In the mid-1920s, the film industry had met its new rival: the radio. Because of it, a lot of people stopped going to the movies and the movie industry was threatened. Amazingly however, scientists in the United States and abroad had simultaneously discovered a way to add sound to silent pictures. This discovery would save the film industry. The first sound pictures made were short films of concert performances. The movie produced sounds and music of the performers which thrilled the audience very much. The people started returning to the movies.
But it would not be until October of 1927 with a film called The Jazz Singer that the possibilities of sound were revealed. The Jazz Singer starred Al Jolson and had three song numbers and a few lines of spoken dialogue. Aside from these, it was a silent movie but the audiences were raving over it. The Jazz Singer was known as the movie that "talked" and was called a "talkie". The movie fascinated thousands and packed the theaters. The radio had met its match.
With the success of The Jazz Singer, the full transition from silent to all-talking movies would take over a year. The delay was due to many technical problems. The equipment had to be perfected and the sound projectors and soundtracks had to be standardized so that films can be shown in all theaters. Then, the theaters had to be installed with the sound projectors. Also, talking movies introduced a new set of problems concerning writing, directing and acting. The writers had to write dialogs and the actors had to learn how to say them. To solve this problem, stage playwrights and top-of-the-line dramatic authors were recruited to write the dialogue. Stage directors were also rushed in from New York to direct the actors who mostly did not know how to talk in their roles. It turned out that many romantic leading men had squeaky voices and their leading ladies did not have alluring voices. The rise of sound pictures became the end of a lot a silent screen stars. It also led to the fall of the great pantomime comics.
Sound pictures were made into musical comedies. The Coconut in 1929 introduced the four Marx Brothers. They brought a new kind of noisy farce. This brand of comedy depended much on the humor of the dialogue and the art of pantomime. These madcap comedians however eventually faded. A new kind of comedy was developed to fill the void left by the comedians. They introduced talking pictures known as sophisticated comedy which placed wise guys in unexpected situations. Memorable performers in these roles were Carole Lombard, Irene Dunne and William Powell.
Soon after the production of sound films came the gangster pictures. The earliest gangster films were inspired by prohibition racketeering. Movies like Little Caesar of 1930 and Public Enemy in 1931 had violent melodramas that introduced a harsh reality to the audience. These movies introduced a new batch of masculine stars with the likes of James Cagney, Edward Robinson, Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable.
After the gangster movies, films in different genres were made. With this began the Golden Age of Sound. Shown on the screens were fine dramas, comedies and action-adventure films. Also strong were the musicals with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy operettas and the dancing team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as the favorites.
