Speech By Kinetophone

Picking up from yesterday's post, this is longer item from later in the month when another Kinetophone film had evidently been made featuring the Street Cleaning commissioner. This film was shown at the New York Hippodrome, which is remarkable for its size—the theater holds more than 5,000.

“Big Bill” Edwards Host To 5,000 Men

Commissioner Gives an Entertainment at Hippodrome
for Street Cleaning Employes.
Speech By Kinetophone
Department Workers Congratulated on Their Splendid
Work in the City Clean-Up.

Nearly 5,000 men of the Department of Street Cleaning attended a special performance arranged for them yesterday at the Hippodrome. The entertainment opened with a concert by the Department of Street Cleaning Band, and then Commissioner “Big Bill” Edwards stepped forward on the stage. When the cheering had died away Mr. Edwards welcomed the workers of his department, and congratulated them on the splendid manner in which there had gone about the recent Spring clean-up of the city.

The special performance was arranged for the Commissioner, as a mark of appreciations of the work of the men of the Department of Street Cleaning throughout the last year generally, and in particular during the recent Spring clean-up campaign.

Mr. Edwards, wearing a silk hat and frock coat, was t the main entrance of the big playhouse when the first of the guests began to arrive for the performance. He stayed there until the house was filled to its capacity, acting as a special escort to many of the veterans of his department, whom he led by the hand to their boxes and seats. When Mr. Edwards appeared on the stage, following the band concert, he said:

“I have seen most of you men before, and I am glad to welcome you here this afternoon. I am not going to make you a speech, because later you will hear me give to the men of the Department of Street Cleaning a new kind of talk on the kinetophone, recently perfected by Thomas A. Edison. I hope you will all have a profitable and pleasant afternoon.”

The kinetophone was then put in operation while Commissioner Edwards retired from the stage to his box. In the prelude was shown a crowd of college boys, who started to sing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” until they were drowned out by the audience applauding. When the college boys finished their song one of them stepped to the front in the picture and made the presentation of the Commissioner.

For a few moments it was simply a motion picture performance by Mr. Edwards, for his words were lost in the uproar created by his 5,000 loyal men as he came forward in the picture to address them. When the audience was quieted his speech could be plainly heard until interrupted again by the enthusiastic street cleaners.

“I am allowed through the courtesy of Mr. Edison to make an address to the 6,500 men of the Department of Street Cleaning,” said he, “and I am very glad to thank you for the good work you are giving to the City of New York.

“Few people realize that every morning 6,500 men start out to clean the streets of this city, and I am glad to speak to the men of this department who earn their money by the sweat of their brows. Their work is the hardest of any city department, and there is not the slightest question that your salaries should be increased. I am confident that this will come sooner or later. The people of this city ought to arise and call you most efficient. I believe that a large majority of them do.

“The cleaner the streets are the fewer will be the beds in the city’s hospitals, because clean streets largely do away with unsanitary conditions.

“Nothing tends toward good street cleaning conditions so much as the cooperation of the people themselves. This city must realize that it can do just as much as the Department of Street Cleaning. The street cleaners leave their jobs at 4 o’clock in the morning, and after that it is up to the citizens of the city to decide whether the streets shall be kept clean. They should consider how much paper and rubbish they throw on the streets. It is estimated that it costs the city $50,000 additional each year for the time used by the department in picking up paper and other rubbish thrown in the streets.

“Those who criticise must criticise intelligently. Those who want clean streets must help. Every one is responsible for the condition of the streets of New York City. My whole idea of co-operation is contained in the following verse:

Why don’t they keep the streets a little cleaner?
You ask with keen amazement, not undue.
Why don’t they keep the parks a little cleaner?
Did you ever stop to think that this means you?

“Yes this means you and every other citizen in this city. You have a responsibility to bear. See that you bear that responsibility, and see that your neighbor do something to keep the streets clean. It is hardest to help those who will not help themselves. In some localities the streets are littered ten minutes after the street cleaners have left them clean.”

Source: “‘Big Bill’ Edwards Host To 5,000 Men,” New York Times 26 May 1913, 16.

Mayor Gaynor on the Kinetograph

In April 1913, Mayer Gaynor of New York and a number of his commissioners were the subject of Kinetophone film. Whether this was for publicity, goodwill or an attempt to find a new market for the sound film is unclear, but it received quite a lot more press attention than any previous Kinetophone subject. This first item reports on the "posing" of the film.

Mayor In Talking Pictures

With Waldo and Other Commissioners, He Talks and Poses.

Patrons of the talking picture houses will have an opportunity soon to see and hear Mayor Gaynor, Police Commissioner Waldo, Fire Commissioner Johnson, Street Cleaning Commissioner Edwards, and Robert Adamson, the Mayor’s secretary, explain the workings of the city government. Yesterday the Mayor and his Commissioners went up to the Edison studios, at Valentine and Decatur Avenues, the Bronx, and posed for a series of moving picture films. At the same time they talked into a phonograph, and every word and gesture were duly recorded. The Mayor explained that he had promised representatives of the Edison Company long ago that he would talk and “act” for them, and that he found his first opportunity yesterday.

Source: “Mayor In Talking Pictures,” New York Times 18 April 1913, 1.

This next notice is more a publicity item, which suggests that the Kinetophone might have an important role in preserving the historical record.

Films for Posterity

Edison to Present Gaynor and Others in Records for Centuries.

Thomas A. Edison, who recently perfected the kinetophone, will formally present to the Modern Historic Records Association at the City Hall this afternoon at 1 o’clock the talking-motion-picture records that were lately made of Mayor Gaynor and other department heads of the city Government. The records, including both the motion picture films and the phonographic cylinders, will be received by William George Jordan, Managing Director of the Modern Historic Records Association, in the presence of Mayor Gaynor and others of whom records were made.

Mr. Edison will also present a piece of parchment on which there will be an inscription explaining that the records are intended to be preserved for centuries, and below the inscription will be the signatures of those whose records were made, certifying their genuineness. Until the Modern Historic Records Association builds its own home the records will be deposited in the New York Public Library. At a demonstration a few days ago in the Union Square Theatre the records were approved by the Mayor and his associates. In addition to Mayor Gaynor, there are records of his secretary Waldo, Fire Commissioner Johnson, and street Cleaning Commissioner Edwards.

Source: “Films for Posterity,” New York Times 1 May 1913, 6.

This is the report of the premiere of the film. Note that as of May the Kinetophone is still installed at four Keith and Proctor vaudeville theaters.

The Mayor In the "Movies"

Mayor Gaynor, Secretary Adamson, and Commissioners Waldo, Johnson, and Edwards made their vaudeville debuts yesterday afternoon at three of the Keith theatres, the Colonial, the Union Square, and the Alhambra, and Proctor’s Fifth Avenue, the simultaneous appearance being accounted for by the fact that they were seen as stars of an Edison talking moving-picture record. The Mayor’s secretary and the three Commissioners each spoke a few sentences for the recording machine, and then Mayor Gaynor gave a three-minute talk. The scene was set to represent the Mayor’s office, and the five speakers were seated around a large table when the picture was flashed on the screen.

The Mayor began by saying that he wished it were possible to have all the heads of city departments on the screen to tell the people about their activities, but he had to content himself with having three of them there. Some of the “corrupt newspapers,” said the mayor, had been endeavoring to raise a public clamor to have some of his Commissioners dismissed, but he had stood by them. He said that he believed the public was beginning to realize he as right in standing by them. He closed with an argument in favor of the Workmen’s Compensation bills, which he said he hoped to see enacted into law.

Source: “The Mayor In the ‘Movies,” New York Times 6 May 1913, 20.

This is an excerpt from "Observations By Our Man About Town," a regular column that appeared in Moving Picture World. From this column it seems likely that Edison was exploring the possibility of increasing the market for the Kinetophone by using it to record lectures and other educational events.

Mayor Gaynor, Police Commissioner Waldo, Fire Commissioner Johnson and Street Commissioner Edwards made their debut in motion picture studio work one day last week. They figured in talking moving pictures and, while some people look upon it as a joke, the event will do much towards demonstrating the value of the pictures in the exemplification of the work attached to the various civic departments. Communities finding it impossible to secure the personal attendance for lectures of men who become prominently identified with municipal, state and national departments will find a valuable acquisition in such pictures. Chatauqua circuits and lecture platforms will be particularly interested in the development of this branch of the industry. It is to become one of the most important factors in the educational line. Each day brings forth some new development or undertaking, showing clearly that the day is not far distant when the motion picture will become as indispensable in educational circles as it has become popular in the world of entertainment. It is no longer a question as to how long the pictures will survive. Truly they are in their infancy.

“Observations By Our Man About Town,” Moving Picture World 3 May 1913, 476.

