Silent Movies In The 1920's

When one thinks of silent films most likely that person thinks about is Charlie Chaplin. According to Biography.com, “Charlie Chaplin’s

Movies were becoming one of the biggest businesses during the 1920s and most people would spend their leisure time going to the theatre to watch the silent films. They were becoming huge in the popular culture and Hollywood was the place to be. Roughly by 1922, 40 million people a year in attendance over the entire country for the movie theatres and in 1930 over 100 million people would attend the movies every year. By 1927, the movie industry became the fourth largest industry in the country. “The Great Train Robbery” which was released in 1903 was the beginning of the film industry and would eventually change everything. “Jazz Singer” was the first movie that had synchronized sounds throughout the entire film. The popular genres during this decade were western,

The 1920's also saw the growth of the motion picture industry. It was highly influential and helped shape popular culture by promoting the diffusion of common values and attitudes nationwide. Soon movie studios began building elaborate movie palaces in cities, and by 1930, the movie attendance grew to about 115 million. Movies performed many purposes. It created national trends in clothing and hairstyles and even served as a form of sex education.

in the twenties when a man by the name of Charlie Chaplain who was known for his "tramp" look, dominated the silent movie business. He was considered one of the most talented actors of the 20’s. Also during the 20’s radio was the popular for of listening to music and listening to the news. In the later 1920’s the television was created which now aloud people to see a picture in their home for entertainment, but the television did not surpass the radio entertainment wise, because most people were unable to afford it.

This further demonstrates how the affluence of that period enabled people to support this industry and help its enormous growth. It was during the roaring 20s that the first real celebrities began to appear, with the ever-increasing role of cinema having a huge role to play. Similarly their fame contributed to the growing status of Hollywood and the American film industry. (Source J). Charlie Chaplin is one example of an actor that gained worldwide recognition in the twenties; he was particularly famous for his ‘highly visual style of acting’ (Soucre J). The 1920s was often referred to as “The Golden Age of Hollywood” (Source G) emphasizing how this period represents the era of greatest output in the United States movie market [an average of 800 films were produced annually]. ‘The cinema came of age in the 1920s and Hollywood confirmed its position as the “dream factory” of the English- speaking world. It was there that fame and fortune could be found.’ (Source J) This also highlights the growing image of Hollywood ‘throughout the roaring 20s, which started to represent wealth and achievement. ‘The establishment of the Academy Awards showed the maturing cinema as an industry confident of its own technical and artistic standards.’ (Source J) This further shows how there were many other expansions and transformations from this industry that occurred during this period. Artists, directors and other personalities of the film making industry received acknowledgement and recognition of their work in this industry. ‘The awards soon acquired international status’ (Source J) showing how Hollywood’s film industry developed into a global sensation that was supported by people all over

One thing that movie entertainment fulfilled was attracting people to the big screen. For example, I can introduce this quote: “In just eight years, from 1922 to 1930, weekly U.S. movie attendance soared from about forty percent to over ninety percent of the population” (americainclass). This shows how in just eight years movie popularity spiked, where as about 40 million Americans went to motion picture theatres on a weekly basis. As the brink of silent films came to society and the evolution of the industry had risen, going to the movie theatre became a weekly event. This transition in entertainment, from stand-up comedy/plays to movies, was remarkable. The huge trend and liking for going to the movies impacted America in the way it had reshaped entertainment. Movie companies like Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros made a lot of money and success. The industry became very rich. Going to the movie theatre in the 20s was classy, fashionable, and it became a

Radio spread rapidly, bringing news, sport, light entertainment and advertising into every home. It was realised that radio could be a useful political tool too. The 1920s was also the golden age of silent cinema, with the emergence of Hollywood as the ‘dream factory’ and a new obsession with films stars as celebrities.

All the movies were silent until The Jazz Singer came out in 1927. The next year the first animated sound film produced by Walt Disney came out. It was Steamboat Willie which introduced Mickey Mouse. Other movies in the 1920's were The Gold Rush, The Wizard of Oz, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Phantom of the Opera. About three-quarters of Americans went to the movie theaters every week to go see those movies and others.

