The Silents and the Early Talkies
Motion
pictures grew from a nickel sideshow at the turn of the last century into
the fifth-ranking
industry by the 1920s. Post World War I America went movie hero crazy over
new screen idols
Clara Bow, Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin, and Rudolph Valentino.
By the late 1920s, silent films became a new art form, but they were soon
displaced
by talking pictures when Al Jolson sang "Mammy" in "The Jazz Singer" in October,
1927.
Silents
were dead. Sound reigned as the new king of the movies.
Some silent stars survived into the sound era, while others fell by the silent
wayside
as audiences wanted to hear tap-dancing, machine-gun bullets, and "I love
you"
from the lips of the silver screen's most beautiful and romantic couples such
as
Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky and Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor.
Now,
if ladies will please remove their hats,
let's take a nostalgic tour of the movies by way
of the movie magazines
reporting on the silent films
and the early talkies.
ENTER