Talking Pictures Popular

Two publicity items for Edison's Kinetophone appeared in the 26 April 1913 of Moving Picture World: a full page ad and a short article. Clearly, the strategy for exploiting the Kinetophone had moved its primary target from vaudeville to the regular moving picture theaters. This change in strategy is perhaps one reason William E. Waddell, General Manager of the American Talking Picture Company, the firm responsible for marketing the device, states near the end that he believes the Kinetophone "belongs to the motion picture theater," even though it had to this point been marketed exclusively to vaudeville theaters.

Talking Pictures Popular
"The Edison Kinetophone was installed in six theaters in New York and Chicago on February 17th, and since that date installation has been made in practically every city of size in the United States. It must be admitted that greater headway has already been made for the Kinetophone during this brief time than was ever accomplished by the numerous previous attempts at talking pictures," said General Manager Waddell of the American Talking Picture Company, the other day. "Of course the name of Edison has much to do with this ready acceptance by the various theaters, as they were confident Edison would not market an article that was not practical. That this judgment was good is evidenced by the record-breaking attendance and the enthusiastic comments of the press. Marked improvement is noted week by week in subject and production. A practical knowledge of the requirements of the theaters could be gained only by experience, and the studio staff have learned more in the past few weeks than could have been learned in another year's work in the laboratory.

"The talking pictures may never take the place of the pantomime pictures, but will undoubtedly prove an admirable adjunct. It belongs to the motion picture theater, where it will serve to enliven that otherwise quiet entertainment. It is only a matter of time—and a very short time at that—before we will have colored talking, and perhaps stereoscopic motion pictures."

Source: “Talking Pictures Popular,” Moving Picture World 26 April 1913, 361.
Image Source: Moving Picture World 26 April 1913, 419.

A Forty-Five-Minute Talking Picture

This short item notes experiments in 1913 with multireel talking pictures in Paris. Gaumont's system, which had been in regular use in Paris for years and steadily improved in quality, was for uncertain reasons never put in wide circulation in the United States.

The most surprising claim in this notice is that the dialogue was easily heard throughout the theater, since amplification and intelligibility of dialogue (not synchronization) were generally considered the most difficult issues confronting makers of synchronized sound film.

A Forty-Five-Minute Talking Picture

At the Gaumont Palace Hippodrome in Paris, a few days ago, there was exhibited a speaking film running forty-five minutes. This is by far the longest talking picture ever thrown on the screen. The photoplay was taken from a famous French farce and was witnessed by nearly eight thousand people, the extreme capacity of the house. The dialogue was distinctly heard in the farthest corners of the auditorium without appearing unduly amplified to those in the pit. The Paris Daily papers gave the Gaumont talking pictures from four inches to three-quarters of a column next morning and described the entertainment as a revolution in the cinematographic art. Speaking photoplays running from twenty to thirty minutes are now being shown nightly by means of the Gaumont improved Chronophone in the Gaumont Palace Hippodrome.

Source: “A Forty-Five-Minute Talking Picture,” Moving Picture World 5 April 1913, 52.

Kinetophone in Louisville

This little item carried in the correspondence section of the Moving Picture World indicates that the Kinetophone was less than successful in its Louisville debut—so much so that it seems that the local Keith vaudeville house was relinquishing its rights to the device and allowing another theater in town to install it.

The Edison kinetophone has made its appearance in Louisville, B. F. Keith’s vaudeville house presenting the latest device of the inventor to the public. Largely speaking, it may be said that the Lousiville patrons of the theater enjoyed the talking pictures, even though some expressions of disappointment were heard. Devotees of the animated pictures, perhaps, had been led to expect too much, and the performance therefore fell a bit beneath anticipations. One of Louisville’s amusement companies is now negotiating for the local rights of the kinetophone, and one of its houses will shortly be devoted to the talking pictures.

Source: G. D. Crain, Jr., “Correspondence: Louisville,” Moving Picture World 12 April 1913, 181.

Talking Picture Devices

This item is a brief run-down of the most prominent devices for synchronizing film and phonograph as of 1913.

Talking Picture Devices

Several Concerns Claim Priority, But Edison’s Kinetophone Seems to Have Created Greatest Interest.

In answer to many inquiries regarding the so-called “talking pictures” and to note the several claims of priority in that particular field, the Moving Picture World offers the following information:

Cameraphone.—This was the first device offered to picture theaters in America, for which it was claimed that the picture and the voice could be reproduced simultaneously. J. H. Whitman was the promoter and owner of the patents covering the synchronizing mechanism. The Cameraphone Company operated a large studio and factory at Eleventh Avenue and 43rd Street, New York, for some time, but eventually failed for lack of interest on the part of the public.

Gaumont Chronophone.—This device for the production of “talking pictures” was perfected by the Gaumont Company, of Paris, and was first shown at the St. Louis World’s Fair. It was not until 1908 that the device was offered for sale in America, during which year Mr. Herbert Blache opened offices on East 25th Street, New York. The Chronophone was, to all appearances, successful in meeting all claims of the inventors, but it did not meet with favor here, so its promotion was discontinued for the time. We are informed that it is in successful operation in Paris and that the Gaumont Company is preparing again to urge its use in America.

Cort-Kitsee Device.—This is a synchronizing device invented by Dr. Kitsee, of Philadelphia, Pa., and is being promoted by Mr. John Cort, a New York theatrical man. Up to the present writing no attempt has been made to offer the device to the public, but private demonstrations have been given that are said to have proved the practicability of the mechanism.

Synchrophone and Cinematophone.—A new deice being promoted by the Synchrophone Motion Picture Company of New York. This device may be seen at Sherwood’s picture theater on Fulton Street, New York, between Broadway and Nassau Street. Many advantages are claimed for this mechanism, but there has been no effort made to place it generally.

Kinetophone.—This is the Edison device now being operated in a number of the larger cities in connection with vaudeville theaters. It is being handled by the American Talking Picture Company. Whatever may be said by rivals regarding the merit of the Kinetophone and the work of Mr. Thomas A. Edison in bringing it up to its present state of perfection, it must be admitted that it has been instrumental in gaining recognition for the “talking picture.” If not the first in the field, it is the first to gain any considerable recognition in America.

Source: “Talking Picture Devices,” Moving Picture World 29 March 1913, 1318.

The Edison Talking Machine

Louis Reeves Harrison, one of the contributing editors of The Moving Picture World, visited the Edison sound stage where the Kinetophone films were shot and recorded. He seemed particularly struck by the constraints the talking picture placed on the director. Harrison remains fairly optimistic about the Kinetophone even as he implicitly recognized that its pictures were not yet close to the level of quality available for the silent screen.

The Edison Talking Machine

Before this innovation was shown in public I visited the Edison studio and saw the action of a little farce photographed by Lewis Physioc while he controlled the mechanism of a phonograph so that the latter instrument registered in delicate and exact concurrence with the camera. During the time he was engaged in the simultaneous reproduction and recording of images and sounds so that the vocalization characters in the photoplay could be made to nicely correspond to the labial movement and facial expression of a screen presentation, Allan Ramsay was under high tension as a mute director.

Imagine a voiceless director indicating by signs—if he said anything it would be faithfully reproduced by the phonograph—not only what was to be done but what was to be said or sung! Ramsay has invented a sign language that is all his own, and it is quite as effective as the conversational or megaphonic employed by directors in conducting a performance for the pictural part alone. I stood amazed, not only at the ingenious combination of camera and phonograph, but at the intelligent operations of Physioc, Ramsay and the company of talking, singing and acting performers, because the strain of the situation required mental concentration on the part of every participant. The chances of failure from accident are more than doubled—they are in some swifter progression—because of a multiplied concurrence in all the factors of action and reproduction.

I could not help thinking as I watched this marvelous unity of movement among mechanisms and men that the science of material forces and that of the mind were approaching a new and intimate relation, that physics and psychics were getting closer together than ever before. I am not referring to the invention nor to the theatrical presentation, but to the complicated act of production as it impressed me in the studio. It was profoundly interesting to me as a man who admires the act of another in breaking the way of human progress.

I shall suspend critical judgment on the presentations until they have been under way long enough to be ripened and refined in quality—their first attraction will be that of novelty—but I must instantly accord the inventor and the producers as well great credit. All difficulties seem to have been foreseen and provided for in one device which I did not study, and possibly could not understand, the sensitive instrument which adjusts the movement of swiftly flying films to the rolling cylinder in the phonograph. One thing was made certain—they work in harmony so far as the production is concerned. The presentation is another matter.

