Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/778398
14 W I N T E R 2 0 1 7 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y A significant example is the often-repeated assertion of The Jazz Singer's commercial dominance when, in fact, it was hit or miss, depending on which market or region it played in. Superstar Jolson's improvisations are truly central to The Jazz Singer's captur- ing of contemporary imaginations, but it needed to sink into the public's psyche to achieve the incredible market success to come. Far more commercially important, and far less currently known, is the incredible success of the Warner Bros./Jolson sequel of the following year, The Singing Fool. This became the largest box-office hit in the history of this 35-year-old industry in 1929. This record would stand unchallenged for a decade, only to be beaten by the 1939 release of Gone With the Wind. Gomery's book is an in-depth economic analysis. As he states in his preface, "Artistic, sociological, and psychological factors certainly affected the decision, but … executives who controlled the U. S. motion picture industry were in business primarily for one reason—to maximize the long-run profits of their compa- nies … I argue that the Hollywood studio system was, first and foremost, an industry." This unique examination is the applied collective vision, along with the intense jockeying for position, amongst the "Big Five" and "Little Three" companies that used the transition to sound to consolidate their enormous oligarchy for the next 30 years. Much of this leverage grew from the overlapping cash-business empires of distribution and exhibition, only forced apart by a post-World War II government recognizing the danger of unbridled monopoly. It is an entertaining detective story revealing how 20th-century corporate power worked and turned on the impulses and person- alities of the people in charge. It is a commonly maligned and feared kind of genius applied in the world, but Gomery refrains from political judgment and takes the posture of a chronicler, revealing the actual steps that led to the golden era of Hollywood. The book is not without its flaws, e.g., Eugene Lauste, the true inventor of optical film sound technology between 1910-1912, is completely absent from this history. He was a Frenchman who worked at the elbows of William Dickson and Thomas Edison when Dickson developed the modern version of motion picture technology for the Edison Company in the 1890's. A great article is in the December 22, 1917, publication Scientific American which gives full expression of Lauste's important optical film sound developments. Gomery is also, in his distancing himself from the "tech- nologist's" point of view, prone to miss important pieces as he describes the evolved, expensive, and ultimately, failed Edison Kinetophone effort for commercial sync sound movies circa 1912 as applying microphones able to successfully record dialogue from 300 feet away. Edison's system at that time, never used any of the very primitive, telephone-style carbon microphones, as electrical recording had not yet come into commercial play. Rather, they were recorded acoustically via horn and mechanical diaphragm and nothing less than proximity to the edge of frame would do—far less than the great distances Gomery described from a contemporary source. Another absence is the evolution of pioneers and special- ists who actually recorded and produced the sound of these early films. He makes only a passing reference to the Motion Picture Academy establishing the Thalberg sound school early on, with 565 men enrolled, creating the historic first genera- tion of creative practitioners. I'd love to have been a fly-on- the-wall of those classes, or at least have some input from their group to this history, especially regarding the success of optical sound over double-system disk. Also, only mentioned without explanation, the Motion Picture Academy's involvement in the labor conditions within the industry mediating early contracts for the first five branches. There are multiple errors about when, how and who were the principals, nor any detail of Labor's formal arrival in Hollywood in the form of the IATSE, almost simultaneously with the sound era. The Camera Union Local 659 in 1928, the Sound Union Local 695 in 1930, etc., are not mentioned at all, except during a mistakenly vague mention of the New York Camera Local 644—which was not actually part of the Hollywood story beyond its own East Coast participation. These gaps are very uncharacteristic of the majority of the work and should not be mistakenly used to impeach the epic research Gomery has achieved here. In fact, they reflect his intense focus on the "industry" aspect of his investigation, i.e., corporate maneuvers establishing long-term control and security. To give you an idea of the scope of the book, the chapters include: 1. A Preview: Order and Profit, Not Chaos 2. The Preconditions for Innovation 3. The Warner Bros. Innovate Sound 4. William Fox Innovates Sound 5. Warner's Blockbuster: The Singing Fool 6. Paramount and Loew's Wait, and Then Make Their Deal 7. The Rise of RKO: The Failure of All Others 8. The Diffusion of Sound in the United States 9. Diffusion of Sound Throughout the World 10. The Formation of the Studio System: Merger Mania 11. Mopping up the Loose Ends 12. The Coming of Sound: A Reinterpretation. This is a terrific, clear-eyed exploration of a much misun- derstood era and subject and one that should interest many members of the CAS as it is core history to a world we work in. It is an important journey into how the nature of mass media operates in the hands of a very few. If you have curiosity about what has set the table for our profession on a business level and the kind of pressures and impulses that drive policy and outcomes in the entertainment world, The Coming of Sound is an efficient tour of what hap- pened—and a fun read.