Wednesday, March 4, 2009

The beginning of talking pictures

I just read Jonas Nordin's (All Talking! All Singing! All Dancing!) wonderful post about the first attempts to synchronize moving pictures with sound. (And no, The Jazz Singer from 1927 was not the first time.)

Glorious article, however: link

But I had to snatch the stand-up comedy with Eddie Cantor from 1923. How wonderfully not funny it is!


8 comments:

Unknown said...

Yes, he definitely should have stuck to singing. Although, even singing... Dumb girls know how to make love was pretty offensive to a girl who takes a lot of pride in her braininess :)

I have a record of his with the song "Now's the time to fall in love" and its one of my favorite songs..

Lolita of the Classics said...

Kate Gabrielle:
Haha, that's true!
Hmm... I can't seem to find that song. Maybe it's not one of his more famous ones? Got curious on hearing it!

Nik said...

Haha, after I read Jonas' post I too was inspired to write something related to that post!

Silents vs. Talkies is such an interesting film subject.

I am loving your blog Lolita. Especially the picture of that gorgeous woman on the title page, with the ruby red lips and flapper bob, holding that glass of red wine! It is Fe-rosh! :) So vintage.

Lolita of the Classics said...

Nik:
Thank you, I'm glad you like it! Haha, ferosh? That's something new, never heard anyone using that word about me before... :)

Elizabeth said...

Poor Eddie Cantor! I'll stand up for him and say that I thought it was funny (though I should add, I have a really old fashioned sense of humor and I think all vaudeville is funny!)

Unknown said...

I have a LP to CD converter, so the song was actually from a really old record, and I don't know if it is available online. SOOO... I just spent like 20 minutes trying to figure out how to upload it online and yay! I figured it out :)
Here is the link to the mp3: you can either right click and save it, or if you click on the link it should play in quicktime.. hope you like it!
http://kategabrielle.com/nowsthetimetofallinlove.mp3

Lolita of the Classics said...

Elizabeth:
We'll leave it there! Haha.

Kate Gabrielle:
You're wonderful! Lovely song, have saved it to my computer! Do you know when it was recorded?
"Love may not be nutricious, but, boy, it's delicious! Now's the time to fall in loooove!"

Unknown said...

The record says it was done in 1931, which makes sense because it's very much a depression era song. Glad you like it :) And I'm glad i figured out how to put it on the internet-- that will come in handy when I want to do this again!

Thanks for the award, too! I love your blog SO much, I'm honored that you like mine, too :)