Who shall foretell results at this stage of the game, when the full meaning of moving pictures is so imperfectly understood that nearly all engaged in making them have gone only far enough to congratulate themselves on the profitable returns from present development, not grasping the idea that they promise to be one of the factors destined to dispose of our slow evolution by making wondrous transformations in human character as well as in our present political and social forms. The result may be as favorable to the silent drama as the latter has been to the regular stage. The talking picture may be but a new and attractive form of the only art born in the Christian era.

Source: Louis Reeves Harrison, “The Edison Talking Machine,” Moving Picture World 1 March 1913, 890.

Kinetophone Scripts

This item appeared as part of Epes Winthrop Sargent's "The Photoplaywright" column. In it, Horace Plimpton outlines the criteria for a Kinetophone script. Particularly significant are the requirements that the script be limited to six minutes (the maximum length of recording) and that there be no scene changes.

Mr Horace G. Plimpton, Manager of Negative Production for Thomas A. Edison, Inc., answering our inquiry as to the market for scripts for the new talking pictures, is good enough to reply very fully and to the point. He writes:

Answering your card, we are open for plots for Kinetophone work, this being the name used for the talking motion picture. I am enclosing a copy of a form letter which we are sending out and which indicates in a general way the requirements. I would suggest that in anything which you may see fit to print on this subject you not minimize the difficulties. We are beginning to be flooded with plots and I am sure in a short time it will be just as bad as it is now with the regular picture scenarios. Therefore it occurs to me that it would be just as well to let the public understand that on the whole it is pretty hard work.

In talking pictures all of the dialogue and all of the leading business should be indicated and carefully timed. The requirement that the length shall not exceed six minutes and that the action shall be held to one scene will operate against the novice and, speaking more plainly than Mr. Plimpton has, we would suggest to the beginner to keep out. The talking pictures at present are for the trained writer. These are the rules laid down by the Edison company:

The following information will guide those who wish to submit plays for the Edison Kinetophone (talking-motion pictures):

1. Each play should be figured to run six minutes, making due allowance for the time taken in movement or incidental business.
2. The characters should be few and the action laid in one set.
3. Either dramas or comedies will be considered for acceptance provided they are clean and free from offense. Great care should be exercised to avoid infringement upon any copyrighted work, either story or play.
4. A stamped and self-addressed envelope should accompany each plot.
5. The Company will exercise due care in handling and returning plots, but distinctly disclaims any liability for their safe keeping or return. If sent they are entirely at the author’s risk.
6. Prices vary in accordance to the Company’s estimate of the value of the plot. The author may, if he wishes, affix his own price, in which case it will be considered on that basis.
7. Address all plots to the Edison Studio, Bedford Park, Bronx, New York City.

Source: Epes Winthrop Sargent, “The Photoplaywright,” Moving Picture World 1 March 1913, 881.

Surprisingly, given that Plimpton above claimed his department was overwhelmed with scenarios, Edison himself was apparently soliciting them from Harvard students. At least, that's what this little item from 22 March 1913 claimed:

College Students Writing Scenarios

In the columns of “The Crimson,” the Harvard college daily, there appeared a letter from Mr. Thomas Edison inviting the students to write scenarios for use in the kinetophone. These “talking-plots” are limited to six minutes in length, and must be clean, with free range of subjects. Now that we have school children writing compositions on the pictures they have seen, and college students writing scenarios; there can be little doubt that the moving picture is making great head-way among the educational powers of today. Hitherto the original writings in the class-room have had no profit beyond the immediate object for which they were written, now however, with both a literary and financial attraction before them, new zeal will be given to this branch of study with good results to all concerned.

Source: “College Students Writing Scenarios,” Moving Picture World 22 March 1913, 1199.

Talking Pictures and Silent Drama

This article, by Epes Winthrop Sargent, a regular columnist for the Moving Picture World on advertising and screenplay writing, evaluates the threat of Edison's Kinetophone to the future of the silent film. Sargent sees the Kinetophone as playing a niche role in moving picture exhibition and thinks it will be more of threat to live vaudeville than to the silent drama. He also notes that the Kinetophone rights as well as those of other talking picture systems have been purchased by vaudeville interests rather than those with specific interests in motion picture exhibition.

Talking Pictures and Silent Drama

Ever since the announcement that the Edison Talking Pictures had become a commercial possibility, there has been coming into the office of The Moving Picture World a storm of letters from the exhibitors of photoplays, most of whom seem to argue that the appearance of the talking play means the end of the silent drama. The expressions of opinion run all the way from a slight note of dread to a revelation of abject fear for the future of the photoplay today.

Without in the least seeking to detract from the undoubted value of the Talking Pictures as an important contribution to amusement devices, this writer, after a careful survey of the photoplay, vaudeville and dramatic situations, is not inclined to believe that the talking pictures will in any way interfere with the prosperity of the silent drama. He has discussed their value with leading photoplay men, with important vaudeville factors and men of moment in dramatic affairs, and the consensus of opinion seems to agree with his own belief that the talking picture will find a niche of its own and will not to any marked degree interfere seriously with the filmed drama without words.

Those most concerned over the appearance of the talking picture are the vaudeville men. They have suffered long from the superior attraction of the photoplay. They have sought to counteract the effect of the cheaper and more popular form of amusement, and they have hailed with delight the supposed appearance of a stronger attraction; and while one powerful body of vaudeville managers have made a long time contract with the Edison company, others have trafficked with John Cort for his device and with the promoters of a foreign scheme, but practically none of the leading photoplay managers have sought the rights to the talking pictures, for they, of not the lesser managers, realize that the place of the talking picture is and probably always will be, in the vaudeville theaters; not so much those houses that mingle pictures with cheap vaudeville, but the better class of places where the single reel shown ends the performance and even those who would gladly sit through three or four reels in a picture theater, troop out when the picture is announced.

The talking picture belongs to the talking stage, just as the silent drama thrives best in its own house. Vaudeville booking agents resent the appearance of the device because they know that it will cut down their commissions, but they seem to be about the only men in the amusement world who have a reasonable excuse for hostility against the talking picture.

To take a concrete example; the other day the Edison company filmed and phonographed Miss Cecelia Loftus, one of the highest priced single entertainers in vaudeville. Miss Loftus was paid handsomely for the service, a sum that would represent several weeks of professional engagements in the vaudeville houses, but now the smallest vaudeville theater may announce Miss Loftus where before her single salary would represent a sum in excess the cost of the entire bill. And the pictures of Miss Loftus will replace a “headline” feature for which some agent would have received a commission.

But the appearance of Miss Loftus in a city does not appreciably hurt the business at the photoplay houses, and it is difficult to perceive that the appearance of the talking pictures of Miss Loftus in the smaller towns will to any great extent lessen the takings of the photoplay theaters. The vaudeville manager may be able to advertise Miss Loftus instead of some three hundred dollar act or a thousand dollar act, but will he hurt the photoplay theater to any great degree? Personally we think not. We know the Palace Theater, London, and the Orpheum theater, San Francisco, and unless we are greatly mistaken we think that the talking pictures, once the keen edge of novelty is worn off, will not draw ten dollars from the photoplay theaters.

It is true that the photoplay has drawn many patrons from the vaudeville theaters, but not as many as is popularly supposed, and they are not real vaudeville lovers but photoplay patrons who merely waited for the arrival of a better appreciated form of entertainment. The photoplay audiences have been drawn largely from the galleries and balconies of the dramatic houses and not a few of the orchestra patrons as well.

They find in photoplay the vaudeville of the drama. Instead of the twenty minute sketch, unfolding but a single point, there is the eighteen minute drama complete in itself or an act or a two, three, or four part play. Vaudeville’s greatest charm always has been the diversity of the performance that the brevity of the individual acts made possible. Photoplay has done the same thing for the drama. It has done more than this. It has made possible the actual showing of scenes that in the dramatic play must be alluded to, because of the impossibility of making numerous sets. It has given to the smaller towns and the smaller houses of the large cities a grade of acting that is five or ten times the price of admission could not command.

It has done more than this. It has presented the old play favorites in a new and delightfully compact form. “The Prisoner of Zenda,” for example, offers a more complete story in less than one half the time required by the dramatic version and does this in a wealth of stage settings that would be an absolute theatrical impossibility. The production is made but once and is not moved from the studio. Instead of the long explanations of events occurring off the stage these events are shown in addition in appropriate settings. The action is retained. The tiresomeness of the dialogue is eliminated. Given the talking pictures, the dialogue would be replaced. It would be interesting if we could get Mr. Hackett’s fine voice as well as his spirited action, but not at the cost of an additional two hours of time.

