Vitaphone Films

The headline of the Variety extra on October 27, 1926, proclaimed "Vitaphone1 Thrills L.A.!" Vitaphone, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. formed in association with Western Electric, was one of the major producers of talkies, even though its sound-on-disc technology barely lasted four years. The Vitaphone features and shorts that have survived intact, or that have been so carefully restored, preserve much of the show business history that might otherwise have been lost with the industry's fast-paced advances in movie making. This book is a catalogue of Vitaphone features and shorts. The first section lists the features and shorts by release number. The New York productions (1926-1940) are listed first, followed by the West Coast productions (1927-1970). For shorts, the following particulars, if known and if applicable, are given: title, alternate title(s), instrumental and vocal selections performed on screen, composer(s) and performers of instrumental and vocal selections, release date and synopsis of the film, names of major cast members and directors, set information if two or fewer sets were used, and the amount paid to early performers. For features, entries list release dates, genre, and major cast members. The section on performers includes only those who appeared in shorts, listing dates and places of birth when known.

Relive the excitement of the beginning of "talking pictures" and the movie musical, see all the hoopla and headlines for the new "100% Talking-Singing-Dancing" movies, read about the screen performances and private lives of the new film stars--it's all here in one beautiful package, everything you could want to know about the movie musical in its crucial, formative years, 1926 to 1933. Just as they appeared in the pages of a great fan magazine durin thsi time are every movie review, cast list, ad, and record review, and every significant feature article, production still, biography, forecast, and gossip story. You will find hundreds of photographs, including scenes from films, photo stories, pictures in ads, and full-page glamor photos of such "new" stars as Jeanette MacDonald, Maurice Chevalier, Lillian Roth, Marilyn Miller, and Marlene Dietrich. Dozens of full-page ads bring you the actual publicity efforts that went on for each film. Feature stories tell you about the lives of Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Bing Crosby, Eddie Cantor, Bessie Love, Jimmy Durante, Joe E. Brown, and others, and feature articles report on the new process of sound movies, voice dubbing, the new songwriters in Hollywood, the extra girls, and more. Finally there are reviews and complete cast lists of all the movie musicals: My Man with Fannie Brice, The Desert Song (1929), Show Boat (1929), The Cocoanuts with the Marx Brothers, Hollywood Revue of 1929, King Vidor's Hallelujah, Ernst Lubitsch's The Love Parade, The Vagabond Lover with Rudy Vallee, Montana Moon with Joan Crawford, Happy Days, Cecil B. DeMille's Madam Satan, and many others. All are arranged chronologically by month and year, and exhaustive indexes catalog all the films and performers. The editor, Miles Kreuger, head of the Institute of the American Musical and the foremost authority on Hollywood musicals, has provided an introduction outlining the little-known history of sound films from the 1890s through 1928 and has written informative brief texts for each of the following years through 1933 and for a final section on Record Reviews.

Short subject films have a long history in American cinemas. These could be anywhere from 2 to 40 minutes long and were used as a "filler" in a picture show that would include a cartoon, a newsreel, possibly a serial and a short before launching into the feature film. Shorts could tackle any topic of interest: an unusual travelogue, a comedy, musical revues, sports, nature or popular vaudeville acts. With the advent of sound-on-film in the mid-to-late 1920s, makers of earlier silent short subjects began experimenting with the short films, using them as a testing ground for the use of sound in feature movies. After the Second World War, and the rising popularity of television, short subject films became far too expensive to produce and they had mostly disappeared from the screens by the late 1950s. This encyclopedia offers comprehensive listings of American short subject films from the 1920s through the 1950s.

This clear, well illustrated text takes the reader through the basics of film analysis, drawing on a wide range of film for discussion. Questions of genre and the contexts and meanings of film are considered.

Movie is considered to be an important art form; films entertain, educate, enlighten and inspire audiences. Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as — in metonymy — the field in general. The origin of the name comes from the fact that photographic film (also called filmstock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist — motion pictures (or just pictures or "picture"), the silver screen, photoplays, the cinema, picture shows, flicks — and commonly movies.

Focuses on the innovations in the electronic production and transmission of sound in the 1920s and '30s and their explosive impact on the American mass media, especially the radio, the phonograph, and the cinema.

With more than 250 images, new information on international cinema—especially Polish, Chinese, Russian, Canadian, and Iranian filmmakers—an expanded section on African-American filmmakers, updated discussions of new works by major American directors, and a new section on the rise of comic book movies and computer generated special effects, this is the most up to date resource for film history courses in the twenty-first century.

This study of early sound shorts begins with an explanation of the development of sound motion pictures in Hollywood by such influential companies as Warner Bros. and Fox, with an emphasis on short subjects, leading up to the first few months when all of the major studios were capable of producing them. The next chapters discuss the impact on other mass entertainments, the development of audible news reels and other non-fiction shorts, as well as the origins of animated sound subjects. A comprehensive list of pre-1932 American-made shorts completes the volume.

On a wharf in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where Greenwich Village bohemians gathered in the summer of 1916, Susan Glaspell was inspired by a sensational murder trial to write Trifles, a play about two women who hide a Midwestern farm wife's motive for murdering her abusive husband. Following successful productions of the play, Glaspell became the "mother of American drama." Her short story version of Trifles, "A Jury of Her Peers," reached an unprecedented one million readers in 1917. The play and the story have since been taught in classrooms across America and Trifles is regularly revived on stages around the world. This collection of fresh essays celebrates the centennial of Trifles and "A Jury of Her Peers," with departures from established Glaspell scholarship. Interviews with theater people are included along with two original works inspired by Glaspell's iconic writings.