That dang talkie myth!

misspickford9 · Post by **misspickford9** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:06 pm

I tear my hair out over this one! You would not believe how many film students or film folk tell me with a stone cold serious face 'well they didnt transition because they had a funny voice/accent'. ''They'' being a certain actor, or just silent actors in general.

I dont think there is any one thing that makes me madder about the disinformation out there (a close second: haha its a silent movie so theres no sound at all!). I have 2 questions for you nitrateville readers: 1) Where did this myth begin and 2) Was there ever an actual silent star out there who really DID have a Lina Lamont styled voice?

Obviously I think it started during the transition; because it was easier to say a difficult star sounded funny then to just say 'we gave them the boot' and since distribution wasnt internet speed fast the rumor spread quicker than the truth. Obviously it was well in place by the 40s.

As for an actual star having a funny voice I have yet to hit on one or on a story of one who really had such a bad voice/accent that that was the SOLE reason they quit film. And of the ones I've heard including Clara Bow, Norma, Talmadge, and John Gilbert I dont hear anything out of the ordinary. I've had more people tell me Mary Pickford had a funny voice and thats why she quit then Id like to remember. But Mary would be the classic example of a perfect voice for her characters (little girl voice for little girls).

So was there a real star out there who really we can hear today had a funny voice? Or is this something like Big Foot?

boblipton · Post by **boblipton** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:22 pm

Raymond Griffith. He couldn't speak above a whisper, due to problems with his vocal cords -- the reasons varied according to when he told the story. There is, in fact, a sequence in YOU'D BE SURPRISED in which he holds a conversation with another actor -- and the other actor is a mute!

Bob

Harlett O'Dowd · Post by **Harlett O'Dowd** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:24 pm

misspickford9 wrote: So was there a real star out there who really we can hear today had a funny voice? Or is this something like Big Foot?

Short answer - no.

However, several late silent stars in Hollywood were foreigners and had accent/language issues. Some, like Emil Jannings simply packed up and moved back to Europe to work before it became an issue. Some, like Karl Dane, *did* lose their career.

Even today, few stars burn brightly for much more than a decade and a lot of star performers who came to the fore during or imediately after WWI were reaching the end of their shelf life anyway (Fairbanks and Pickford the most obvious examples.)

Some successfully made the transition but reached the end of their shelf-life a few years later (Billy Haines, Anita Page, Ramon Novarro, Swanson.)

Comedian Raymond Griffith, who lost his voice during the War was one of the few american-born direct casualties of the coming of sound.

But a Lena Lamont squeaky voice crash-n-burn? No.

As with just about everything else in Hollywood history, the fact is much more convoluted than the legend.

Jack Theakston · Post by **Jack Theakston** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:28 pm

But a Lena Lamont squeaky voice crash-n-burn? No.

Mary Philbin.

'nuff said.

rudyfan · Post by **rudyfan** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:29 pm

misspickford9 wrote: As for an actual star having a funny voice I have yet to hit on one or on a story of one who really had such a bad voice/accent that that was the SOLE reason they quit film. And of the ones I've heard including Clara Bow, Norma, Talmadge, and John Gilbert I dont hear anything out of the ordinary. I've had more people tell me Mary Pickford had a funny voice and thats why she quit then Id like to remember. But Mary would be the classic example of a perfect voice for her characters (little girl voice for little girls).

Well, keep in mind, at the time of the transition, it may not have been their voices were "funny" simply that their voices did not fit their image from the silent era. There was a shift in perception, the stars not only became more human, they looked more and sounded more just like Joe or Jane next door. or, depending on the voice coach, they did sound silly with E-nun-see-a-tion.

I totally recommend your reading Alexander Walker's excellent book The Shattered Silents.

dr.giraud · Post by **dr.giraud** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:32 pm

Harlett O'Dowd wrote: However, several late silent stars in Hollywood were foreigners and had accent/language issues. Some, like Emil Jannings simply packed up and moved back to Europe to work before it became an issue. Some, like Karl Dane, *did* lose their career. . . .

I was shocked how thick Pola Negri's accent is in her first American talkie, A WOMAN COMMANDS, and that came in 1932. (Her singing is more effective.) Granted, Negri's relationship with Paramount had gone sour--Budd Schulberg, in his memoirs, remembers his father coming home screaming about "that #@%# Pola Negri!"--but I doubt she would have survived their mass firing of silent stars even if her last silents were big hits. By the time of the 1940s and HI DIDDLE DIDDLE, Negri's accent is much improved.

dr.giraud · Post by **dr.giraud** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:34 pm

Jack Theakston wrote:
But a Lena Lamont squeaky voice crash-n-burn? No.
Mary Philbin.