To regard it from another angle, the silent drama makes possible much that must be avoided in stage versions. As one competent commentator put it the other day, “I like to watch the western plays, but I’d hate to have my wife hear the dialogue that would go with some of that stuff.” Talking pictures can never supplant the silent drama if for no other reason than the impossibility of supplying the fifty to one hundred plays required each week. There are not a sufficient number of dramatists in the world to supply this demand adequately. Plays of a sort could be written, but not plays with the proper sort of dialogue, for it is the absence of dialogue and the lack of necessity for technical skill in the handling of dialogue that makes possible the success of the photoplay. Each season scores of dramas are withdrawn from the stage for no other reason than that the dialogue is not commensurate with the plot.

From whatever angle the situation is viewed, the intelligent observer arrives at but one conclusion. The talking pictures are an entertainment idea admirably suited to vaudeville. They may, in a sense, aid the silent drama, just as the publication of the phonograph record has not seriously damaged the popularity of records of the popular songs, nor will the combination of film and phonograph ever overset the popularity of pictures without dialogue.

The photoplay is a distinct and, we think, a lasting form of amusement, not to be deposed by the newer device nor even threatened by the combination of voice and view.

For a third time Mr. Edison has contributed importantly to the entertainment of the amusement lover, but he has not supplanted his earlier devices by the third. He has merely augmented the sources of amusement.

Source: Epes Winthop Sargent, “Talking Pictures and Silent Drama,” Moving Picture World 22 February 1913, 756.

Further Period Comments on Talking Pictures, 1908

The following notice, quoted by Russell Lack, Twenty-Four Frames Under (1999), pp. 23-24, seems to indicated a much more modest program of "talking pictures"—at least compared to that of Kleine cited previously.

The daring idea of having human beings imitate the various sounds which the moving pictures call for and the dialogue to portray each story has made an impression on Colombia [a local theater in Cincinnati] audiences and the new name of Advanced Pictorial Vaudeville has been coined for the summer shows. The company of demonstrators behind the scenes, but close enough to make the figures appear human, are all thoroughly trained in the work and they are all thoroughly acquainted with the pictures before they are presented. This work has injected new life into the picture show. The pictorial demonstrator must be a character artist and impersonator, a versatile vocalist and able to delineate all the sounds that are suppose to emanate from the action on the sheet. Under his magic spell the picture is no longer a picture for it becomes real life (Cincinnati Commercial Tribune 10 June 1908).

Often the actors in such troupes were not particularly well trained. Another notice, appearing a few days later in Moving Picture World, applauded one theater for employing trained actors:

The Grand Opera House, Indianapolis, Ind., is employing graduates from a local dramatic school to do the talking behind the screen, in conjunction with the pictures. This is a step in the right direction (“Trade Notes,” Moving Picture World 13 June 1908, 510).

Stock companies were evidently another source of talent.

Springfield, I.—The Fairbanks Theater, under the management of Lee M. Boda, has opened with pictures and songs. The pictures are further enhanced by talking parts behind the screen performed by members of the Valentine Stock Company (“Trade Notes,” Moving Picture World 13 June 1908, 510).

Much like pianists, many actors found it advantageous to spoof the films by introducing quips not necessarily sanctioned by the film.

Mr. Fred[ric]k Schneider is entertaining large audiences at the Knickerbocker Theater with his talking pictures.

From behind the sheet Mr. Schneider injects bits of comedy into the pictures, which brings forth shouts of laughter.

His advertisement appears elsewhere in this number (“Trade Notes,” Moving Picture World 13 June 1908, 514).

Such spoofing seems to have been enjoyed by the audience. Critics, too, were often amused, especially if the film was designed as a comedy.

A picture like “Oh, What Lungs!” has a distinct advantage through being shown at the Manhattan. The man behind the sheet there gives immeasurable aid to a comic film. Sometimes his jests are ill-judged for serious subjects, but he is a versatile chap, and anyone at the particular game of “talking” a moving picture who may be his equal is yet to be found. This “Lung” view is funny, without dialogue, although the impromptu remarks help it greatly (Sime [pseud.], “Oh, What Lungs!” [review], Variety 22 August 1908, 13).

As the novelty began to wear off, however, critics would grow tired of actors making fun of the films, and we can see an intimation of this in the critic's caution that the actor's "jests are ill-judged for serious subjects."

* * *Like Actologue and Humanovo, Talk-o-Photo attempted to establish a series of talking picture companies that could be put on a circuit. The Talk-o-Photo seems to have been envisioned as part of company that would be booked into legitimate theaters, as it would be included as part of an entire show, including operators, musicians and singers.

Mr. Hooley is about to join forces with the Toledo Film [65] Exchange and will superintend a new branch of the business which will be devoted to the supplying of picture theaters with operators, musicians, illustrated song singers and talking pictures. The talking pictures will be called the Talk-o-Photo and will consist of a number of companies, which will each carry two or more reels. Four companies are already rehearsing and others are now being organized. The dialogue for the various subjects will be written by Sydney Wire, a well-known writer and lecturer (“Caille & Kunsky Lose Their Best Man,” Moving Picture World 25 July 1908, 64-65).

Lyman H. Howe, a well-known film lecturer well known for charging legitimate theater prices for his performances, also adopted the talking pictures in 1908. At least, that's what the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported (quoted in Lack, Twenty-Four Frames Under, p. 24):

[Maude Anderson’s] appearance here with the Howe show is significant, since it shows recognition of the importance of having talented artists to carry on the dialogue and unseen acting behind the curtain. If the scene represented France, Miss Anderson has a sufficient smattering of the language to carry on the dialogue in that tongue, and so with other lands and their people. Her knowledge of the stage is helpful and often she makes up extemporaneous speeches to go with the pictures as they are shown on the sheet. However, most of the time these behind-the-curtain actors have daily rehearsals to become familiar with the pictures so that they can make them seem lifelike. ‘I really like the work,’ Miss Anderson siad yesterday, ‘for there is no jealousy in the company and I don’t have to bother with any make up' (Cleveland Plain Dealer 17 August 1908)

* * *The following notice seems like a press release, which means the information it contains needs to be treated somewhat cautiously, but it does indicate that TA-MO-PIC probably had numerous companies on a circuit (if not necessarily as many as ten).

Talking moving pictures seem to be the vogue in certain localities just at present and it is safe to assert that one of the most popular forms of this class of entertainment are the TA-MO-PIC moving and talking pictures as furnished by O. T. Crawford, of St. Louis. Aside from carefully selected moving pictures and well balanced companies of actors and actresses, Mr. Crawford pays a great deal of attention to details, which has played no small part in his success.

It was the detail work in “Sherlock Holmes” which made that play a wonderful success, and a similar comparison may be made with Mr. Crawford’s TA-MO-PIC moving and talking pictures. There are nine companies on the road at present and ten more companies are rehearsing this week to play circuits commencing next week (“Detail Spells Success,” Moving Picture World 24 October 1908, 321).

With eight members, the Swanson company mentioned below is quite a lot more elaborate than most, but since they traveled with an operator, it means they could be booked into legitimate theaters who might not have a full-time operator available.

Streator, Ill.—The Swanson talking pictures are bringing record-breaking crowds to the Plumb Opera House. The company consist of eight persons, including the machine operator, pianist, manager and actors to imitate the parts behind the screen. They will stay in Streator as long as patronage justifies, which tend to a long run, judging by the attendance (“Notes of the Trade,” Moving Picture World 21 November 1908, 400).

Period Comments on Talking Pictures, 1905-1908

This is a series of short notices on the practice of producing talking pictures by placing actors behind the screen. The first item, cited by Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema (1994), p. 264, shows that the practice in use as early as 1905.

A distinct novelty on the bill was the first appearance here of Havez and Youngson’s Spooks Minstrels, in which moving pictures are used in a novel way. The pictures show a minstrel company going through a performance, and as the various numbers are presented the songs, jokes and dances are given by men who stand behind the screen and follow the motions of the men in the picture very accurately. The act is original and novel and was highly appreciated (New York Dramatic Mirror 25 February 1905).

The practice became very popular in 1908, and there was extensive commentary about it in the trade papers and newspapers. As the following notice indicates, the reaction in the trade papers was initially quite favorable.

The tragic story of “Francesca di Rimini, or, The Two Brothers,” has received frequent applause for the good acting, but nothing like the rounds of applause it is getting from crowded audiences this week in a theater not a thousand miles from New York. The reason is that the dialogue between the leading actors in the plot is carried on in a realistic manner by people behind the screen. This idea could be well applied to many subjects which require more than pantomime to explain the situations (“Films that Please,” Moving Picture World 21 March 1908, 233).

George Kleine, an impressario and film distributor who would also dabble in film production, opted to try an elaborate version of such talking pictures in March of 1908. He argued that his production represented "the limit" of what could be accomplished in the moving picture field.

