We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
190 IT TOOK NINE TAILORS
went on for a long time until finally some director got smart and said, "Oh, nuts!" Then he shoved the head technician out of the way and shot a picture without the aid of mumbo jumbo.
I was working in New York in 1926 when Warner's first sound picture was shown and went to see it with Walter Wanger. The picture was Don Juan, starring John Barrymore. There was no talking in the picture, only a synchronized musical score, and in one place, during a duel, the clashing of the swords could be heard. But accompanying the picture was a short in which Will Hays made a speech introducing the new experiment and congratulating Warner Brothers on its accomplishment.
Later I saw Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer, in which he spoke a few lines and actually sang. That was the picture that started the trouble.
In 1926 the big companies had scoffed at the idea of making pictures with sound and dialogue because sound pictures were expensive to make and no theaters were equipped to show them. But in 1927 The Jazz Singer saved Warner Brothers from bankruptcy and created queues in front of theaters for the first time in several years.
Despite the crowds that jammed in to see The Jazz Singer, Fox was the only other studio to install sound equipment at that time. The others delayed. It was six months after The Jazz Singer opened before the rest of the industry realized that the movie fans wanted no more silent pictures and the mad scramble to please them started.
At that time I was in Paris honeymooning with my second wife, Kathryn Carver, who had been my leading lady in two of my best pictures. When we returned to Hollywood, every studio in town was installing sound.
At first the studios never intended to turn all production into talking pictures. Silent pictures were still to be the staple product. So while Paramount prepared to make a few talking pictures as novelties, I did His Private Life and Marquis Preferred without dialogue but with musical scores and some sound effects. Then I