From Silents to Studio's Golden Years

Part 1: The inclusion of sound in the movies

A sound stage.

Most of the big film studios were opposed to using sound in movies for a number of reasons, chief among these being their fear of the public not accepting it, the inevitable rough transition for many actors and actresses from silent films to sound films (i.e. for those with foreign accents, those with weak and unfitting voices, those lacking experience and with diction problems, and with having to now memorize dialogue and directions) and the increased cost of utilizing sound (i.e. building sound studios/sound stages, equipping theaters with new technology).

Movie poster for
The Jazz Singer  (1927)

Despite the technology for such having been developed years prior, sound was only integrated in feature films for the first time in 1927 by struggling Warner Brothers Studios with the film The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson. The sound included in the film was mostly simple background music, with just two segments of dialogue totaling only 354 words; however, the novelty of sound caused the film to be a huge enough hit to warrant a followup, The Singing Fool. The tremendous success of these two pictures led to the other major studios reluctantly embracing the addition of sound to film. In just a few years, almost all films had sound.


In accordance with one of the major fears of the studios was the resulting rough transition for most actors and actresses. Many were unable to survive this transition and disappeared from the film industry. Others, left with no other option, had to sign up for voice and diction lessons. Additionally, all of the musicians who provided background music for silent films were left unemployed, as their positions became obsolete.

The addition of sound in the production process was essentially a giant step backwards for the studios. The limitations of primitive sound equipment and early sound technicians made production as well as the final products take a sharp decrease in quality. Only one microphone was used, so actors would, without making this obvious, have to move within its range in order to deliver lines. To prevent the noises of its operation from being picked up by the microphone, the camera would have to be housed in a soundproof, telephone booth-like structure that rendered the it immobile and led to boring, static, unimaginative shots.

Part 2: The studio years

The years between 1930 and 1950 are generally recognized as the film industry's studio years because of the dominance of MGM, 20th Century Fox, RKO, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal, and Columbia, who established a coordinated, efficient factory system for churning out films using their own sets and sound stages and with their own on-contract stable of stars and production people. The most notable pro of the factory system was the efficiency, consistency, and organization of the films released. The most notable con was that actors and actresses were limited to and essentially controlled by their own studio.