The last "Silents"

[Ascoyne D'Ascoyne]

I've been watching some Chaplin films recently and was surprised to realise that Chaplin's first "Talkie" (The Great Dictator) was made as late as 1940 and that "Modern Times" is dated 1936. Of course, Modern Times isn't a true silent picture as it contains an integral score (by Chaplin), a scene in which he sings and sound effects, but it set me to wondering as to how long into the sound era were the silents being produced and which country was the last to produce them to any great extent.

[Moor Larkin]

Originally Posted by Ascoyne D'Ascoyne it set me to wondering as to how long into the sound era were the silents being produced and which country was the last to produce them to any great extent.

I expect it was a bit like Colour. Films in Britain were still being made in black and white in the Sixties (and not for 'Artistic reasons'). Patrick McGoohan made colour movies with Rank in 1958 and yet in 1962 was making 'All Night Long' and 'Life for Ruth' in black and white for affiliated companies. Directors/Cameramen/Lighting technicians would doubtless have struggled to change to suit the technology. It must have been the same for the arrival of 'sound'. For a start scriptwriters would have had to learn to write dialogue!.......

I think actors like Buster Keaton struggled with speaking and never really was able to adjust, but I'm not entirely sure.

Films like Koyaanaqatsi mean 'Silents' arguably never really ended, perhaps....

[penfold]

In terms of mainstream cinema, Japan was one of the last....Japanese Silent Cinema, in a practice inherited from the theatre, used Benshi, narrative singers, to accompany the films as well as musicians; both for home-grown and imported films. These were important artists, had followings in their own right; and so by a sort of trade union restrictive practice situation the benshi were able to stave off the adoption of sound films in Japan until the mid-1930's, six or seven years after most of Europe. For those intervening years, you had the situation whereby a benshi would be accompanying a Hollywood sound film, shown mute...also that you can (if you're lucky enough) see Japanese silent dramas where the Japanese gangsters are dressed like George Raft and co...the ultimate anachronism is in one Japanese silent film I have seen (but cannot recall the title) where the characters go to a cinema; they're watching the Charles Laughton segment of If I Had a Million; but they are watching it mute....and of course, so are we.....
Kaurismaki made a silent (ie dialogue free) feature film in 1999 called Juha; but I haven't seen it....my favourite silent film doing the rounds at the moment is the Stella Artois advert with the skating priests and the crate going through the ice....beautifully done, and I don't suppose it's occurred to more than one in ten watching that it's a silent film......

[Sgt Dudfoot]

Originally Posted by Moor Larkin I think actors like Buster Keaton struggled with speaking and never really was able to adjust, but I'm not entirely sure.

Buster never struggled with speaking roles; it was more the films he felt forced into. He had quite a strong voice, quite deep surprisingly. His main bugbear about the coming of sound was how the studios overused it. It felt to him, and it strikes true to me, that they felt they needed to fill the whole film with chatter rather than use it only when applicable. Strangely, his early sound films were easily his most financially successful.