Everything is in readiness for the commencement in Chicago Sunday of a unique experiment. George Kleine, the big American importer of foreign independent films, George Lederer and Henry Lee, the impersonator, have entered into a partnership to give a novel moving picture show in the Auditorium, Chicago, the big show house which played “Advanced Vaudeville” for a time last season.

When the subjects thrown upon the white screen by the projecting machine call for it, a big company of actors and supernumeraries will be stationed behind to work effects. For example, when a mob scene is shown a carefully rehearsed crowd of supers will be present to make the appropriate noises. When singers are required they will be provided and a choir will be on hand to discourse incidental music when the film gives opportunity for such an effect.

The idea involved in the “talking pictures” which have so recently established themselves widely in the important picture houses, here reaches an elaboration which is described as “the limit.”

Mr. Lee will have charge of the practical end of the stage management together with George Lederer, while Mr. Kleine will direct the film supply department.

Chicago is even more generously supplied with picture shows than is New York, but the promoters of the newest enterprise have calculated that with the immense seating capacity of the Auditorium (4,000) they can do an enormous gross weekly business, large enough to warrant the expenditure of large sums on the entertainment.

In addition to the pictures the shows will offer vaudeville and musical features (“‘The Limit’ in Mommoth Moving Picture Place,” Variety 30 May 1908, 11).

An article in Variety quoted Kleine at length speaking about this production:

Here at last we have the moving picture playing something like the part it derives to play in the amusement field. I regard this as an epoch-making event, destined to be the forerunner of greater things to come until at last cinematography shall reach the position of dignity and popular recognition to which it is entitled.

To bring about this very desirable consummation we must encourage the natural trend of the business toward the increasing use of large and important theaters.

This is an essential point, for when an amusement caterer desires to put on motion pictures with adequate effects and incidentals he must command an enormous seating capacity to get anything like a return upon his enterprise. This factor alone will force the motion picture man to seek the big houses for his shows.

The show at the Auditorium requires a large force behind the screen, for example. This force is necessary to obtain the effects. At the same time such an entertainment involves a proportionate expense, although, of course, the company is smaller than such a one as would be required to give a conventional drama or musical comedy in the same house.

I find a surprising amount of interest among managers of large theatres in the growing possibilities of the moving picture. They have watched it grow from small beginning and disrepute to this staggering proposition which employes a house seating four thousand persons, and you may be sure they are drawing their own conclusions.
Of course, it is nice to call the Auditorium show “The Limit” of the moving picture’s possibilities, but bigger things yet may develop. The future of the film is almost unlimited (Kleine quoted by Frank Wiesberg, “The Limit in Moving Pictures Success at Auditorium,” Variety 6 June 1908, 11).

Toward the end of July, Moving Picture World ran the following summary of the Kleine "experiment.":

Just as we go to press we receive a neatly printed pamphlet entitled “The Mimic World” from the Kleine Optical Company. Of the 24 pages, which are bound with silk cord and between illuminated covers, 20 pages are taken up with press notices of the picture show with talking effects which was such a success at the Chicago Auditorium, under the direction of Henry Lee, impersonator. While these shows have been discontinued on account of the Summer season, the period of their run demonstrated that a picture show, when properly presented, is sufficient attraction to fill a large theater. Another thing which was fully demonstrated and which really instigated the experiment, was that independent films as supplied through the Kosmik Film Service of the Kleine Optical Company, are fully equal to the demands of the most fastidious and the line of subjects are most varied and complete (“The Kosmik Film Service,” Moving Picture World 25 July 1908, 63)

Actologue

During the second half of 1908, Moving Picture World carried a number of news items on Actologue, which was a particularly active firm specializing in putting actors behind the screen. Actologue was owned by National Film Company, an exchange based in Detroit.

Acting pictures on a mammoth scale is a new move of the National Film Company, of Detroit. The “Actologue,” presenting a company of capable artists, will go forth in about two weeks’ time to demonstrate the realities in animated photography. Five companies are being rehearsed, one for the Palace Theater, Detroit; one for Cleveland, and three for the road (“Trade Notes,” Moving Picture World 20 June 1908, 527).

Actologue consisted of a number of acting companies, each with its own repertory of films. Each company could then be moved around a circuit of theaters.

The National Film Co.’s latest venture, the “Actologue,” is meeting with great success. One company opened at Cleveland June 29th, presenting “Monte Cristo” and “College Chums,” From Cleveland this company goes to the Great Southern at Columbus, where they remained a week, and from there to the Opera House at Ludington, Michigan, for a week’s engagement.

The No. 2 company, presenting “The Gentleman Burglar” and “A Lord for a Day” opens at Cleveland July 1st for the remainder of the week, and then comes to the Lafayette at Detroit in place of the Humanova.

The third company, presenting “East Lynne” and the “Curious Mr. Curio,” opens at Columbus July 6th.

The “Actologue” company, which is controlled by the National Film Co., of Detroit and the Lake Shore Film & Supply Co. of Cleveland, will play all of the houses controlled by Caille & Kunsky in the following cities: Detroit, Toledo, Columbus, Dayton, Springfield, Battle Creek, and Indianapolis. Contracts are also in force for five more companies to play the smaller towns. Fifty acting people are under contract for the various companies, and everything possible is being done to make the “Actologue” the foremost of all the talking and acting pictures (“Trade Notes,” Moving Picture World 4 July 1908, 9).

Actologue evidently had five big companies suitable for more expensive houses and a number of smaller companies that could travel doing more limited runs in smaller venues.

The National Film Company, of Detroit, apace with the times, have made rapid strides in the field of talking pictures with their new Actologues.
They have distanced all competitors in the field and have taken the largest single contract ever offered. At this time they have five companies in first-class houses by agreement with Messrs. Caille & Kunsky: The Fairbanks, Springfield, O.; the Victoria, Dayton; the Southern, at Columbus; the Valentine, at Toledo; the Lafayette, at Detroit, and several companies in smaller towns, and will shortly open at the English, Indianapolis.

They have also a rehearsal hall in the Telegraph Building at Detroit, adjoining their offices, where managers interested may see the rehearsals and overlook their subject work.

All the playlets are written by James J. Morrison, formerly stage director of the Poli Stock Company, Worchester, Mass., and recently at the Majestic, Cleveland, who likewise has the stage direction of the companies and the engaging of the performers required. They will shortly open other houses wherein they are interested and will keep this Actologue as a permanent feature of their already large exchange (“The Actologue,” Moving Picture World 18 July 1908, 45).

By August, publicity was promoting Actologue as a "fad."

An experiment is an experiment only; chance may make it a “fad.” The virtue of a fad is more to the credit of experiment than it is to the honor of the fancy, yet when experiments become fads, success must surely follow.

The “Actologue” is an experiment that has become a fad, yet a worthy fad and one that the public appreciates as a valuable adjunct to numerous hitherto either misunderstood or not understood subjects that are beautiful and interesting yet not comprehended stories.

With the appearance of the “Actologue” new interest is lent to the subjects, and the effect, in “toto,” is to present a drama in tabloid form. A drama presented by capable actors, with every detail beautifully worked out, every effect added and played in a creditable manner throughout.

The ten companies already out are meeting with unparalleled success among the best audiences possible, and The National Film Company have reason to congratulate themselves on the rapid strides they are making (“The Actologue,” Moving Picture World 8 August 1908, 103).

At the end of the summer season, National Film attempted to expand Actologue for the more lucrative fall season. This expansion carried risk: competition was more keen during the fall (as during the summer many theaters were on hiatus) and experienced actors were more expensive in the fall, since legitimate theaters required their services.

The continued success with which the Actologue Talking Picture Companies have been meeting has compelled the National Film Company, of Detroit, to enlarge upon its work to meet the Winter demand. Already fifteen companies are in active operation and their large rehearsal hall is alive and active twelve hours a day. There is no one more ably situated to handle this demand and a competent corps of workers are kept busy at all times. A repertoire of nearly one hundred playlets are now owned by them and still the work continues with a spirit that is equaled only by the insistent call for them. The gratifying results are solely the reward of merit, the result of success, and the growth indicates that the popularity is on the rise to hold a high place in amusement circles for all time to come. The reasons are apparent, carefully written dialogue prepared with a view to live and carefully trained actors with a view to please and impress and carefully worked out effects with a view to fulfill the illusion (“Talking Pictures,” Moving Picture World 12 September 1908, 195).

Reports in the Moving Picture World suggested that the programs remained popular through the fall. Nevertheless, this item carries a warning amid its positive assessment. The fact that the Lafayette Theater went back to a stock company before returning to Actologue suggests that the theater managers were not yet convinced that the entertainment would have staying power against live theater in the regular season.

That the Actalogue [sic] Talking Pictures have proven themselves a form of entertainment the public wants was strongly evidenced at the Lafayette Theater in Detroit recently. They had proven the most popular Summer attraction at that theater, and tremendous business had greeted them at every performance.

