The silent/talkie transition as an extinction event

[alistairw]

I have always been intrigued by inter-discipline parallells and in particular by the one posited above. In palaeontology terms an extinction event is basically defined by

(1)the immediate or near immediate disappearance of numerous dominant species

(2)the superficial survival of other dominant species but against a backdrop of steady, inevitable decline

(3)the ultimate prevalence of lesser, more versatile species and totally new ones.

Substituting, of course, species for silent stars I think the analogy holds up fairly well. Admittedly, though, any hypothesis can be moulded to fit the definitions so what examples can be given to refute it? Apart from the one clear (and to me, I'm afraid, inexplicable) exception of Garbo which other major silent stars unarguably enjoyed as good as or even better a decade in the 30s than they did in the silents?

[daveboz]

I have always been intrigued by inter-discipline parallells and in particular by the one posited above. In palaeontology terms an extinction event is basically defined by

(1)the immediate or near immediate disappearance of numerous dominant species

(2)the superficial survival of other dominant species but against a backdrop of steady, inevitable decline

(3)the ultimate prevalence of lesser, more versatile species and totally new ones.

Substituting, of course, species for silent stars I think the analogy holds up fairly well. Admittedly, though, any hypothesis can be moulded to fit the definitions so what examples can be given to refute it? Apart from the one clear (and to me, I'm afraid, inexplicable) exception of Garbo which other major silent stars unarguably enjoyed as good as or even better a decade in the 30s than they did in the silents?

================

Ronald Colman. (It's his birthday!)

[Harold Aherne]

Apart from the one clear (and to me, I'm afraid, inexplicable) exception of Garbo which other major silent stars unarguably enjoyed as good as or even better a decade in the 30s than they did in the silents?

Mary Astor, Dolores del Rio, William Powell, Charles Farrell, Ronald Colman, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Norma Shearer, Richard Dix, Jack Holt, Warner Baxter, Will Rogers, Richard Arlen, Janet Gaynor, Marion Davies, Victor McLaglen, Edmund Lowe, William Boyd to name just a few.

Some that were near-stars in silents and continued upward in talkies: John Boles, Joan Crawford, Fay Wray, Gary Cooper, Lupe Velez, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Mary Brian and Marian Nixon were perhaps never front-rank stars yet they continued in sound films without any drastic changes. Constance Bennett took a few years' hiatus in the late 20s and returned to be quite popular.

The number is even larger when one considers the European stars who continued to have loyal followings or who returned to Europe and picked up nearly where they left off: Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch, Pola Negri, Conrad Veidt, Emil Jannings, &c &c.

-HA

[Changsham]

Reminds me of the Chinese proverb "if the old won't go away then the new won't come". Many established silent star careers had already peaked when talkies became established. Some maintained their relavence, others blossomed and eventualy all faded away. New generations come along and the world keeps changing.

[entredeuxguerres]

Apart from the one clear (and to me, I'm afraid, inexplicable) exception of Garbo which other major silent stars unarguably enjoyed as good as or even better a decade in the 30s than they did in the silents?

Matter of taste & opinion, of course, but personally I don't think her talkies (excepting Anna Christie) matched her silents. But there were countless others, as Harold noted, I much prefer in talkies, not only because they possessed appealing or distinctive voices, but because a few years added maturity, as in the cases of Astor & Powell, allowed their personalities to blossom.

(One of these duplicate posts should suffer an extinction event.)

[David Denton]

I'm not altogether sure how 'major' you want them, but for starters: Gary Cooper, Richard Dix, George Arliss, Buck Jones, Clive Brook, William Boyd, William Powell (villain in silents, almost immediately star lead in sound), Warner Oland, Laurel and Hardy, the Barrymores, Victor McLaglen, Edmund Lowe. I'm having a harder time with the ladies, but maybe: Betty Compson, Bebe Daniels, Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, Norma Shearer.

[entredeuxguerres]

I'm having a harder time with the ladies, but maybe: Betty Compson, Bebe Daniels, Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, Norma Shearer.

Excellent list. And DID the cads at Paramount rue their refusal to extend Bebe the (mere) courtesy of a sound test--after she'd made dozens of highly successful silents for them! With the notable exception of Show People, I much prefer Marion's talkies to her silents; to me, Marianne alone eclipsed all her silents! (Save S. P. I mean.)

[drednm]

Constance Bennett, Marie Dressler, Richard Barthelmess

[alistairw]

Great lists which include a number of others on the duplicate thread which I tried to delete but couldn't. Obviously a smartphone is only as smart as its user.

