End of an Era

Hollywood: End of an Era (1980)

**** (out of 4)

The final of thirteen episodes in this landmark documentary takes a look at some early attempts to add sound to film. These included an early attempt by Edison and even D.W. Griffith tried it in a prologue to 1922's DREAM STREET. While most studios backed away from the idea, Warner went ahead and released THE JAZZ SINGER, which was a huge success and pretty much overnight started moving silent pictures out of the way and causing many careers to fall apart. This final episode is another winner and what works so well is that the film really does show the good that sound offered but it also has some fun with some of the negative things. I found many of the stories about the cameramen being in those heated boxes to be quite funny and of course you had many stars thinking it was just a fad and silent movies would be back. This includes Mary Astor who is interviewed here. Lillian Gish, Janet Gaynor, Frank Capra and George Cukor are also interviewed. Hearing Capra talk about the first time seeing THE JAZZ SINGER was pretty nice but we also get some examples of silent movies that were released afterwards including THE IRON MASK. The strange thing is that no clips from THE WIND were shown and this was the movie that people used to say sound films weren't needed. The film talks about some of the actors were gained their "voice pass" and made it into sound movies but talk also goes to those whose careers died right then again. This included some who just refused to speak and many foreign actors who could no longer work in Hollywood.