With the opening of the house for the Fall season a change of policy was installed and a stock attraction was submitted. Ten days later business forced its retirement, and upon a two days’ notice and with meagre advertisement the Actalogue was reinstated on Sunday last. The news seemed wildfire and all day long the 2,400 seats were filled with an enthusiastic crowd, who welcomed what they made old friend of during the Summer, and who have since been equally generous to show that the correct idea is never slighted by the public when it wants a highly amusing, refined and moral entertainment at prices that all may reach (No title, Moving Picture World 10 October 1908, 279).

A poem from mid-October praising the Actologue:

“The Actologue”

Art struck the chord, and lo! the resonant wire
Brought forth in concord from the golden lyre,
Symphony in synchrony where with Science lens,
Nature supplemented Art’s artistic ends.

Mystic Science picturing Art’s plays
Added the central element of soul,
And Genius smiled and found in devious ways
Its shining mantle worthy of the whole.

The World applauded and its kind applause
Was found and well bestowed, the cause—
Well done, well won, with wonder all agog
The public praise the clever Actologue.

“The Actologue,” Moving Picture World 17 October 1908, 300

Actologue continued garnering positive reviews through the end of 1908. This item comes from early December.

Another signal triumph for the Actalogue [sic] marked its initial appearance in Cleveland at the American Theater. No better sensation has ever entered the circle of the city’s theatricals. The successive presentations have been acclaimed in the papers with unceasing regularity and the Cleveland “Leader” in its magazine section of Sunday, November 22, devoted an entire page to an illustrated article of the most commendable nature, to the artistic value of the production, the excellence of the effects, the efficiency of the performers and the enthusiasm of the auditors (“The Actologue in Cleveland,” Moving Picture World 5 December 1908, 450).

Faking Talking Pictures

This brief editorial comment from Moving Picture World indicates that actors speaking behind the screen were often billed as though they were part of the apparatus due to the growing fad of mechanically synchronized talking pictures such as the Cameraphone. This article also registers growing opposition to the practice of placing actors behind the sheet, which was deemed unnatural due to the use of improper dialects.

Many people in this city are being fooled into believing they are viewing the new invention of “talking pictures” when they are only listening to a very bad vocal operator hidden behind the screen. Our informant went into the Manhattan Theater, at Thirty-third street and Broadway, a few nights ago, to hear “talking pictures” and see the illustrations. What he heard convinced him that it was not an automatic machine that was doing the talking, but a man, and a poor talker at that. The pronunciation was incorrect and in the bad, slangy dialect of the ill[it]erate hanger-on about the theater stage. “Dis” and “dat” and “dem,” were the methods of pronunciation used. The enunciation was poor and the language jerky, as if the talker was afraid the picture would get away from him. Yet he believed that he had seen the wonderful talking pictures, but marveled greatly that such a sorry representation should be given with French subjects. Sunday he visited the Grand Opera House and saw the real cameraphone pictures and listened to the genuine vocalization of the instrument. He is now convinced that the talking at the Manhattan was the work of a stage hand and not of an automatic instrument. He says that if it was the work of a cameraphone he would advise the owners to remove the instrument or send someone there to operate it who will not make a burlesque of it.

“Editorial Notes and Comments,” Moving Picture World 30 May 1908, 473.

How Talking Pictures Are Made

This feature article looks at actors behind the screen from the producer's perspective. It seems to have been published as part of the publicity for Humanovo, along with Actologue, one of the more prominent companies staging "talking pictures" by synchronizing live voices to the images. Humanovo used the system of a rehearsed company that went on a circuit with a film; this differs from the system employed later by the theaters detailed by the New York Times and Washington Post, where the actors were hired, much like musicians, for extended runs by a particular theater.

How Talking Pictures are Made.

Scarcity of Picture Actors

Since the advent of the moving picture as an amusement feature no phase of the industry has ever become so popular as the talking picture.

Various devices of a phonographic nature have been placed on the market, and some of them have been in a large measure successful, but they have all, more or less, been characterized by the unnatural and discordant mechanical grate so usual with most forms of talking machine.

The most successful idea in the talking picture field is the plan recently introduced by Will H. Stevens, of New York City, and which consists of a small cast of versatile actors who speak the lines which are apropos to the various characters from behind the screen, and who imitate the different sounds descriptive of the varied situations in the picture.

The above system was termed “Humanovo” and was a phenomenal success from the start. Many different companies were sent out, each with one or more reels of film, and in most cases playing week stands. The Humanovo, like all successful undertakings, soon had its imitators, and up to the present moment there are at least a dozen different concerns engaged in the promotion of moving talking pictures.

The putting out of this new form of talking picture, is by no means as simple as one might at first imagine, and it requires a thoroughly competent and long-experienced stage director to select suitable people and to rehearse the varied subjects. Many inexperienced and incompetent people have naturally drifted into the business, but their efforts are always immediately recognizable by the marked insipidity and amateurishness of their productions. In the staging of the talking picture there are many important details to consider, and the smallest detail is ofttimes the most important. It is, of course, imperative, that the author of the dialogue for the different parts be a writer of ability, with an all-round experience of foreign travel and a good knowledge of human nature. He must also be of an imaginative nature and quick eye, as the overlooking of small situation is sometimes apt to spoil the entire story. The writer must now be assisted by a rapid and able stenographer who can take down the lines as fast as the composer speaks them off. In the framing up of the impromptu dialogue for the talking picture, the reel is usually run off a few time to enable the producer to become familiar with his subject.

The lines and business are then crudely recorded in shorthand and are afterwards typed and modified, and the characters are sorted out to suit the different talkers. The actors are then rehearsed, and after a few suggestions and alterations, the company is ready for the road.

In the selection of actors some judgment must be used, and care must be taken to secure, when possible, people [138] properly fitted for the work. They should be possessed of good voices, above all things, as in talking behind a picture screen much depends upon the carrying power of the voice, as a feeble voice is unable to penetrate through the sheet and is soon lost in the echoes of the fly-loft. The talking picture actor should be a good all-around player and an artist, capable of extemporizing when occasion demands. In the rehearsing of talking pictures attention should be paid to mechanical effects, as thereupon depends much of the success of the picture. It is the better policy to allow the talkers themselves to work their own effects, as they are the most familiar with the subject, and will get better results than by relying upon the different house employees, who are often neglectful and careless, and are often absent when the cue for the effect arrives.

Now that the regular season is at hand it will perhaps be a matter of some difficulty to obtain capable people for the now popular talking picture, as most actors and actresses are either already on the road or are rehearsing for some legitimate production. The talking picture producer is unable to pay large salaries, and amateurs and dramatic students are being largely utilized. Much of the success of the talking film depends upon the competency of the talkers, and it is to be deplored that good professional people are so scarce. When the talking picture man is able to pay higher price for talent, the pictures will be materially improved; as it is, many companies are doing excellent work, and there is a demand for this kind of attraction all over the country.

The Humanovo pictures were put out during the light season and and some excellent talent was secured, the people being recruited from the ranks of the many thespians who were at that time idling and who were glad to take advantage of the opportunity it presented to earn a few dollars during the light season. The work was easy, as it does not necessitate any changes of costume or facial make-up. For this reason, and in spite of the small remuneration, many of the people have stayed in the work, but with the springing up of so many new producing concerns, and with the increased demand for picture actors, it seems as though the demand will more than counterbalance the supply, and will necessitate the employing of many who are hardly proficient enough for the work, which will be the cause of many weak and unsatisfactory productions.
The talking picture is in demand to-day, and is sure to have a big run during the coming season, and it is more than probable that most every picture theater that can afford the extra expense, will make it a feature until something newer and more suitable turns up to replace it.

Sidney Wise, “How Talking Pictures are Made,” Moving Picture World 22 August 1908, 137-38.

Actors on the Films

This article from the St. Louis Times and reprinted in Moving Picture World advocates creating talking pictures by putting actors behind the screen. The article seems to be floating the idea rather than reporting on it, though 1908 was a peak year of the practice, with numerous commercial troupes being formed, and the practice seems to have been around since at least 1905.

Actors on the Films

The success of phonograph houses in recording for sale the voices of notable singers, including such individual successes as Caruso and Melba, Calve and Nordica, suggests that there is open another opportunity for the actor.

Moving pictures have taken their place among the standard entertainments of the day in which we live and make progress. They are furnishing cheap and wholesome amusement and education for the multitude. Their pictures take audiences on far tours. They show the latest in the world of invention. They amuse and instruct. The next step is the adaption of the idea to the serious drama.

