SEMIBEGUN 011: VITAPHONE - SOUND FILM AT 33 1/3 RPM

 

Air Date: November 23, 2022

Short musical variety acts comprised the bulk of the earliest sound films produced with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. Introduced in 1926, these recordings of short vaudeville-style acts and operatic scenes known as the "Vitaphone Varieties" preceded the feature. Warner Bros. produced over 1000 of these shorts (of those less than 250 are restored or restorable). As the first widely adopted synchronized sound and image format, Vitaphone effectively solved the synchronisation problem between sound and moving image, which required the 16-inch discs be played at the now standard 33 1/3 rpm. The system was not the first solution nor was it the best and far more forgiving sound-on-film formats would completely replace sound-on-disc only a few years later. Hear some of the earliest musical acts committed to film (sans film) on this episode dedicated to the short lived Vitaphone!

TRACKS

  1. “The Voice from the Screen,” Vitaphone demonstration by Edward B. Craft, executive vice president at Bell Laboratories (1926)

  2. “The Night Court” with William Demarest, dir. Bryan Fox (1927); #2138

  3. The Ingenues in “The Band Beautiful” (1928); #2573

  4. The Revelers perform “No Foolin’” (1927); #483

  5. “The Voice from the Screen,” Vitaphone demonstration featuring vaudeville duo Witt & Berg performing "Hello, Aloha (How Are You?)" and “I Don't Mind Being All Alone (When I'm All Alone with You)” (1926)

  6. The Original Hillbillies with Al Hopkins, The North Carolina Jazz Band performing songs including “Wasn't She a Dandy” (1928); #715 [incomplete]

  7. Florence Brady in "A Cycle of Songs" (1928); #2699

  8. Beniamino Gigli and Marion Talley performing a duet from Act I of “Lucia Di Lammermoor” by Donizetti (1927)

  9. The Howard Brothers "Between Acts at the Opera” (1926); #349

  10. Jack White and his Montrealers (1929); #791

  11. Roy Smeck the Wizard of the String in "His Pastimes" (1926); 302

  12. Will Hays Opening Address (1926); #192

  13. Anna Case in "La Fiesta” (1926); #294

  14. Elsie Janis in "Behind the Lines” assisted by Men's Chorus of the 107th Regiment; #339