![]() Sid Grauman, of the Chinese theater in Hollywood, speculated in June 1928 that sound equipment would eliminate prologues within two years. ![]() The raison d'être of "virtual Broadway" was to move the performance off the stage and onto the screen. It was an annoying form of competition which canned performances could easily make obsolete. Though vaudeville was declining, the prologue challenged Hollywood's domination of theaters. Looks as if they will have to work in some good short comedy Vitaphone stuff if they are going to make the new policy a success." 3 These comments suggest that at least some customers had started attending theaters as much to see the stage material as to see the picture, and that on occasion they preferred the former to the latter. The critic Jack Harrower thought that "the general impression seemed to be that there was too much screen, and there was a noticeable lack of comedy to which all Broadway audiences have long since been educated. When the Strand on Broadway installed Vitaphone, the management retained a few live acts to extend the program to its accustomed two hours. Sisk, "The Movies Try to Talk," American Mercury, August 1928, p. John Philip Sousa's band played Gertrude Ederle swam. Sophie Tucker, another eminent star, sang in the picture houses. He was billed as being of more importance than the film feature. ![]() Whiteman, ever willing to oblige, drew $9,500 weekly for his orchestra. So they too let out a call for stage stars: "Hey, Paul-come on down and play for us!" When the great Publix theatres were ready to open, they found that the films wouldn't keep them filled. So there has grown up what is known as the presentation act in the big film houses…. Robert Sisk characterized the practice as opening the door to the talkies: These live performances were quite successful, but producers and exhibitors alike began to regard them as a Pandora's box. The large film companies were also indirectly responsible for the rise of this form of stage entertainment because after the success of independent exhibitors, they had sponsored prologues in their own theater chains and organized vaudeville-like touring circuits. A popular act could compensate for a bad film which, because of block booking, the exhibitor was obliged to run. Exhibitors initially had embraced the presentation as a way to establish their autonomy from producers and to differentiate their shows from competing theaters. The case of the live prologue (see chapter 3) is a good example of how the film industry responded to consumers' heterogeneous tastes. A look at exhibition during the transition will demonstrate the impact of audiences' selectivity as a factor precipitating the changeover. "Why, with no previous indications of dissatisfaction, did audiences suddenly embrace the talkies, acting as if they had been dissatisfied with 'silent' cinema for a long time?" 1 Perhaps the shift to sound films seems mysterious because it has been assumed that producers were pressing their wares on a passive public resistant to change. "This is one of the great mysteries of this part of film history," Alan Williams has aptly observed. In retrospect, it seems as though filmgoers abandoned with few regrets a cherished form of entertainment, the silent cinema. Prologue is dead! On with The Show of Shows.įrom the film "prologue" to The Show of Shows, 1929įor exhibitors and for audiences, the coming of sound and the coming of hard times after 1930 caused permanent changes in the institution of moviegoing. ![]() ![]() Exhibition: Talkies Change the Bijou The Demise of Prologue Presentations ![]()
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