'nuff said.

The elegant Florence Vidor did not have a voice that matched her persona, as opposed to, for example, Alice Joyce, who did.

Chris Snowden · Post by **Chris Snowden** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 6:29 pm

misspickford9 wrote:So was there a real star out there who really we can hear today had a funny voice?

I think there were two issues going on. In the earliest days of sound recording, there was a lot of agonizing over whose voices would record and reproduce well, given the state of the technology at the time. The equipment wasn't that sensitive, and not all voices registered equally well. The major studios showed a lot of established stars the door in 1928-1929, partly over salary issues, but I think it was also partly over concern about how their voices sounded, and this also explains why the studios were hiring voice coaches, as well as stage stars who already knew how to project their voices.

The other issue is about fan reaction. Check out the "Letters to the Editor" column of most any fan magazine from 1929: the one obsessive topic on their minds was what their favorite stars sounded like, and whether those voices were pleasing or not.

John Gilbert's voice wasn't bad, but it didn't seem to fit his image; people were expecting it to be deeper and richer than it really was. On the other hand, someone like William Powell, who'd hardly been more than a second-string leading man in the silents, suddenly emerged as a star because his voice was deep and resonant. Guys like Richard Barthelmess and Wallace Beery remained stars (at least for a few more years) because their voices fit their images.

Stars like Betty Compson, Harold Lloyd and Mary Pickford had voices that were a little on the high and thin side, and from what I've seen, many fans didn't care for them. (Like you said, Mary's voice would've been fine for those little-girl roles, but by 1929 she was no longer playing them; it was all high drama and costumes from that point on.)

One bit of conventional wisdom that we can throw away is the idea that the silent stars with accents were all doomed, but that isn't true at all: look at Lupe Velez, Fifi D'Orsay, Laurel and Hardy, Greta Garbo and Ronald Colman, or at the new stars of the talkies: Maurice Chevalier, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Mae West, Bela Lugosi, etc. Having an accent was more likely to help a career than to hurt it, as long as the voice fit the image.

LouieD · Post by **LouieD** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:05 pm

El Brendel's accent made the transition to sound perfectly

and of course all reason went out the door when it came to Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell.

Harold Aherne · Post by **Harold Aherne** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:16 pm

misspickford9 wrote:I tear my hair out over this one! You would not believe how many film students or film folk tell me with a stone cold serious face 'well they didnt transition because they had a funny voice/accent'. ''They'' being a certain actor, or just silent actors in general.

Silent-to-sound transitions are an area where easy explanations can be elusive, and thus the mainstream media tend to make up their own or throw up their hands and offer the most seemingly obvious justification, no matter how inaccurate or historically unprovable. Lina Lamont and Carol Burnet sketches do nothing to alleviate these rumours, and neither do the lack of accessibilty and widespread indifference to early talkies. Some progress has been made in the case of John Gilbert, with many sources now saying that his voice had *nothing* to do with his decline!

Anyway, I'll offer my observations as to the vocal talents of several actors of the mid to late 20s:

John Gilbert: nothing wrong with his acting or dialogue readings as far as I can tell; his voice takes some getting used to and probably came across as overly cultured in 1929, but he gets better with every talkie I see and he's great silent or talking.

Colleen Moore: perfect voice, but probably hampered by the Irish accent in Smilin Irish Eyes (29). In addition, she had serious marital problems by 1929 and her husband had declined WB's offer of a new contract; I think after a few more years (and some excellent performances) she was simply content to call it a career.

Clara Bow: I had expected her to sound like Annette Hanshaw for some reason! Again, Bow's contralto might require some acclimation, but once you get used to it she's a gem. Her career problems can be traced to her emotional insecurity and multiple scandals in 1930-31; I think her two pictures for Fox were successful, no?

Norman Kerry: his voice is a little thick and doesn't leave a huge impression either way in Bachelor Apartment (31), but I thought he was generally OK.

Lois Wilson: appropriate, sweet voice and fine talent that led to several years of success in talkies.

Harold Lloyd: his voice works for the character, not as energetic as one might expect but (like so many others) once you get used to it there's nothing wrong.

