- Title Pages
- Illustration
- Dedication
- Introduction
- 1 Vitaphone Prelude
- 2 The Sound Barrier
- 3 “You Were Meant for Me”
- 4 On with the Show!
- 5 Finding a Voice
- 6 Dueling Mammies
- 7 Hollywood, Revued
- 8 Broadway Babies
- 9 “With All Its Original Stage Enchantment”
- 10 Just Imagine
- 11 The Cuckoos
- 12 Of Viennese Nights and Golden Dawns
- 13 Is It a Musical?
- 14 The March of Time
- 15 Voices in the Wilderness
- 16 “We're in the Money”
- 17 The Past as Prologue
- Finale
- Acknowledgments
- Appendix I Notes on Lost Films
- Appendix II A Selective Discography: The First Musicals on Record
- Source Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Vitaphone Prelude
Vitaphone Prelude
- Chapter:
- (p.15) 1 Vitaphone Prelude
- Source:
- A Song in the Dark
- Author(s):
Richard Barrios
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
A brief overview of the prehistory of sound film, from Thomas Edison through the work of Lee DeForest, noting that most of these early films were marked by musical performance. The origins of the Warner Bros. studio and, ultimately, its marketing of the Vitaphone sound system. Early sound films: Don Juan and Vitaphone, Giovanni Martinelli, Al Jolson, George Jessel. The rival studios begin work of their own. The culmination of this early period with Warners' The Jazz Singer, the success and impact of which have sometimes been misunderstood.
Keywords: sound film, Lee DeForest, Warner Bros, Vitaphone, sound-on-disc, Don Juan, Martinelli, Fox Movietone, Al Jolson, The Jazz Singer
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- Title Pages
- Illustration
- Dedication
- Introduction
- 1 Vitaphone Prelude
- 2 The Sound Barrier
- 3 “You Were Meant for Me”
- 4 On with the Show!
- 5 Finding a Voice
- 6 Dueling Mammies
- 7 Hollywood, Revued
- 8 Broadway Babies
- 9 “With All Its Original Stage Enchantment”
- 10 Just Imagine
- 11 The Cuckoos
- 12 Of Viennese Nights and Golden Dawns
- 13 Is It a Musical?
- 14 The March of Time
- 15 Voices in the Wilderness
- 16 “We're in the Money”
- 17 The Past as Prologue
- Finale
- Acknowledgments
- Appendix I Notes on Lost Films
- Appendix II A Selective Discography: The First Musicals on Record
- Source Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
