The Movies Learn to Talk

Watching this over 60 year old TV program, one of the episodes of The Twentieth Century series, I can't help but wonder...Are people THAT much more stupid now such that these type of informative broadcasts are extinct, or has the proliferation of information made news/documentary programs like this unnecessary on the network channels? Probably a bit of both.

Walter Cronkite, CBS anchor for decades, narrates a very good lesson on exactly how sound came into the movies. He talks about technical details, the scientists involved in bringing sound to film, and does not make that most common of errors when talking about this subject - that somehow The Jazz Singer was the first all-talking feature film. There are also some good examples of very early films using sound, and I wonder if any of the early silent/sound experiments shown here are in existence today in their entirety.

If you only have 23 minutes it is an adequate history lesson on the subject and it is on youtube. If you have an hour watch the "End of an Era" episode of the 13 part documentary "Silent Hollywood" (1980).