Silver Screen Book Club discussion

Our summer read is The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930 by Scott Eyman. This will be the second Eyman book we have read together. (The other was Lion in Hollywood.)

What do you hope to learn from this book?

Have you seen many films from this transitional era? Which are your favorite? Which do you want to see but haven’t? Which are the worst?

Samantha wrote: "Our summer read is The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930 by Scott Eyman. This will be the second Eyman book we have read together. (The other was Lion in Hollywood.)

W..."
This will be the third reading for me. I'll have to think about the questions.

Upcoming early talkies on TCM:

June 3
9:45 a.m. Their Own Desire (1929)

July 10
8:00 p.m. The Divorcee (1930)

And one film mentioned in the book which depicts the coming-of-sound:

August 10
8:00 a.m. Singin' in the Rain (1952)

I think the beginning of this book has been pretty technical. The introduction was more conversational and narrative, and I’m hoping the tone will shift back as the preliminaries are established.

What do you think is the most major reason sound films did not catch on until the late 20s?

For me, I think it had to do with novelty. In the early teens, movies and were still new in general. The type of film stock had not yet been standardized, there was no centralized location that was known for making movies (although you could argue for Fort Lee), and there was no strong studio system with the finances to support the industry. Many people hadn’t seen a film by that point in time. Film itself was novelty enough. It wasn’t until the silent film had stabilized enough and reached an artistic pinnacle that people were ready to see something new and different and embrace it.

Samantha wrote: "I think the beginning of this book has been pretty technical. The introduction was more conversational and narrative, and I’m hoping the tone will shift back as the preliminaries are established.
..."

The book is very technical through about the first 120 pages. After that it becomes more narrative and settles down into a nice history. The book was informative and entertaining, and after finishing it I can say that I learned a fair amount about that particular history and also some myths with which I was familiar were dispelled. The author had a tendency to get off the track with lengthy descriptions of silent film plots and other points such as that, which never directly related to the story. But, that aside, a very good read.

Samantha wrote: "Our summer read is The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930 by Scott Eyman. This will be the second Eyman book we have read together. (The other was Lion in Hollywood.)

W..."This is the third time I've read it and I enjoyed it just as much as the first two. This time I concentrated on the early talkies discussed. And it left me wanting to see some of the 1928-29 Paramount titles (THE DUMMY and CHINATOWN NIGHTS) Eyman mentioned. There is some technical stuff, but it is cogently presented.

My favorite early-sound (pre-1930) films are APPLAUSE, THE COCOANUTS and THE (much-despised) SHOW OF SHOWS.

Michael, I enjoyed The Show of Shows too. It is just a less creative version of Hollywood Revue of 1929 or King of Jazz. If you like the early talkie shorts or old vaudeville routines, you'll like it.

Here are some more upcoming early sound films on TCM.

Sept. 8 6 a.m. The Blue Angel (1930)
Sept. 9 12:45 a.m. The Younger Generation (1929)
Sept. 13 6 a.m. Madame X (1929)
Sept 13 7:45 a.m. The Lady of Scandal (1930)
Sept. 14 3:30 a.m. The Cocoanuts (1929)
Sept 21 11:30 a.m. Who Killed Rover? (1930)
Sept. 27 12:30 a.m. Eleven Men and a Girl (1930)
Sept. 27 10 p.m. The Half-Back of Notre Dame (1929)
Sept. 27 10:30 p.m. So This is College (1929)

Oct. 5 2 a.m. Animal Crackers (1930)
Oct. 7 11:30 p.m. The Valiant (1929)
Oct. 8 6 a.m. Anna Christie (1930)
Oct. 9 6:30 p.m. Hell's Heroes (1930)
Oct. 14 11 a.m. Men of the North (1930)
Oct. 18 7:30 a.m. Abraham Lincoln (1930)
Oct. 23 6 a.m. They Learned About Women (1930)
Oct. 25 9:15 a.m. The Real McCoy (1930)

Eyman asserts that had The Jazz Singer been made with George Jessel, talkies would not have become the standard for at least another decade. Do you agree with this?

Samantha wrote: "Michael, I enjoyed The Show of Shows too. It is just a less creative version of Hollywood Revue of 1929 or King of Jazz. If you like the early talkie shorts or old vaudeville routines, you'll like ..."

Re Jolson/Jessel, I guess I disagree, while THE JAZZ SINGER was a major impetus, talking films were progressing on too many other fronts. If it weren't Jolson, it would have likely been Eddie Cantor or someone else. Thank you for posting the list--you know I've seen every one of those, except for MADAME X and possibly "The Half-Back of Notre Dame."

I think this is an excellent book, and an important resource for anyone interested in the transition to sound film. It is all the more impressive because at the time it was written, many of the films discussed were commercially unavailable. Thankfully because of groups like The Vitaphone Project, they've been trickling into the public eye.

I've seen quite a few silent/talkie hybrids (The Love Trap, The Younger Generation, Lonesome), most recently Noah's Ark. The inserted talkie scenes really pull you out of the story in a way that it might not have if they chose to make the whole film with sound. But truly there was an artistry lost when the silent era ended. It is a shame that both forms of film couldn't survive simultaneously.