Silent films first appeared around the 1890s in America. 1 They are films that were without synchronised sound and especially no spoken dialogue. Music was recognised as an important part of film/moving images from the beginning, as it contributed to the atmosphere of the films and allowed the audience to understand and feel the emotions being portrayed. 2 When music was first being combined with moving image pianos, organs and phonographs were the first instruments used to provide the music, and as the popularity of film grew over the years, some of the larger theatres began using orchestras to accompany the film. 3

An example of a talkie is the film, “Bright Eyes.” In 1934, Shirley Temple starred in the film as a young girl who lost her father to a plane crash. The film is a comedy, yet audiences were able to relate to the young girl as she finds her way through custody battles and more (Document 3). This was also the beginning of movie theaters. Movie theaters began to take the streets between 1900-1920, where people would pay between five to seven cents to watch around an hour and a half film (Document 1). There were a variety of ways to watch films, such as drive-in movie theaters. In drive-in movie theaters, the viewer would drive into a lot with a big screen and watch the film from their car. However, these were very popular in the 1950’s as apposed to the roaring twenties (Document 6). By 1920, such men had been replaced by teams of specialists. Another significant change was the relocation of the industry from the east coast of the United States to Hollywood, a suburb of Los Angeles in southern California. A third important trend was the emergence of several film studios that came to dominate production and distribution during the interwar era. By 1930, the structures and formulae of modern commercial motion pictures had been

traveling circus presentations. They were marveled at, yes, but their use as a form of entertainment was limited and not considered, until on April 14, 1894 in New York City, the Holland brothers showed short films to the public in their arcade, using two rows of kinetoscopes. This started a country-wide fad, and the idea of showing movies gained speed. The film industry began to grow, until the 1920's, when it truly became an industry and movie theaters showing double-features had become common to most towns. This is when Hollywood studios began gaining ground as the place to be for actors, directors, writers, and anyone who was anyone in the film world. In the minds of the average American, Hollywood conjured up images of glamour and sophistication, of movie stars and lazily drifting smoke and reels of film flickering in a dark room. Hollywood; another world in of itself.

People had very little money, but many people still went to the movies. 90,000,000 Americans went to a movie weekly, which is about three times the amount that went in the 1920s (“Good” 1). From 1930 to 1948, Hollywood was in its Golden Age. More than that, however, the color and sound industry of movies was becoming more advanced than ever before (Dirks part 1). Some very popular movies today are actually from the 1930s, such as The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, and

In 1927 the first ‘talkie’, a film with synchronized dialogue, was introduced to the public and was met with stunning success. Even with many film studios did not believe the idea would ever catch on, the public loved talkies and wanted more. As such, talkies began to sweep the nation; revitalizing the entire film industry and changing the course of all film production and presentation. But talkies also caused some surprising destruction to the career of many actors who could not make the transition from silent films into dialogue, all the while lifting some to new heights of their careers.

How were movies of the 1920s? Films of the 1920s blossomed expanding upon the foundations of films from the earlier years most people are not aware that the greatest films occurred in 1920s and 1930s in these years they released about 800 films. During this time there were happy, sad, horror, and comedy movies. During the 1927s the movies faced a huge change.

The first film that showed early signs of a rise in the quality of technology was the Western “The Great Train Robbery.” When this film first came out the audience were so amazed at the fact that they could watch something on a TV or at the cinema. Although this film was very good for the 1900s it still lacked some key features that make films much easier to understand such as dialogue, sound and camera shots. The one feature of a film that developed the quickest over the period of time was sound. Sound was introduced in October 1927 in the film “The Jazz singer”, which had three song numbers and a few lines of spoken dialogue. Apart from these few songs and words, the rest of the movie was silent, but the audience still thought that it was amazing that words had been spoken in the film, they used to call it “the movie that talked”.