As someone noted the concept of major star is subjective and some of the names might better belong to the lesser but versatile category. On the whole though I think you have blown the theory apart. I guess the dinosaurs wish they had been as adaptable.

[drednm]

Revived by the talkies and/or propelled toward stardom, if only for a while: Betty Compson, Bessie Love, Dorothy Mackaill, Alice White, Bebe Daniels, Ben Lyon, Jean Arthur, Carole Lombard, Gary Cooper, George Bancroft, Dolores Costello, Lawrence Gray, Myrna Loy, Mary Brian, Anita Page, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Evelyn Brent, Rod La Rocque, Eleanor Boardman, Laura La Plante, Ricardo Cortez, Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Thomas Meighan, Johnny Mack Brown, Wallace Beery, Billie Dove.

Arguably, others who started in silents but were not "stars": Ruth Chatterton, Barbara Stanwyck, Clifton Webb, Loretta Young, Lew Ayres, Alice Brady, Clark Gable, Joel McCrea, Edward G. Robinson, W.C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Mickey Rooney, Charles Laughton, Ray Milland, May Robson, William Boyd, John Wayne, etc.

[bobfells]

I agree that the theory doesn't hold up to scrutiny on the silent/talkie transition, but you may have better luck trying it with the radio/television transition. Quite a number of popular radio stars were unable to successfully transition to TV: Fred Allen, Fibber McGee & Molly, Eddie Cantor, Bing Crosby, to name perhaps the most prominent. I don't say that they didn't try but they were unable to replicate on TV the weekly high ratings they enjoyed for years on radio. Most continued to work in television but as guests on other people's shows or in an occasional special, Bing Crosby's annual Christmas show being a good example.

[Gloria Rampage]

Laurel and Hardy.

[Mike Gebert]

There are other threads here on this subject which have spelled out who made it and who didn't. (Like this one.)

My personal view is, there are really two events you have to look at:

1) Sound and the consolidation of the industry: the first couple of years of sound not only were a period of stars having to change their persona to work in sound, but also a period when studios consolidated under new financial forces mostly from Wall Street bankers who funded the equipping of theaters and studios for sound. So even a genuine star who wasn't aligned with the right studio could find themselves out in the cold; I think a lot of those who did make it were those in the right place (e.g., you did well if you were under contract to Warners or MGM and well-liked, less so if you were working for independents). A lot of stars hung it up in '28-29 (or fell precipitously into supporting parts).

2) 1934. What's so special about 1934? It seems like not only a lot of stars but a lot of directors stopped working around this time. I think what happened was, a lot of them had expensive 1930s contracts which expired around then, and in the meantime they had had time to create new talkie personalities who worked more and more cheaply. So a Richard Barthelmess, with his expensive First National contract, is out, and a cheaper James Cagney, making six movies a year for less, is in. (And an analogous situation for directors, lots of new kids like George Cukor or Mervyn Le Roy squeezing the old guard out.) I think a lot of the older stars, too— as in stars earlier, even if they weren't that much older— simply decided that they'd proved themselves in sound by then, but didn't really enjoy it any more, so you have the likes of Pickford and Colleen Moore retiring. So you have a lot of silent stars still working in, say, 1931, far fewer of them still working regularly in 1936.

[Christopher Jacobs]

[NOTE: I just merged the two identical topics]

There were several actors who continued thier careers from silents to talkies with little if any changes, quite a few if you include supporting and character actors -- too many to mention, actually.

We've had somewhat similar threads in the past and the consensus has generally been that a few major stars may have had some difficulty keeping their same silent star personas due to their voices or heavy accents of some sort (especially foreign stars), but most of those stars that faded away as talkies took over were already past their primes as matinee idols and starlets, and would have had to move into mature character roles regardless of the coming of sound. Some did, while others merely retired, or as Mike notes, their expensive studio contracts expired and they were unwilling to work for a drastic pay cut. Some of those former stars found regular work as charcter actors at small studios, others didn't or may have preferred not to. The up and coming stars of 1928-29 who suddenly disappeared or switched from major studios to low-budget Bs and independents by 1933-34 (or even 1930-31) were likely comparable to today's flash-in-the-pan flavor-of-the-month stars who get into a few well-publicized hit films but are unable to sustain their careers due to any combination of personal, industry political, and/or talent issues.

