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For the first time ever, here is the epic story of the transition from silent films to talkies - that moment when movies were totally transformed and the American public cemented its love affair with Hollywood. In the Speed of Sound, author Scott Eyman, whose biography of filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch was hailed as "resoundingly wonderful," has created a mixture of cultural and social history that is at once both scholarly and vastly entertaining.
Here is the first and last word on the missing chapter in the history of Hollywood, the ribbon of dreams by which America conquered the world.
Myth has it that it happened overnight, that Al Jolson said a few words in The Jazz Singer and the talkies were born, that stars with weak or inappropriate voices either killed themselves or went into seclusion, that the movie industry simply refitted itself and went on with business. The truth, however, is more involved - not to mention sinister, colorful, and entertaining.
Sound was something the industry had resisted, and it was accepted only reluctantly and only after the Warner Bros. Studio had forced the issue with its aggressive selling of The Jazz Singer. But that was 1927, and for a long time afterward there were still those filmmakers, film stars, and even some filmgoers who resisted the appealing novelty. Change, however, was inevitable, and when it came it was devastating.
As Scott Eyman demonstrates in his fascinating account of this exciting era, it was a time when fortunes, careers, and lives were made and lost, when the American film industry came fully into its own, and when the American film-going public truly succumbed to Hollywood's bewitching spell.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
History, Sound motion pictures, Motion pictures, historyShowing 4 featured editions. View all 4 editions?
Edition | Availability |
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1
The Speed of Sound: Library Edition
September 2007, Blackstone Audiobooks
MP3 CD
in English
- MP3 Una edition
0786160233 9780786160235
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2
The Speed of Sound: Library Edition
September 2007, Blackstone Audiobooks
Audio CD
in English
- Unabridged edition
0786160225 9780786160228
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zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
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3
The speed of sound: Hollywood and the talkie revolution, 1926-1930
1999, Johns Hopkins University Press
in English
- Johns Hopkins Paperbacks ed.
0801861926 9780801861925
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WorldCat
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4
The speed of sound: Hollywood and the talkie revolution, 1926-1930
1997, Simon & Schuster
in English
0684811626 9780684811628
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Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. 385-392) and index.
Originally published: New York : Simon & Schuster, c1997.
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- Created April 1, 2008
- 10 revisions
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August 23, 2023 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
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