Elsie Ferguson: beautiful, velvet-lined voice with perfect diction.

William S. Hart: the voice did surprise me when I saw the 1939 intro to Tumbleweeds, but only because his subtitles are usually in Western dialect in his films. He really knew how to deliver a speech.

Tom Moore: a slight Irish brogue, but an agreeable personality and good acting in The Woman Racket (30).

Betty Compson: I liked her voice very much in Weary River (29), although I've seen few of her silents so it's harder to compare.

William Haines: warm, friendly voice, not "effeminate" as some have claimed, although he could give it that effect when he felt like it. How much you like his acting depends on your opinion of his personality.

Rod La Rocque: a little on the flat and nasal side, but not inappropriate for some of the characters he played. I've heard varying reports as to the overall quality of his acting in talkies.

How exactly did Florence Vidor sound in Chinatown Nights? She married Jascha Heifetz a few months before its release, so I imagine she was ready to retire no matter what. Can anyone provide details on how Leatrice Joy, May McAvoy, Thomas Meighan, or William Russell sounded? I don't know if any of McAvoy or Russell's talkies/part-talkies exist, but both worked for WB in the late 20s so Vitaphone discs of them are probably still around.

-Harold

misspickford9 · Post by **misspickford9** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:22 pm

Mwha I knew there was someone with a vocal defect (Raymond Griffith) but he was who Id make an exception for as thats obviously a one off case more then the 'usual'.

As someone mentioned I think accents are subjective. Greta obviously proved that. Personally I find Vilma Banky's accent (LOL maoul truck) a little thick but even that I think could have been improved with time had she wanted to (she had that low husky Greta thing going).

I love how people can write off a whole era as 'unacceptable' when they dont know a dang thing about it...

Post by **silentfilm** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:39 pm

William S. Hart doesn't really count, since he retired before talkies came in. The Talmadge sisters didn't really want to hassle with changing their acting for sound films, so Connie didn't really even try.

Don't forget that the depression also happened in 1929 and the type of films being made had to change. Audiences wanted a little more realism, or escapism that was easy to relate to. European royal romances quickly went out of vogue.

Raymond Griffith made two sound comedy shorts for Al Christie. The plot used the explanation of a "cold" as to why he talked in a hoarse voice.

Raymond Griffith and Barbara Leonard in The Sleeping Porch (1929), which still exists.

And although he didn't speak in his last film, he made a great impression in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). By this time he was making good money as a writer, and he was soon a producer at 20th Century-Fox.

PRODUCER-STAR -- Raymond Griffith, former comedy star and now an associate producer for 20th Century-Fox, discusses a portrait sitting with Simone Simon, who makes her American film debut in "Girls' Dormitory", which Griffith is handling. (1936)

rollot24 · Post by **rollot24** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:04 pm

The voice that surprised me the most was Keaton's. I wasn't expecting the thick mid-west accent. There was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't what I had "heard" when seeing his silents.

dr.giraud · Post by **dr.giraud** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:55 pm

Harold Aherne wrote:
How exactly did Florence Vidor sound in Chinatown Nights? She married Jascha Heifetz a few months before its release, so I imagine she was ready to retire no matter what. Can anyone provide details on how Leatrice Joy, May McAvoy, Thomas Meighan, or William Russell sounded? I don't know if any of McAvoy or Russell's talkies/part-talkies exist, but both worked for WB in the late 20s so Vitaphone discs of them are probably still around.

-Harold

I only watched CHINATOWN NIGHTS once, but her voice seemed not quite right. (As opposed to Wallace Beery who sounded exactly right.) I could try to dig out the VHS. I've seen one Thomas Meighan talkie, MADISON SQ. GARDEN, and he sounded fine.

You're so right about Lois Wilson. I wish she'd had a bigger career in talkies.

dr.giraud · Post by **dr.giraud** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:59 pm

silentfilm wrote:By this time he was making good money as a writer, and he was soon a producer at 20th Century-Fox.

And Griffith's work in between, at Paramount (GIRLS ABOUT TOWN) and Warner Bros./First National. According to The Warner Brothers Story, he's an uncredited producer on BABY FACE and some other pre-code classics. I wonder if he left WB when Zanuck did, since he ended up working at 20th Century-Fox for Zanuck.

