Movies during the silent era were hugely influential. They were the primary means of how people leaned social etiquette, how to dress, how to act on a date, and even the proper way to kiss. People studied their favorite movie stars intensely and emulated their mannerisms, speech, and demeanor. The women were just coming out of the Victorian Era and into the Jazz Age, and they were looking for guidance in how they should fit into this new age of freedom for them. Men also were groping for how they needed to respond to the new modern woman; in other words, the most effective way of pursuing and “getting” the now sexy women whose allure was now all but irresistible. The movies were never as important to establishing social mores as they were then, as they were the only guidelines people had to the new era that was dawning. And to adding to the excitement was the fact that the newly-arrived movie stars were just making it all up as they went along. It was new and unsullied era rolling along as an irrepressible tide of enthusiasm and experimentation that we will never see the like of again.
The advent of motion pictures killed vaudeville and severely reduced theatrical tours. By the 1920s both venues were finished. Theater still managed to exist in fixed locations but only on Broadway in New York and in a number of other large cities. The nation was now filled with millions of immigrants, most of whom could understand but little English. Theaters were definitely out for them and so was much of vaudeville, where understanding of the spoken word was necessary to fully appreciate the entertainment. The silent motion pictures, however, needed no command of the English language to understand them; the gestures and facial expressions of the actors supplied all the communication the immigrants needed.
New movie studios now popped up almost daily to begin shooting 1-reel silent movies, for the demand of the movie theaters for them was almost insatiable. Unlike today, where a movie debuts at movie theaters, plays for a number of weeks there, then goes to cable, then to DVD, movies of that era were shown once at a theater, then either melted down for the silver nitrate in the film or thrown into trunks and forgotten. That meant that theaters needed a lot of movies and consequently the theater owners were always “beating the bushes” for more movies they could show. As the supply of movies increased, theaters began to build specially designed movie houses to show the movies, No more hot and smelly halls with folding chairs and a sheet for a movie screen. Now the trend was well ventilated buildings, fixed and padded seats, and large specially-developed viewing screens. By 1910 there were 13,000 movie theaters and 26 million silent movie viewers. Comfort in the movie studios now gave way to opulence and the movie palaces were now built in many large cities. Many were patterned after European opera houses in the ornamentation of their architecture.
By 1930 all the films being produced were “talkies.” This created major problems and expenses for the studios. Most silent stages were unsuitable for making sound films. The studios spent $24 million upgrading their studios to make sound movies and another $300 million to wire up their theaters (it cost roughly $20,000 to sound-wire a movie theater). In the theaters it was estimated that 10,000 musicians lost their jobs between 1928 and 1930.
And so with sound the silent film era came to a close. In the excitement of the new movie stars like Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Sylvia Sidney, Humphrey Bogart, and others, the silent era was quickly relegated to the dustbin of history and quickly forgotten. The legendary beauty of the actresses and handsomeness of the actors quickly faded, as did their names and they were forgotten by all but a few.
The advent of motion pictures killed vaudeville and severely reduced theatrical tours. By the 1920s both venues were finished. Theater still managed to exist in fixed locations but only on Broadway in New York and in a number of other large cities. The nation was now filled with millions of immigrants, most of whom could understand but little English. Theaters were definitely out for them and so was much of vaudeville, where understanding of the spoken word was necessary to fully appreciate the entertainment. The silent motion pictures, however, needed no command of the English language to understand them; the gestures and facial expressions of the actors supplied all the communication the immigrants needed.
New movie studios now popped up almost daily to begin shooting 1-reel silent movies, for the demand of the movie theaters for them was almost insatiable. Unlike today, where a movie debuts at movie theaters, plays for a number of weeks there, then goes to cable, then to DVD, movies of that era were shown once at a theater, then either melted down for the silver nitrate in the film or thrown into trunks and forgotten. That meant that theaters needed a lot of movies and consequently the theater owners were always “beating the bushes” for more movies they could show. As the supply of movies increased, theaters began to build specially designed movie houses to show the movies, No more hot and smelly halls with folding chairs and a sheet for a movie screen. Now the trend was well ventilated buildings, fixed and padded seats, and large specially-developed viewing screens. By 1910 there were 13,000 movie theaters and 26 million silent movie viewers. Comfort in the movie studios now gave way to opulence and the movie palaces were now built in many large cities. Many were patterned after European opera houses in the ornamentation of their architecture.
By 1930 all the films being produced were “talkies.” This created major problems and expenses for the studios. Most silent stages were unsuitable for making sound films. The studios spent $24 million upgrading their studios to make sound movies and another $300 million to wire up their theaters (it cost roughly $20,000 to sound-wire a movie theater). In the theaters it was estimated that 10,000 musicians lost their jobs between 1928 and 1930.
And so with sound the silent film era came to a close. In the excitement of the new movie stars like Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Sylvia Sidney, Humphrey Bogart, and others, the silent era was quickly relegated to the dustbin of history and quickly forgotten. The legendary beauty of the actresses and handsomeness of the actors quickly faded, as did their names and they were forgotten by all but a few.