[entredeuxguerres]

I think a lot of the older stars, too— as in stars earlier, even if they weren't that much older— simply decided that they'd proved themselves in sound by then, but didn't really enjoy it any more, so you have the likes of Pickford and Colleen Moore retiring.

You also have the likes of brilliant, exciting, Phyllis Haver, to whom acting evidently was a high-paying job, chiefly, not (despite the undoubted glamour of stardom) their identity & raison d'etre; so when a more lucrative career became possible--that of millionaire's wife--she too stepped out of the limelight.

[Brooksie]

I will go one step further and say that in all of my research, I am yet to find a star whose career declined solely because of a poor voice. It was natural that a lot of careers ended when they did; there were people who had been stars for ten or twenty years by that point. As Mike says, 1934 was a logical endpoint for many of them.

There were people with pretty unspectacular voices who managed to make the transition (for example, Dolores Costello), and foreigners with accents, who managed to find ways to make it work for them (Greta Garbo, Nils Asther). It annoys me every time I read a so-called film history that claims Clara Bow had a 'nasal' voice that did her in; quite obviously to anyone who has heard it, her voice was fine. She beat it out of Hollywood because she wanted to, and I'm often surprised to read how often she was asked to come back. There were rumours as late as the 1950s.

[silentfilm]

Although he did make two sound comedy shorts, Raymond Griffith had a hoarse voice because his vocal chords had been damaged in childhood due to respiratory diphtheria. In 1927 he had already asked out of his Paramount contract due to overwork (and he wanted to take a honeymoon in Europe).


Other than this final cameo in All Quiet on the Western Front, he spent the 1930s as a writer at Warner Brothers and then a producer at 20th-Century Fox.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

Although he did make two sound comedy shorts, Raymond Griffith had a hoarse voice because his vocal chords had been damaged in childhood due to respiratory diphtheria. In 1927 he had already asked out of his Paramount contract due to overwork (and he wanted to take a honeymoon in Europe).

In addition to Griffith, I think the only other star you could truly call a victim of the talkies was Karl Dane.

[FrankFay]

Substituting, of course, species for silent stars I think the analogy holds up fairly well. Admittedly, though, any hypothesis can be moulded to fit the definitions so what examples can be given to refute it? Apart from the one clear (and to me, I'm afraid, inexplicable) exception of Garbo which other major silent stars unarguably enjoyed as good as or even better a decade in the 30s than they did in the silents?

================

Ronald Colman. (It's his birthday!)

Colman was a good success in silents,but In talkies that voice kicked him right up to stardom.

How about Clive Brook- a strong career in the 20's and his talkie career lasted into the 50's

Bessie Love is sort of a special case- an up and down career in silents, but generally successful. In talkies she had a meteoric rise followed by a fairly quick tapering off into a long career in supporting roles.

Norma Shearer- A star in late silents, an even bigger star in talkies.

[Mike Gebert]

Griffith was quite successful as a producer, and I think he's not really any more of a casualty of sound than lots of people who started out as actors and chose to go behind the camera over time, from Raoul Walsh to Frank Borzage to George K. Arthur.

If you had to name major stars who faded the most quickly, there are certainly some whose stardom was pretty short lived in sound-- Ramon Novarro, Pola Negri, Vilma Banky, etc. But the star ruined the first time he or she spoke is a myth, I think.

Colman was a good success in silents,but In talkies that voice kicked him right up to stardom.

And manner-- he's so fast and fluid in Bulldog Drummond, he seems five years ahead of everyone else in the movie. He seems to have instinctively understood talkie acting before anyone.

[greta de groat]

Not Hollywood, but Ivan Mosjoukine had a pretty dramatic fall with the talkies. The story with that is always given as his accent, but i don't know what other factors may have contributed or what was the fate of other foreign actors in France. I've only seen clips of his talkies and my French isn't good enough to evaluate his. Like many others, he was hitting middle age but with his talent and image there doesn't seem any logical reason he couldn't have continued finding good roles, as did Barrymore and Veidt despite their personal or professional difficulties.

greta

[drednm]

Of course not all silents stars were desperate to continue their careers into the new medium. Constance Talmadge may be the best example of this. Whether she made any "talkie tests" I don't know. How many others didn't even bother? Nita Naldi? Did Emil Jannings make any tests in Hollywood before returning to Europe?

Others I can think of who made only 1 talkie feature include Harrison Ford and Elsie Ferguson. Others?