Many of the smaller cities of the country have small chance of seeing players of the Drew and Adams type. Plays such as “Peter Pan” and “My Wife” are a long time in reaching towns of the third and fourth class. Operas seldom if ever get to the smaller cities. The moving picture machine and a pair of clever imitators ought to supply the omission. Let John Drew and his company “My Wife” go before one of the cameras, giving it exactly as presented on the stage at the Olympic. Then, when it is reproduced in Williamsburg or Kokomo, a man or a woman, rehearsed in the lines of the piece, speaking the dialogue as it is acted by the films, will complete the drama for eye and ear.

In the comic operas the tasks would be a bit more difficult, for singing voices would be required; but the expertise, even for this form of the moving picture entertainment, would be trifling as compared with the cast of Marie Cahill’s company or the organization playing “The Merry Widow.”

At this time there is no mechanical reproduction of the best plays, but it will come, as sure as the reproduction of voices for commercial purposes came by way of the phonograph. When Mark Twain had Pudd’n Head Wilson use the thumb print in detective work there was no Bertillon system, but the lines of the thumb are now important in the tracing and recording of criminals.

Source: “Actors on the Films,” St. Louis Times, reprinted Moving Picture World 7 March 1908, 184.

When Actors Make Dramatic Moving Pictures Talk

This article appeared in the Washington Post and, like the article posted yesterday from the New York Times, it documents the practice of "talking pictures" with actors behind the screen. As mentioned yesterday, by 1911, this practice was decidedly on the decline—though it had once been quite popular, peaking sometime in 1908. Its decline was at least partially a function of cost—actors require wages and the shows, in 1908 at least, required rehearsal. The acting company featured in the article below and in the 1910 article from the New York Times, on the contrary, seemed to work more or less as many pianists at the time did—by watching a film once, getting a basic sense of it, and then improvising. The reporter in fact seems a bit surprised by how effective the troupe was: while far from perfect, the synchronization seemed at least passable. In any event, the practice never did make a resurgence. When after 1910 exhibitors invested in live entertainment, they tended to hire vaudevillians or to augment their orchestra.

When Actors Make Dramatic Moving Pictures Talk

The Stage in the little 5-cent moving-picture theater, into which the usual audience had begun to drift slowly, was just big enough for the three chairs necessary for the members of the company. Only a few feet in front of the chairs was the sheet on which the moving-picture machine was now making a great circle of light. The stage behind the curtain was strewn with rubbish.

It was the usual type of moving-picture theater—a gilded box office outside, inside a large room almost bare but for the chairs and the white sheet at the further end. As the piano player began to beat out the preliminary ragtime overture the company appeared, coming through a side door which led out into an arcade.

First came the former vaudeville star, and manager of the company, a rather large woman, who possibly belonged to the Mrs. Leslie Carter type when younger. She explained that she had only to run across the street from her flat, and therefore hadn’t dressed up at all, but had simply thrown on an ulster. A tall, rather attenuated man, who talked with a decidedly English stage accent, and looked as if he had played heavy tragedy parts once, was next to appear. Without saying a word, he climbed up the little steps to the platform behind the curtain, and took his seat with an oh, have I got to do it again expression. Just at the last minute the third member of the company appeared. He was a younger man, rather nattily dressed, and looking like a real actor.

“Guess they’re about ready, boys,” remarked the former vaudeville star, as she climbed up on the platform rather ponderously.

“The Great Drummer.”

Picking her way over the rubbish heaps, she took her seat in the largest of the three wooden chairs ranged behind the curtain. It held her comfortably, but that was all. The former vaudeville star, it was plain, had begun to lose her figure, and also her former agility. You began to see the reason for her present occupation.

Just as she got seated the piano player in front of the sheet gave a final bang as the wind-up of his ragtime piece, and started some soft, slow music. The machine at the other end of the hall began to sputter and the light to flicker fitfully on the sheet, so you knew the show was about to commence.

“The Gallant Drummer” suddenly stared at you from the curtain and you heard the audience on the other side give a gurgle of delight.

“Remember it, I hope, boys,” said the former vaudeville star, cheerfully, getting up for a second to throw off her ulster. “My! but it’s hot back here.”

There was no doubt that it was hot. In the gloom you could just discern the former tragedian mopping his face with his handkerchief. All three had their eyes fixed intently on the curtain in front, waiting for their cues. All three had something of a strained look as they waited. Evidently their occupation was not altogether easy.

Bang! went the ragtime man in front, and the curtain, swaying slowly in a gentle breeze, suddenly took on animation. It was a hotel office. A clerk stood behind the desk. Bellboys appeared and disappeared. The door opened and guests began to arrive from the bus.

“A room and a bath, please. I don’t want to go above the third story.”

You jumped. It was the man right beside you sitting there in the dim light that came through the curtain, the former tragedian, who had spoken. All the time his eyes closely followed the action of the arriving guest whose lips you noticed moving.

“Guess this will fix you up all right, Front!”

The smaller man sitting next to the former vaudeville star was doing the talking for the hotel clerk, speaking in a loud voice and distinctly so that his words would issue out beyond the curtain as if coming from the pictures the audience was watching. Gazing at these pictures, sitting there in the dark, you noted the door of the hotel office open again. This time a woman rushed in breathlessly, carrying a hat and a bag.

“I want a bedroom and sitting room, and please see that I get my trunk at once. And oh, by the way, where’s the mail? I’m expecting a letter, a very important letter.”

It was the former vaudeville star who rattled this off as easily as if she had been taking the part in a real comedy with a Broadway audience hanging on her words across the footlights. Now they were all talking. Other women came in and talked to the hotel clerk. Some of them were young girls and others older. The woman who had been on the real stage never faltered, taking part after part as they appeared and changing her voice to suit the different ages, now raising it to a high girlish pitch, now imitating the quavering tones of a querulous old woman.

It was evident that she had done some hard training for this. The men, too, did the same, although their work did not seem quite as hard. Both of them sat in their chairs, rigidly erect and alert, the strain showing on their faces. The former actress took it more easily, leaning back in her chair, but always with her eyes glued to the curtain, where the pictures flickered dreadfully at times.

For five minutes the hotel scene went on, while beads of perspiration rolled down the faces of the members of the company speaking for the picture. Then there was a final sputter and the curtain was blank again. Somewhere beside you in the dark you heard a sigh expressive of relief.

“Gosh, but that was a bit stiff!” some one murmured. Turning around you saw it was one of the male members of the company. “It’s always tough when there are so many characters. Keeps you on the jump. I think I get a rest in the next one.”

Again the curtain had become animated. This time it was a railroad station.

The drummer had come to say good-by to the girl of the theatrical company he had met in the hotel. The head of the talking picture company behind the sheet, she of the portly frame and the interesting past, all of a sudden began to talk again.

The girl in the picture was broke, it appeared, the company disbanded, and she hadn’t the fare home. You saw the drummer appear on the platform and his lips begin to move, and that was the signal for the tragedian to talk. Pretty soon the former actress and the former tragedian were shooting out rapid-fire sentences at the curtain.

It Is Profitable.

“I’m awfully sorry you’re going home.”

“Are you really? Now isn’t that sweet of you. Do you know I’ve lost my purse?”

“Can’t I lend you some money?”

And so it went. From the front came the strange sounds made by a moving picture audience as it follows the story of the film. Occasionally one of the company behind the sheet got off something funny. In the strange filtered light behind the sheet it sounded rather queer when the laugh would come back, showing that the audience had caught the joke just as if the picture had said it. At times the words were considerably behind the actions of the figures on the sheet, but even then it seemed near enough the reality to entertain the crowd.

“When the last scene was over the two men jumped up and hurried out. Their woman partner took it more leisurely.

“Like it?” she said, as she put on her ulster. “Talking pictures, we call it. No it’s not altogether new. I’ve been doing it for several years in Pennsylvania, and there are a few others in New York, I believe.

“Seems quite a change from Broadway, and the real thing, but I’m making money, and for the first time in my life have something in the bank. What’s more, I’m actually keeping house right across the street. You see there’s an hour between our acts, and then I just run home.

“I’m sorry we haven’t a green room to receive company in,” she went on with a laugh. “I think talking pictures are going to be more popular, for we’re doing very well.

“I got the idea first in New York, and then I went to Pennsylvania and got together my company and went from place to place for a while. Most of my friends, of course, don’t know what I’m doing.

“How do we do it? Well, it seems hard, but really it isn’t so hard as it looks.

“We have rehearsals. That is, we see the pictures just once before the show and then I assign the parts. Then we make up what we are going to say. That picture you just saw we never had seen before today.

“I’ve made a study of the lip language and I can tell what the people in the picture are saying, for you know the people say something so that their lips will move right in the pictures. That gives us our cue.

