“‘What’s Wrong With The Way I Talk?’ The Effect Of Sound Motion Pictures On Actor Careers”, 2019-10-23 (; backlinks; similar):
[cf. benshi, Singin’ in the Rain, Sunset Boulevard] The development of sound motion pictures in the late 1920s provides one of history’s most evocative examples of the effect of technological innovation on employment. I begin by exploring the transition to sound, which lasted several years.
I then analyze transition’s effect on actor employment, and find it to be associated with a substantial increase in career terminations, not only among major stars (which film scholars emphasize), but also among more minor actors. Furthermore, I find that sound raised hazard rates generally. Finally, I calculate that the number of actors employed in movies increased substantially in the sound era…Examining the IMDb’s genre categorizations, I find evidence that plots became more complex with sound; consistently, the average number of credited actors per film rose. The number of films released also rose, so that the net effect was a substantial sound-era increase in the annual employment of motion picture actors
…[cf. An Economic History of Film] Despite the success of The Jazz Singer in late 1927, many industry pundits initially regarded sound as a fad, and even supporters expected talking and silent films to coexist indefinitely. The 1930 author of a case study of a cinema considering the conversion to sound in 1928 wrote, “It was difficult to judge the permanence of the appeal of sound pictures. Theatrical managers were convinced that the appeal at first was largely one of curiosity” (Clayton 1930, pg491). Jack Warner, the champion of the talking picture, said as late as 1928 that he expected most future films to be part sound and part silent (1997, pg174). Adolph Zukor, President of Paramount Pictures, was quoted in late 1928 as saying,
“By no means is the silent picture gone or even diminished in importance…there always have been subjects which could not be augmented in value or strength by the addition of sound and dialogue.” [The Film Daily 1929 Yearbook, pg513
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