Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: The Uncertainty of Sound

PART 1: A NEW ERA IN ELECTRICAL ENTERTAINMENT
2 Electric Affinities
3 Virtual Broadway, Virtual Orchestra: De Forest and Vitaphone
4 Fox-Case, Movietone, and the Talking Newsreel
5 Enticing the Audience: Warner Bros. and Vitaphone
6 Battle of the Giants: ERPI and RCA Consolidate Sound
7 The Big Hedge: Hollywood's Defensive Strategies
8 Boom to Bust
9 Labor Troubles
10 Inaudible Technology
11 Exhibition: Talkies Change the Bijou

PART 2: THREE SEASONS: THE FILMS OF 1928-1931
12 The New Entertainment Vitamin: 1928-1929
13 Taming the Talkies: 1929-1930
14 The Well-Tempered Sound Track: 1930-1931
15 The Sound of Custard: Shorts, Travelogues, and Animated Cartoons
16 Outside the Mainstream
17 Foreign Affairs

PART 3: HEARING THE AUDIENCE
18 The Voice Squad
19 Constructive Criticism: The Fans' Perspective
20 Buying Broadway: THE JAZZ SINGER's Reception
21 "The Great Ninety Per Cent"

Appendix 1: Selected Box Office Grosses, 1928-1931
Appendix 2: Academy Awards Related to Sound, 1927-1931
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Picture Sources
General Index
Index of Films

About the Author

Donald Crafton is Chair of the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Before Mickey: The Animated Film, 1898-1928 (1993) and Emile Cohl, Caricature, and Film (1990).

Reviews

"[A] masterful delineation of the cultural-intellectual climate into which the sound film was inserted. . . . Crafton's analysis contributes not just to film history but to cultural studies more generally with its concern with the way ordinary consumers make use of their culture. . . . "The Talkies is quite simply a wonderful book. It takes its place among the very top works of American film history."--Dana Polan, "Film Quarterly