III.

The Coming of Sound

Practical systems for synchronizing recorded sound with films had been demonstrated from the early 1920s, when good electronic amplifiers became available, but it was only in 1926 that Warner Bros. introduced them commercially, as part of their well-funded expansion plans. The original idea was to provide a canned accompaniment for silent films for those small theatres that could not afford the usual live orchestra, but when Al Jolson spoke a few lines in The Jazz Singer (1927, Alan Crosland), the immense success of the film showed that audiences wanted to hear actors’ voices more than anything. The very costly transition to using full synchronized sound in all American films took a few years, but was complete by 1930. In common with most technical developments before World War II, sound film started in Western Europe a couple of years later than in the United States, and even later in other countries.

Synchronized sound did not change the style of American films greatly, though in 1928 and 1929 there were a number of badly paced and rather static sound films made. On the other hand, there were American directors who managed to continue the use of elaborate camera movement and Russian-style fast editing that had begun in later silent films. In general, shots did become much longer, but by 1932, when the technical problems with mixing and editing sound had been solved, the cutting in American and British films speeded up, and the flexibility of the silent film was fully regained. The greater amount of dialogue in sound films permitted plots of more complexity than had been possible in the silent period, and the number of script scenes in a film increased as well. At the same time, the use of symbolic scenes and inserts decreased, as the meanings these were intended to suggest could be more naturally implied through spoken dialogue.

The general difference between American and European films persisted, in that, on average, European films were shot at a great distance from the actors, the shots went on for longer, and there was more talk than action compared with American films. However, in these respects, British cinema alone produced films much closer to the American models.