[Frederica]

Of course not all silents stars were desperate to continue their careers into the new medium. Constance Talmadge may be the best example of this. Whether she made any "talkie tests" I don't know. How many others didn't even bother? Nita Naldi? Did Emil Jannings make any tests in Hollywood before returning to Europe?

Nita's film career was over by 1927, so sound wasn't the issue with her. Her voice was fine anyway--typecasting and age were her problems. She's quite good in the one of her European films I've seen and she seems to have been more comfortable with European methods and practices than she was with the US industry. I think she could easily have made the transition as a character actor, but it just didn't happen.

[Frederica]

Colman was a good success in silents,but In talkies that voice kicked him right up to stardom.

And manner-- he's so fast and fluid in Bulldog Drummond, he seems five years ahead of everyone else in the movie. He seems to have instinctively understood talkie acting before anyone.

Manner, or understanding the form, or star quality, or something like that, may be the biggest issue, although age, salaries, etc. were a part of it. There is some quality the best early talkie actors had that was missing with many silent stars, or maybe they came to the new medium without the weight of fan expectations the older silent stars carried with them. Or maybe it's just that they fit in with the new zeitgeist better. It's a mystery to me. I just go with it.

[bobfells]

Similar to Nita Naldi, John Bowers had his film career taper off before the silent era ended. He turns up briefly near the end of Al Jolson's SAY IT WITH SONGS (1929) and the little dialogue he has suggests a good speaking voice. I have suspected other problems caused Bowers' career to sink well before he made his famous exit in the Pacific.

[FrankFay]

I've often wondered why Harrison Ford didn't go further than one talking picture. He's good in it and had an active stage career in the 30's

[Harold Aherne]

How many others didn't even bother?

Anita Stewart worked right into 1928, but made no talkies other than cameos in a couple of all-celebrity short films in the 30s.

Eugene O'Brien also quit the screen cold without making a talkie, somewhat odd since he had been an established stage actor. Likewise Priscilla Bonner, who finished her career in a few low-budget films in 1928-29. Edith Roberts only made one part-talkie (The Wagon Master with Ken Maynard for Universal) before she also retired. Alice Calhoun's only credited part in a talkie was in Rayart's Bride of the Desert.

All of these players, however, had been working in lower-budget films for several years before retiring, so more years of silents probably wouldn't have changed their career trajectories.

-HA

[momsne]

I did not see any mention of another minor incident that also occurred while Hollywood studios shifted from producing silents to producing talkies. Namely, THE GREAT DEPRESSION. Warner Brothers tried to get their contract stars to accept paycuts. Those who didn't kowtow could expect problems. Independent producers without backing from banks or investors cut production or went under. In the early thirties, only MGM turned a profit among the major studios. In the 1950s, Hollywood studios, under pressure from television and forced to sell their movie theaters, shed many of their non-star contract players even before the studios had to under the Federal consent decree.

There is a word around now, "hopium," used to sometimes describe financial forecasters belief that the economy will turn around. How long could a Hollywood actor wait for a role when the studios cut costs every way they could during the Depression. "Hopium" only goes so far. For some movie performers, they could go back to working in the theater, maybe even on Broadway. For most, their acting careers were over. And it was not just actors who found their careers in Hollywood dead ended. Writers, directors and producers also found out that Hollywood studios did not provided guaranteed job. Louis B. Mayer at MGM promised steady employment for his studio's performers but he was the exception.

[bobfells]

The most recent posts remind me of George Fawcett, the "Grand Old Man of Films," who was a fixture in films right through 1931. By then he was over 70 but he lived to 1939 moving to Nantucket, Mass. I've not seen any of his talkies but he reportedly had a great voice. In his case, I think he exited talkies simply because of his age.

[Brooksie]

Colman was a good success in silents,but In talkies that voice kicked him right up to stardom.

And manner-- he's so fast and fluid in Bulldog Drummond, he seems five years ahead of everyone else in the movie. He seems to have instinctively understood talkie acting before anyone.

Manner, or understanding the form, or star quality, or something like that, may be the biggest issue, although age, salaries, etc. were a part of it. There is some quality the best early talkie actors had that was missing with many silent stars, or maybe they came to the new medium without the weight of fan expectations the older silent stars carried with them. Or maybe it's just that they fit in with the new zeitgeist better. It's a mystery to me. I just go with it.

That sounds like a great description of Clark Gable, which makes it all the more intriguing that John Gilbert was supposedly the original choice for Gable's role in Red Dust (1932). I just can't imagine it, and I guess Victor Fleming couldn't either. An intriguing 'what if,' though.