Post by **silentfilm** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 10:16 pm

Yes, he left Warners when Zanuck did, and immedately was a producer at TCF. He was even nominated for a best picture Oscar as a producer in 1934 for The House of the Rothschild.

Chris Snowden · Post by **Chris Snowden** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 10:45 pm

Harold Aherne wrote: Can anyone provide details on how Leatrice Joy, May McAvoy, Thomas Meighan, or William Russell sounded?

I've seen Meighan in his last film. I really don't remember much about it now, but in 2002 I posted this in the silents newsgroup:

I saw his last
one, "Peck's Bad Boy" (1934) recently, and he plays an unrewarding little role in a
ho-hum little film. If you didn't know your movie history, you'd never guess that he'd
been an important star only a few years earlier. He works under the same woebegone
cloud of vanished glory that I sense in the last films of people like Charles Ray,
Marie Prevost and Marguerite de la Motte: they go through their paces and they're not
bad, but the spark of star-quality that they'd had in their prime is completely gone.

He had a pretty good husky voice, and he might have carried on as a character
actor. But he either didn't want to play those parts, or producers had heard too much
about his drinking to hire him. He passed away a couple of years later.

Jim Roots · Post by **Jim Roots** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:25 am

Harold Aherne wrote:William S. Hart: the voice did surprise me when I saw the 1939 intro to Tumbleweeds, but only because his subtitles are usually in Western dialect in his films. He really knew how to deliver a speech.-Harold

Hart had been a Shakespearean actor on Broadway and on tour for years and years before he ever made a movie.

Jim

Jack Theakston · Post by **Jack Theakston** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:49 am

One actor I'm surprised didn't get more roles than he did, considering he was still quite productive at the time, was Henry Walthall. He seemed to have ebbed out a career as a minor player in the '30s, but considering all of the stage and screen work he had done up until that point, you would have thought him to be in the ranks of Lionel Barrymore.

greta de groat · Post by **greta de groat** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:43 am

That happened to a lot of character actors as well as stars. Why did Hobart Bosworth drop down to bits? Why wasn't Louise Dresser in huge demand? Pauline Frederick's throaty voice didn't record well in her first talkie in 1928 (the reviews say she sounded muffled), but by the end of 1929 she seemed to be on the rise again. But afterward she did only a handful of movie parts, finding touring on the stage to be more lucrative.

Directors, too. What happened to Herbert Brenon, James Cruze, Mickey Neilan, Monta Bell? I don't know much about the writers, but i would have thought it would have been a traumatic change for them, too.

Walthall and Neilan drank, though, and i think Cruze as well, and i'm sure that there were others that did too. So in a crowded field that would cut into your employability.

But talkies do seem like a sort of mass extinction, taking the big and small names, and not only the actors.

greta

rudyfan · Post by **rudyfan** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 12:23 pm

greta de groat wrote:Why wasn't Louise Dresser in huge demand? ...Pauline Frederick's throaty voice didn't record well in her first talkie in 1928 (the reviews say she sounded muffled), but by the end of 1929 she seemed to be on the rise again. greta

Well, I love Pauline Frederick in This Modern Age with Crawford.

As for Dresser, maybe she retired willingly and happily? She's wonderful in the original State Fair and I love her in The Scarlett Empress. I've yet to see her final appearence in The Maid of Salem. (So many 1930's Paramounts I'd love to see).

Donna

Frederica · Post by **Frederica** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 12:26 pm

greta de groat wrote:
Walthall and Neilan drank, though, and i think Cruze as well, and i'm sure that there were others that did too. So in a crowded field that would cut into your employability.

greta

I'm sure in many cases, the changeover from silent to sound provided the studios with a good excuse to get rid of people who combined the two deadliest sins: they got paid a lot of money and they were too much trouble. Sort of like today's job market.

Fred

greta de groat · Post by **greta de groat** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 12:50 pm

rudyfan wrote:
Well, I love Pauline Frederick in This Modern Age with Crawford.

As for Dresser, maybe she retired willingly and happily? She's wonderful in the original State Fair and I love her in The Scarlett Empress. I've yet to see her final appearance in The Maid of Salem. (So many 1930's Paramounts I'd love to see).

Donna

Yes, Polly was great in that film, but she only got that role because Majorie Rambeau got sick. Somehow at that point the stage was more lucrative than films, which seems surprising to me. As for Dresser, you're right, it looks like she was fairly active up till the mid 30s and then retired (she lived until 1965, so i was thinking about that long stretch). Uh oh, someone else who died of an "intestinal blockage." Hmmm. Anyway, a great actress--and it was Pauline Frederick who got her into films, by the way.

