Talkies are films which include dialogue, music, and other forms of sound. Although the vast majority of films today are talkies, when “talking films,” as they were called, were first introduced, they attracted a great deal of public commentary and concern. In addition to radically reshaping the motion picture industry, especially in Hollywood, talkies also had a profound impact on the technology used to record and play back audio material, and the rise of the talkies had some interesting unintended consequences.
What are Talkies?
Prior to the advent of talkies, silent films were accompanied by live orchestras who played along in the theater, and when dialogue or exposition was needed, intertitles with written material were displayed. The atmosphere in a theater showing silent movies would have been quite congenial, as patrons often talked with each other about the film and reacted as a group to particularly stunning events. The thought of talking in a movie theater today is, of course, anathema, because people want to be able to concentrate on the scenes and dialogue.
As early as 1900, attempts were being made to produce sound recordings to accompany films. Early pioneers in the field faced several problems, not the least of which was sound quality. They also had to synchronize the recording with the film, which was challenging, since different devices were used to play back audio and display film. They also had to contend with volume levels, which were tricky to adjust without electric amplification.
Some things are better left unsaid, and that is true in more than one way. Talkies, or movies with spoken language, can sometimes leave out some integral points of interest. Sometimes it seems that we are beginning to rely less and less on the quality of the script and the plot and so forth, and more and more on just being told what is going on.
It is a little disturbing to me sometimes when I see the things that we find to be entertaining. So much of it is mindless and quite low level humor that actually has no real valid point or inspiration. Although talkies are great for many different venues, I think that relying too much on any one communication tool is a major mistake that makes us all a little lazier and less thoughtful.
I used to teach theatre, and one of my favorite things that we ever did was to go from working with silent film to talkies. The fact is that there are a lot of hidden gems masked within these silent films that can help students who are just blossoming into actors and actresses allow their imaginations to run wild. So there first major assignment of our second unit was to first watch some old Buster Keaton films and observe how communication obstacles were handled and so forth.
Of course, when talkies came along, the stories could be much more complex. They could now use narrative,and dialogue with all its subtleties. In addition, body language, music and instant change of scene to tell a story could be used. They could take great books and make movies about them.
By the teens, sound on disc technology had advanced to the point where synchronization had been made much easier, and people had also developed sound on film, ensuring synchronous playback. However, the first full-length talkie didn't come out until 1927, when The Jazz Singer was introduced to audiences around the world.
Initially, many people were opposed to talkies, in the belief that they sullied the purity of silent film. Notable directors such as Alfred Hitchcock expressed a profound distaste for talkies. However, talkies proved to be an unstoppable tide, taking over production studios and theaters all over the world.
In the time of the early talkies, the whole family could enjoy the humor of the greats, like the Marx Brothers. There's not a whole lot of films today with the kind of humor that everyone, including kids, can enjoy. Early talkies had that appeal.
I would suggest watching a silent film with music (so you can guess by my suggestion that there is such a thing)! What I have heard is that silent films with recorded music but no dialogue are considered sound films. Maybe you can find out which came first the sound film or the talkie and see if you can best your husband on that trivia or maybe who was a famous silent film actor (hint: The name starts with An 'ita' and ends with a Hill.
One of the more unfortunate side-effects of the rise of the talkies was the disappearance of theater orchestras. Many musicians in such orchestras protested “canned music,” but their efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, and because theaters no longer had to hire orchestras to accompany films, their overhead costs were drastically reduced. The talkies also ended a number of acting careers, as actors with thick accents or strange voices found themselves without jobs. Both talkies and silent movies have their appeal. But I agree with you that the silent movies gave the actors an opportunity to develop skills in using
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