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The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk

Sep 2, 2007

1h 25m

★ 7.0

Overview

Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies.

Genres

Documentary

History

Production Companies

Warner Bros. Entertainment

Sparkhill

Turner Entertainment

The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Narrator (voice)

Mark Hunt

Self

Scott Eyman

Self

Rudy Behlmer

Self

Robert Gitt

Self

Jonathan Kuntz

Self

A.C. Lyles

Self

Ben Burtt

Self

Leonard Maltin

Self

Vince Giordano

Self

Rose Marie

Self

Dane A. Davis

Self

Sanford Green

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

7.6

Battleship Potemkin

Dec 24, 1925

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and is a masterful example of montage editing.

7.1

Nanook of the North

Jun 11, 1922

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

7.5

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

Sep 23, 1927

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

8.0

The Passion of Joan of Arc

Apr 21, 1928

A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

5.1

The Sealed Room

Sep 2, 1909

The Count sets out to make a private room for him and his Countess, built in such a way no one can see, hear, and most importantly, disturb them. But unbeknownst to the Count, his wife has set her eyes on the court minstrel. Based on Edgar Allan Poe's “The Cask of Amontillado” and Honoré de Balzac's “La Grande Breteche”.

5.2

The Story of the Kelly Gang

Dec 26, 1906

Just as Galeen and Wegener's Der Golem (1915) can be seen as a testament to early German film artistry, The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) symbolizes both the birth of the Australian film industry and the emergence of an Australian cinema identity. Even more significantly, it heralds the emergence of the feature film format. However, only fragments of the original production of more than one hour are known to exist, preserved at the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra; Efforts at reconstruction have made the film available to modern audiences.

10.0

Dingjun Mountain

Dec 28, 1905

Directed by Ren Jingfeng.

7.8

Man with a Movie Camera

May 12, 1929

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

7.1

Sir Arne's Treasure

Sep 18, 1919

Three Scottish officers, including Sir Archi, murder Sir Arne and his household for a coffin filled with gold. The only survivor is Elsalill, who moves to relatives in Marstrand. There she meets a charming young officer- Sir Archi- and she soon understands that he was one of the murderers.

0.0

Voyeur

Feb 18, 2017

An evocative portrait of people having orgasms, lingering on the silent classical face of ecstasy.

6.2

The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots

Aug 28, 1895

A short film depicting the execution of Mary, Queen of the Scots. Mary is brought to the execution block and made to kneel down with her neck over it. The executioner lifts his axe ready to bring it down. After that frame Mary has been replaced by a dummy. The axe comes down and severs the head of the dummy from the body. The executioner picks up the head and shows it around for everyone else to see. One of the first camera tricks to be used in a movie.

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0.0

The Night of Queen Isabeau

Nov 18, 1920

The film depicts the marriage between the mad Charles VI of France and his wife Queen Isabeau.

7.9

Buster Keaton: The Genius Destroyed by Hollywood

Feb 7, 2016

In 1926, Buster Keaton was at the peak of his glory and wealth. By 1933, he had reached rock bottom. How, in the space of a few years, did this uncontested genius of silent films, go from the status of being a widely-worshipped star to an alcoholic and solitary fallen idol? With a spotlight on the 7 years during which his life changed, using extracts of Keaton’s films as magnifying mirrors, the documentary recounts the dramatic life of this creative genius and the Hollywood studios.

7.2

Cabiria

Jun 1, 1914

Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?

7.1

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages

Sep 4, 1916

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

7.8

Napoleon

Jan 10, 1927

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

6.8

Orphans of the Storm

Dec 28, 1921

France, on the eve of the French Revolution. Henriette and Louise have been raised together as sisters. When the plague that takes their parents' lives causes Louise's blindness, they decide to travel to Paris in search of a cure, but they separate when a lustful aristocrat crosses their path.

6.8

Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness

Apr 29, 1927

Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.

5.0

A Mormon Maid

Apr 21, 1917

This silent melodrama is set against the 1840s westward migration of the Mormons. Dora, a young woman, and her family are saved from an Indian attack by a Mormon community traveling to Utah. They join the wagon train. Dora is pursued by two men, one a recent convert, the other a scheming elder with a stable of wives. The Mormon elder wants her in his harem. When the mother kills herself from revulsion toward polygamy, the daughter must consider her own future and the man she loves. One of Mae Murray's few surviving films, this was intended by Robert Leonard to be a thoughtful drama about the goods and evils of Mormonism, but today it is generally considered pure anti-Mormon propaganda.