Tweet King of the Kongo

[silentfilm]

Eric Grayson has a mute print of the first sound serial King of the Kongo (1929). Ron Hutchinson of the Vitaphone Project has found several of the sound disks for this serial. Eric had to do some editing to get the soundtrack to sync up.



Here's Eric's description:
This rare serial is today notable for being the first sound serial, and being an early surviving performance from Boris Karloff. Unfortunately, the sound disks don't survive for most of the film, and the film prints have long been silent. Here is the first dialog scene from Chapter 5, with Jacqueline Logan, Walter Miller, and Lafe McKee (Sr.) This is the first time this has been seen with the dialog intact since 1929! Thanks to Ron Hutchinson at The Vitaphone Project for making the disks available. Want more of this kind of stuff? Ask your cable provider to pick up Dr. Film: http://www.drfilm.net

Thanks for showing this. The Vitaphone Project are doing wonderful things. Ron and Co have opened up a lost world of film and entertainment treasures with their great work.

Cool!
Capitolfest showed a reel of this- it was a WTF experience, even before the giant lizards came on screen.

I posted this on Facebook a while back, but someone suggested that I post it here.

This is the first dialogue scene in Episode 5, Reel 1 of King of the Kongo (1929), the first sound serial.

Picture from my rare 16mm print. Audio from Ron Hutchinson's disk collection. This is the first time this film has been presented with both sound and picture since 1929!

Who says that only archives do restorations? More on this coming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4CkV0Hr ... ideo_title

Eric

Thanks. I'm not on The Facebook.

With some of these early talkies with missing discs, I wonder if a dedicated team with an original script and/or some good lip readers couldn't fill in some of the dialog. Then get voice actors to dub in some lines.

Here's the second talking scene in Chapter 5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D6f7oQpuJo

I now have finished all of Chapter 5 with music and effects. At some point, I'll do the last half of Chapter 6, and then we'll have exhausted all of the discs in Ron Hutchinson's collection.

There are 10 chapters, a total of 21 reels (10 min. or so each), and 3 exist in easily found form...

We're talking about showing the complete chapter at Cinefest next year if they do a video night again...

Eric

Just in:

Chapter 5 will have its world premiere at Cinefest next year.

With some of these early talkies with missing discs, I wonder if a dedicated team with an original script and/or some good lip readers couldn't fill in some of the dialog. Then get voice actors to dub in some lines.

Don't even think of it. Past efforts, as you suggest, I have seen are horrible in the sound department.

Dubbing any film Or TV show into English IMO leaves a less than satisfying experience. For some reason English dubs just don't ever seem to work. On the other hand this is something Italians do very well. They are very good at translating foreign films and shows into Italian. I speak the language fluently along with several dialects and many times I can't tell that a film has been dubbed from another language. Perhaps there should be an Italian version.

Perhaps there should be an Italian version.
I have many films in Italian in my collection but mostly ethnic originals. Our local council library has many going back to the 1940s. I follow them quite well but don't actually speak the language. Went to the right schools where many of the pupils were immigrant Italians in the 1950s-60s.

The World Premiere of Chapter 5 of Kongo will be at Cinefest in March! I'm still working on Chapter 6, r2. Ron is holding out some hope that another collector will come forward with more discs, but it hasn't happened yet. More news when I have it!

Eric