“At first I started in to write out the parts, but that was too difficult. And there wasn’t time to memorize them properly. I found it was better just to see the pictures and make up things to go with them as you go along. I take all the women’s parts and sometimes they keep me pretty busy. It beats a phonograph, anyway. Of course, Mr. Edison says that he will soon make the pictures talk, but I doubt it.

“We get a percentage of the receipts of the house. You’ve got to be quick, but the practice you fine that you can easily think of something that will go with the part provided you’ve seen the picture once before and know a little bit of what is coming.”

The piano player out in front had begun another ragtime piece as a prelude to another set of pictures, only these were not going to talk.

“Guess I’ll run across the street to my flat,” remarked the former vaudeville favorite. “You might say talking pictures make you tired.”

Source: “When Actors Make Dramatic Moving Pictures Talk,” Washington Post 26 March 1911, MS6.

Making Plays While You Wait

Some things apparently never change. Here is a New York Times' article from 1910 purporting to stumble on the "talking picture" (actors behind the screen) as though it were something rather new but just in time to announce its demise. By 1910, the talking picture craze had passed, as its novelty wore off and its economics proved unviable over the long term; the practice was now confined, as the article notes, to the cheaper theaters (that had not always been the case, a fact the article neglects to mention).

Nevertheless, the article mentions a number of interesting details about the practice, including that the cast numbered two (a male and a female), that these talking pictures apparently remained very popular (the theater is described as "overcrowded"), and that, like cinema musicians of the time, the actors had little time for rehearsal (this differs from earlier attempts at such talking pictures, where troupes were carefully rehearsed for a particular set of pictures and they were then sent from theater to theater on a circuit).

Today's post initiates an eight-part series on the practice of producing talking pictures by placing actors behind the screen.

Making Plays While You Wait

Some Odd Experiences of the Audible Illustrator.

Everyone is familiar with the moving picture, the director, the machine and the actor, but few seem to know the audible illustrator. That unseen voice belongs to one of he cleverest of entertainers, and gives an example of what wit combined with concentration really means. A man and woman usually work together in a picture, the man playing, of course, all the male roles, and the woman playing everything from a six-months-old baby to a decrepit old woman.

This can be done only by voice imagination, for to time the voice to the action is little opportunity for imitation. In the talking picture, situations suggest dialogue, while the written story would suggest the situation.

The mind reversing has the peculiar effect of entertainment. It never antagonizes the listener. Whatever the situation presented to him may be, he accepts the dialogue as natural and logical. It is not generally conceded, however, as an improvement to the story on the screen to explain it by dialogue, but whether or not this be true is a matter that will solve itself according to the demand.

The man who directs the action of a moving picture may be an artist in his line, but he has time to rehearse his art, time to drill his actors, select his locations, costumes, and props. Each individual actor is rehearsed in his scene and has his one character to portray, but the man who vivifies the screen is nothing more or less than a human phonograph, attached to a piece of canvas, colored by the camera.

The talking picture man may be an inferior actor, a poor photographer, and an uninteresting conversationalist, but when placed behind the screen, if he succeeds in an acceptable dialogue, he may well be labeled the artist of spontaneity. The talking picture has found favor only in the cheaper houses, and whether or not it will ever reach a high standard of entertainment, depends more upon the picture than the artist who gives audible life to it.

The applicant for moving picture dialogue is at a disadvantage from the start. The picture is run off only once and must be lucid in the extreme for him to be courageous enough to invent the probable lines of the actors.

His try out, or first performance, is usually his best one for him, fortunately, as from this he secures his engagement. As he has from four to six performances a day, he is liable to become careless with his characters, varying their language to suit his mood.

One night the picture talker was interpreting the joke of an inebriate who tried to move to pity the heart of a shrewish wife, who had turned him out of the apartment, by writing all over the wall of the hall that he had gone to commit suicide. He usually shambled down the stairs, weeping and begging for pity, but one night the temporary author endowed his character with Shakespeare, and made a rollicking Falstaff out of him.

This is no way seemed to fit the situation, but it suited the mood of the monologist. The policeman on deck, discovering the clothing of the would-be suicide, was sometimes a weak-voiced Cockney and at others a stentorian-toned Irishman. The companion that led the inebriate into the saloon was sometimes a hale, hearty good fellow in the afternoon and a surly dog in the evening, but whatever he was he talked incessantly on the screen with two of his companions—each companion having a voice quite unlike the other, but gauged in volume and temperament by the man who interpreted the picture.

To read the scenario of a story and act in it under the author’s direction in, for example, the woods, fields, and streets of a town in New Jersey bears not the slightest resemblance to sitting in the audience on Third Avenue in the overheated, overcrowded house and seeing one’s self on the screen repeating lines that in his wildest imagination, never entered the actor’s head. Knowing the company at the time of rehearsing and playing the picture and being familiar with their separate tones of voice, makes the rapid dialogue in a strange voice come to one’s ears in the nature of a shock.

Upon several occasions circumstances have forced men and women of ability to the position of “dialogue” behind the moving picture screen, and it was not so much of a surprise to the audience as to the manager of the house to listen to a plucky little woman give a dialogue between a French lady and an Irish laundress in a dialect that was nothing short of unmistakable art.

A young man whose great ambition was excelled only by his sense of humor and run of hard luck was told that he might prepare to talk for a Roman picture that afternoon, and as there was no time for running off the picture previous to the performance they gave him a short synopsis. After the ordeal was over he walked out of the narrow hallway and met a friend on the street.

“How did you get along, Jim?” asked the friend.

“Oh, all right, I guess,” he replied rather dubiously. “I had no trouble with the Roman lovers and the angry father, but when they flashed Nero and the burning of Rome on the screen I found it rather difficult to make a noise like a mob.”

The extemporaneous speaker may be great in his line. He may have his subject well in mind and speech, the leading townsman on one side of him, a pitcher of water on the other, and audience hanging breathless on his sliver tones, but the extemporaneous playwright has nothing around, above, or beside him but his ready wit timed to electric action, without a pause for applause or second thought, or a drink of water in the case of choking.

Source: “Making Plays While You Wait,” New York Times 30 January 1910, SM6.

Nursery Favorites (1913)

Here is a YouTube copy of "Nursery Favorites," a Kinetophone film released in 1913. You can see that the aesthetic very much follows that of recorded theater. This particular film lacks a strong narrative thread and is structured instead as a series of thematically related songs. It would have been right at home on a vaudeville show, which was in fact the primary exhibition venue for the Kinetophone.

Kinetophone and Opera

This is an excerpt from a short front page article in the New York Times on Edison's work improving the submarine. Edison in fact seemed more interested in talking about the state of his Kinetophone, and the possibility of bringing opera to the masses, than improvements in submarine technology. This article comes at a point, November 1914, where the novelty of the device had worn off. In addition, the beginning of the First World War had cut international demand for the device. Edison's statement here suggests that he was thinking of marketing the Kinetophone to moving picture theaters. (The Kinetophone had previously been controlled by vaudeville interests.) Edison's shift in strategy was never able to bear fruit: in December, the Edison plant would burn down and the company would decide not to rebuild the Kinetophone facilities.

The Wizard is still devoting attention to the new “talking movies,” which he calls the kinetophone, and he indicated today that something new in this line would soon be forthcoming.

“I told the people when the kinetophone was first put on the market that sooner or later they would be able to see and hear opera by the best artists for a nickel,” he said. “The workingman has popularized the ‘movie,’ and now we are going to give the poor man and his family something more for a nickel.”

Source: “Edison Submarine Coming,” New York Times 9 November 1914, 1.

Edison, Motion Pictures and Opera

This is an excerpt of a short article covering the 1913 Motion Picture Exhibitors' League of America convention in New York. The end of the article is taken up by a short interview with Thomas Edison on the future of moving pictures, especially its potential for recording "perfect opera" for the masses, a theme Edison returns to again and again.

Thomas A. Edison last night attended the International Moving Picture Exposition in the Grand Central Palace. Mrs. Edison accompanied him. Mr. Edison, to a reporter of The New York Times, said:

“The educational value of the moving picture is, and will be, enormous. Both the speaking and moving picture will be improved and developed, but it takes time. Through these mediums the great masses of the people can have the advantages of the rich man. There has already been some improvement, and this will increase.

“What will be the future of the moving picture?” Mr. Edison was asked.

“Perfect opera,” answered Mr. Edison. “All delusions will be perfect and probably the actual color will be produced.”

“Will this be your work?”

“Unless some one gets ahead of me.”

“Will the talking pictures displace the silent drama?” was then asked.

“No; both the speaking and silent moving pictures will continue to exist. Both will be improved. Both as they stand are just samples. Now we will go on to perfection. Both have been shown just to exhibit the possibilities.”

“Picture Men At Odds,” New York Times 12 July 1913, 3.