's first talkies), and Fast Company.


Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka

In 1927, the The Jazz Singer was released in the United States as the first talkie film, and Japanese film companies began working on creating them as well.

Fran Saleški Finžgar

In 1940, the Prešeren House and the village were filmed for the black and white sound documentary O, Vrba.

Fred Kohler

With the advent of the talkies, Kohler reprised many of his silent roles in remakes with sound, particularly in Westerns based on novels by Zane Grey.

Gabriel Gabrio

In 1927, Gabrio began appearing in international films, such as 1927's Georg Jacoby-directed German film Der Faschingskönig, and in 1929 Gabrio made his first and only English language talkie The Inseparables, directed by Adelqui Migliar and John Stafford.

Jaro Fürth

Fürth would transition to the era of sound film with ease, and would become a notable character actor throughout the late 1920s and 1930s, appearing in such films as Georg Wilhelm Pabst's drama Diary of a Lost Girl opposite American actress Louise Brooks and Karel Lamač's 1931 film adaptaion of Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, opposite Czech actress Anny Ondra.

Lily Bouwmeester

In 1935, when the sound film had just been introduced in the Netherlands, she auditioned for the lead role in The Cross-Patch (1935), but had no luck.

Orquesta Hermanos Palau

In 1931, the Palau Brothers orchestra appeared in the early sound film The Cuban Love Song, which was directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starred by Lawrence Tibbett, Lupe Vélez, Ernest Torrence and Jimmy Durante.

Paul Misraki

He went to Paris to study classical composition, and by the 1930s had become an established jazz pianist, arranger and writer of popular songs; around this time he began composing film scores, with his first known work being for Jean Renoir's first sound film, On purge bébé, for which he was uncredited.

Peggy Pryde

She appeared in Australia's first talking film Fellers (1930) and also in Showgirl's Luck (1931), and Two Minutes Silence (1933).

Prix de Beauté

The film is notable for being the first sound film made by star Louise Brooks, although all of her dialogue and singing were dubbed.

The Dancing Town

The Dancing Town (1928) is a two-reeler sound short and was Humphrey Bogart's first film appearance.

The Five O'Clock Girl

In 1928, Marion Davies and Joel McCrea starred in a screen adaptation directed by Robert Z. Leonard for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but it never was released, possibly because William Randolph Hearst objected to his mistress Davies portraying a common shopgirl in her first sound film.

What a Widow!

What a Widow! was Swanson's second talkie and was executive produced by her then lover Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. The film received generally positive reviews and was noted for its animated title sequence created by William Dietz but was met with lukewarm box office returns.


see also

1928 in Australia

29 December – The Jazz Singer becomes the first sound film screened in Australia.

A Plantation Act

This film was thought to be lost since 1933, and its unavailability fueled the misconception that the first commercial sound film made was Jolson's subsequent film The Jazz Singer.

Always Faithful

The film marks the sound film debut of veteran film actress Blanche Sweet who began her screen career in 1909 as a teenager working for D. W. Griffith.

Billy Mayerl

His song "Miss Up-to-Date" was sung and played by Cyril Ritchard in Alfred Hitchcock's sound film Blackmail (1929).

Freshman Love

Freshman Love is a 1936 sound film based on George Ade's oft filmed play The College Widow.

Guido Deiro

In 1928, Guido was featured in an early sound film, Vitaphone #2968, titled GUIDO DEIRO: The World's Foremost Piano-Accordionist.

Kathleen Clifford

She would make only one film during the early years of sound film; The Bride's Bereavement, a comedy short featuring several former silent film stars such as Aileen Pringle, Montagu Love, Luis Alberni and Charles Ray.

Melody of the Heart

Initially the film was intended to be silent, but halfway through production its producer Erich Pommer was ordered by his superiors to convert it into a sound film.

Movietone sound system

However Fox Movietone News used the system until 1939, because of the ease of transporting this single-system's sound film equipment.

Natalie Gregory

Gregory is the youngest actress to have played the role in a television or sound-film production based on the novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll; Gregory's nearest rival is British actress Sarah Sutton who was 12 when she portrayed Alice in a 1974 BBC production.

Now We're in the Air

Wallace Beery and Louise Brooks worked together the following year in Beggars of Life, a well-received early sound film.

One Romantic Night

One Romantic Night (1930) is the title given to the first sound film version of Ferenc Molnár's play The Swan, and was silent screen star Lillian Gish's talking film debut.

The Pickwick Papers

1952 — starring James Hayter, Nigel Patrick, Alexander Gauge and Harry Fowler (the first sound film version, and to this day, the only sound version of the story released to cinemas)

Under the Roofs of Paris

In 1929, the German film company Tobis Klangfilm (Tobis Sound-Film) established a studio at Épinay near Paris which was equipped for sound production.