International projectionist (Jan-Dec 1954)

WARNER BROS. PICTURES, INC. THE VITAPHONE CORPORATION •Present VlTAPHONE and John Barrymore in "'Donjuan''' VITAPHONE PRELUDE ^oti. Will ^. ^ays Prcsidcin of Motion Piflurc Producers and Distributors of America welcomes \'1TAPH0NE. The ^^(^tv Tork^ Tliilltarmonic Orchestra Henry HaJley condufling, Overture from "TANNHAUSER", Wagner. Marion Talhy By arrangement with the Metropolitan Opera Company, Caro Nome from "RIGOLETTO". Verdi, or "Home Sweet Home.*' Sfrem Zimhalist and Harold 'Bauer Variations from -'KREUTZER SONATA", Beethoven. %oy i§meck •HIS PASTIMES" t^nna (sase "LA FIESTA*', supported by the Cansinos and Metropolitan Opera chorus. Accompanied by the Vi'aphone Symphony Orchestra, Herman Heller conducting. ^StGscha Clmait Josef Bonime, actrompanist ■■HUMORESCyjE". Dvorak. Qiovanni iJuCartinelli By arrangement with the Metropolitan Opera Company. Vesti la Giubba, from "I PAGLIACCI", Leoncavallo. Accompanied by the NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA. Intidtftlal rr.uiic It tht aboVe n-jmhcrs playd hj mtmbtrt of ihe 7'(^ra Tork^ 'Pbilbarmonic Ortbeiira, ^crman Hel/cr cenduiltng. •Pr»i<ai« ^ftjift It Oimii WiJititl ^Cs'<" Here is a reproduction of the fateful Vitaphone program that revolutionized the motion picture business just 28 years ago this August 6 of 1954. "talking pictures" on that sultry August night 28 years ago was the famed "Vitaphone" unit which, when favored by good reproducing fortune, effectively synchronized sound and vision and offered a realistic audible film presentation. Vitaphone was the outcome of supplemental extensive development work, following years of pioneering work by unsung individuals, by Western Electric Co. and Bell Telephone. To say that Don Juan revolutionized the motion picture business is putting it mildly: history was made that August night; and the motion picture industry, too, was made (and very nearly unmade) at a time when slumping box-office receipts threatened the movies' theretofore viselike grip on the entertainment preference of the theatregoing public. The First "All-Toiklng" Picture Oddly enough, it wasn't until 1928, two years after Don Juan, that the first "all-talking picture" (as they were then termed) was publicly exhibited, also by the Warners; although six months after Don Juan, William Fox and Theodore Case introduced the Movietone Newsreel, a sound-on-film process. The scientific development of sound pictures traces its ancestry to, among several other film pioneers, Dr. Lee De Forest, the latter by means of his develop ment of the "audion" (three-element) amplifying tube. In 1887 Edison wrote: "The idea occurred to me that it was possible to devise an instrument which should do for the eye what the phonograph did for the ear, and that by a combination of the two all motion and sound could be recorded and reproduced simultaneously." Two years later, on October 6, 1889, Edison gave the first demonstration of a small motion picture mechanically synchronized with a phonograph record. By 1913 Edison has made nearly twenty brief motion picture subjects for the "Kinetophone," as the Edison device was known, and these were shown in a number of theatres in various parts of the country. De Forest developed a sound-on-film method of synchronizing sound with motion pictures which he called "Phonofilm." Demonstrations of Phonofilm were given in De Forest's Highbridge, New York, laboratory in 1921; and in 1923 and 1924 he gave demonstrations of Phonofilm in the Rivoli and Rialto Theatres, N. Y. City. Lest you suspect that our friends in distant lands are not fully conversant with technological advances — visually, aurally and, most important, patron comfort — eye this vast expanse of the Gaumont Palace Theatre in Paris, France. One of the largest in the world, this 5500-seat theati-e provides a Raytone screen 73 feet wide by 44 deep, and was equipped by Westrex to show any existing aural-visual process, including full stereo sound. Further evidence of technological know-how in distant lands is this view of the screen in the Regent Theatre, Sydney, Australia. Equipped to show any aural-visual process, with full stereo sound, by Westrex Corp. 12 INTERNATIONAL PROJECTIONIST • AUGUST 1954