Ok, so how about Mary Carr?

greta

misspickford9 · Post by **misspickford9** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:54 pm

Frederica wrote:
greta de groat wrote:
Walthall and Neilan drank, though, and i think Cruze as well, and i'm sure that there were others that did too. So in a crowded field that would cut into your employability.

greta
I'm sure in many cases, the changeover from silent to sound provided the studios with a good excuse to get rid of people who combined the two deadliest sins: they got paid a lot of money and they were too much trouble. Sort of like today's job market.

Fred

Agreed. And if that wasnt the case than usually it was one of these 2 reasons: 1) They'd done it for years and were tired of it/the studios anyways and 2) They were getting old and again tired. People over look Mary had been doing films over 20 years when she retired! Show me an actress who can do that today with that much straight popularity!

As for Walthall wasnt he a bit of an alcoholic if I remember right? Ill health also played a role in the 'mass extinction'. As for Thomas Meighan I believe he had played on Broadway before films and he had quite a long stage career...I doubt he was concerned.

How successful was Ford Sterling in talkies? The little I know of him seems health would be his fall. Im reading Chaplin's autobio and he said when Sterling would do his Dutch character the only funny thing about it was 'his hilarious dutch accent he'd put on' but being silents you couldnt hear it.

Speaking of that randomly I know someone above used Karl Dane as an example for accent downfall. Like I said accents were hit or miss. Karl's first few talkies (Dane & Arthur) actually faired pretty well. It was the depression + his own personal issues (he became very ill from a set injury and also had ill mental health at the time) that were his downfall. You can hear him here: http://forgetthetalkies.com/2008/08/sil ... -dane.html. I stand by Vilma's was the only accent I found too much, and again even that was fixable.

misspickford9 · Post by **misspickford9** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:55 pm

Jack Theakston wrote:
But a Lena Lamont squeaky voice crash-n-burn? No.
Mary Philbin.

'nuff said.

I've never heard anything about her though I liked her in Phantom. Any sound clips? Why did she crash and burn?

Post by **silentfilm** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:19 pm

misspickford9 wrote:I've never heard anything about her though I liked her in Phantom. Any sound clips? Why did she crash and burn?

According to Anthony Slide's Silent Players she didn't have much of a personality and was just another pretty face. She was a big disappointment to him as an interview subject.

misspickford9 · Post by **misspickford9** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:23 pm

silentfilm wrote:
misspickford9 wrote:I've never heard anything about her though I liked her in Phantom. Any sound clips? Why did she crash and burn?
According to Anthony Slide's Silent Players she didn't have much of a personality and was just another pretty face. She was a big disappointment to him as an interview subject.

Pretty faces make the best suicide stories :p (Marvel Rea anyone?) but why would that make her a bad talkie actress over silents? What did her voice sound like?

rollot24 · Post by **rollot24** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:48 pm

misspickford9 wrote:
silentfilm wrote:
misspickford9 wrote:I've never heard anything about her though I liked her in Phantom. Any sound clips?

On the Milestone edition of PHANTOM there are parts of the sound discs, but they are poor. You can almost tell what she sounded like.

rudyfan · Post by **rudyfan** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:55 pm

misspickford9 wrote: Agreed. And if that wasnt the case than usually it was one of these 2 reasons: 1) They'd done it for years and were tired of it/the studios anyways and 2) They were getting old and again tired. People over look Mary had been doing films over 20 years when she retired! Show me an actress who can do that today with that much straight popularity!

Well, Meryl Streep would count for one, Susan Sarandon is another. Popularity may not be as Mary's was, but their body of work is excellent. ymmv. Just two examples that do come to mind.

dr.giraud · Post by **dr.giraud** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 4:04 pm

rudyfan wrote:
Well, Meryl Streep would count for one, Susan Sarandon is another. Popularity may not be as Mary's was, but their body of work is excellent. ymmv. Just two examples that do come to mind.

Meryl Streep reinvented herself. I seem to recall that the media came down with "Meryl Streep fatigue" in the late 1980s, after years of her playing very serious leads in very serious movies. Now, as a character actress, she's probably more popular than she was back then.

Pickford, however, never found a way to reinvent herself that the audience would accept.

That dang talkie myth!

That dang talkie myth!

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