Scott Eyman - The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930

THE SPEED OF SOUND

ALSO BY SCOTT EYMAN

Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise

Mary Pickford: Americas Sweetheart

Five American Cinematographers

Flashback: A Short History of Cinema (with Louis Giannetti)

SIMON & SCHUSTER
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Copyright 1997 by Scott Eyman

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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Designed by Jeanette Olender

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Eyman, Scott, date.

The speed of sound: Hollywood and the talkie revolution, 1926-1930 / Scott Eyman.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Sound motion picturesUnited StatesHistory. I. Title.

PN1995.7.E96 1997

791.430973dc2o 96-45941 CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-6848-1162-8
ISBN 0-684-81162-6
eISBN 13: 978-1-439-10428-6

For Kevin Brownlow David Gill and Patrick Stanbury

YOU SEE, THE FILM STUDIOIS REALLY THE PALACE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. THERE ONE SEES WHAT SHAKESPEARE SAW: THE ABSOLUTE POWER OF THE TYRANT, THE COURTIERS, THE FLATTERERS, THE JESTERS, THE CUNNINGLY AMBITIOUS INTRIGUERS. THERE ARE FANTASTICALLY BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, THERE ARE INCOMPETENT FAVORITES. THERE ARE GREAT MEN WHO ARE SUDDENLY DISGRACED. THERE IS THE MOST INSANE EXTRAVAGANCE, AND UNEXPECTED PARSIMONY OVER A FEW PENCE. THERE IS ENORMOUS SPLENDOUR WHICH IS A SHAM; AND ALSO HORRIBLE SQUALOR HIDDEN BEHIND THE SCENERY. THERE ARE VAST SCHEMES, ABANDONED BECAUSE OF SOME CAPRICE. THERE ARE SECRETS WHICH EVERYBODY KNOWS AND NO ONE SPEAKS OF. THERE ARE EVEN TWO OR THREE HONEST ADVISERS. THESE ARE THE COURT FOOLS, WHO SPEAK THE DEEPEST WISDOM IN PUNS, LEST THEY SHOULD BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. THEY GRIMACE, AND TEAR THEIR HAIR PRIVATELY, AND WEEP.

Christopher Isherwood

Prater Violet

The scene that began to close the door on silent movies: Al Jolson and Eugnie Besserer in The Jazz Singer. AUTHORS COLLECTION

It is the muggy afternoon of August 30, 1927. On the newly constructed soundstage of the Warner Bros. Studio on Sunset Boulevard, Al Jolson is industriously, unwittingly, engaged in the destruction of one great art and the creation of another.

The scene: a sons homecoming. The man universally recognized as the greatest entertainer of his day is singing Irving Berlins Blue Skies to Eugeni Besserer, playing his mother. After an initial chorus sung with Jolsons usual nervy bravura, he suddenly stops. He asks his mother if she likes the song, tells her hed rather please her than anybody. The floodgates open and the hilarious babbling begins:

Mama, darlin, if Im a success in this show, well, were gonna move from here. Oh yes, were gonna move up in the Bronx. A lot of nice green grass up there and a whole lot of people you know. Theres the Ginsbergs, the Guttenbergs, and the Goldbergs. Oh, a whole lotta Bergs, I dont know em all.

And Im gonna buy you a nice black silk dress, Mama. You see Mrs. Friedman, the butchers wife, shell be jealous of you Yes, she will. You see if she isnt. And Im gonna get you a nice pink dress thatll go with your brown eyes

While the crew stands transfixed, Jolson keeps talking, a torrent of unaccustomed words in the midst of a predominantly silent film, a medium that has proudly subsisted on pantomime or, at the most, synchronized underscoring, sound effects, and a laconic word or two. But now every word that Jolson says is being recorded by a single large, black, cylindrical microphone a foot above his head, which transmits the sound to a 16-inch wax disc spinning at 33 revolutions a minute.

Singing has never been a trial for Al Jolson; it is life that is difficult, and carrying a picture, a family drama mixed with a rough approximation of a backstage musical before backstage musicals are invented, has been causing him enormous anxiety. Only four years before, he walked out on a silent film for D. W. Griffith because of nerves, and the desperate volubility with which Jolson is haranguing Besserer may well be the result of an adrenaline rush of pure fear.

Certainly, costar May McAvoy has observed a much quieter, needier man than will ever be on public view in later years. Act like he knew it all? asked McAvoy. Oh no. Never! He was the most cooperative person, and just darling. Jolson leans on McAvoy, an experienced actress who has worked for leading directors such as Ernst Lubitsch. After most scenes, he asks Howd I do? Was I all right? Please tell me. Let me know. Lets do it over again if it wasnt good.

Production of The Jazz Singer had actually begun two months earlier. While Jolson is out of town fulfilling a nightclub engagement, Warners begins production with location scenes in New York that dont require his presence. Meanwhile, the Warner studio on Sunset Boulevard gears up for sound with difficulty, for the studio is stretched thin financially.

I ordered $40 worth of parts to build a sound-mixing panel, Warner Bros. technician William Mueller will remember years later, but the man wouldnt leave [the parts] until he got his money. I paid him out of my own pocket only to be told by the studio purchasing agent, Jack Warners brother-in-law, that I probably wouldnt get my money back. They also demanded that I return what I had left from a $500 cash advance so they could meet the payroll that week.

Likewise, Mueller and Nathan Levinson, Western Electrics man in Hollywood, knew they needed $10,000 to build proper sound facilities and had taken an entire morning to convince Jack Warner to spend the money. He finally agreed, then left for lunch. Knowing their man, Levinson and Mueller got the studio superintendent to clear the necessary area and began construction. When Jack came back two hours later, he told us hed changed his mind, but by that time it was too late.

The Blue Skies sequence is business as usual for The Jazz Singer. All the sound scenes are being made as separate little films, after the surrounding silent footage has been shot. With one exception, the sound sequences are shot within nine consecutive days beginning August 17, and each of them is given its own production code number on the schedule sheets. (Warners might be thinking about eventually releasing them separately as short subjects should Sam Warners crazy advocacy of feature-length sound films not work out. It is also possible that this is simply because Vitaphone, the name of their sound system, is a separate production entity.)

The sound scenes are usually shot in the afternoon, from 1 to 5 P.M., with three cameras. Work throughout the rest of the studio is suspended while the production staff gathers to listen to Jolson give what amounts to free concerts.

Shooting of the sound sequences begins with It All Depends on You, completed in seven takes; Mother of Mine, shot on August 18, in only two; Mammy, shot that same day in three takes; and so on. The last number is Blue Skies, which replaces It All Depends on You. It is the only scene with any meaningful dialogue beyond Jolsons catchphrase You aint heard nothin yet! Aside from its comfortable position in the arsenal of Jolson hits, Blue Skies is a favorite of the Warners; it has already been performed twice in their Vitaphone sound shorts within the last year.