Silent Photoplay Forum

I just ordered this dvd. It looks very interesting.

Description: In 1913, the Thomas Edison Company made talking pictures using a sound-on-cylinder system called The Kinetophone. These pioneering sound movies were shown in theatres for about a year, and featured vaudeville acts, comedy sketches, dramatic scenes and musical performances. Only 8 of the 200 Kinetophone films made survive in both film and cylinder elements, and these have now been digitally restored and synchronized by the Library of Congress, and are presented here for the first time in 105 years.

Oh WOW! That looks really interesting!

The only one of these I've ever seen (and that was just a clip) was in the last episode of the Hollywood series. Viola Dana was reminiscing about her sister being in one and her voice sounding odd.

That stuff is fascinating. Hey, I just thought about those Edison dolls that talked from the turn of the century. I think they had little cylinders in them that played the sound. It's rare to hear a good sounding one, because they deteriorated so quickly. Their voices are very creepy to listen to due to sound quality.

Kitty wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 03, 2019 7:33 pm

That stuff is fascinating. Hey, I just thought about those Edison dolls that talked from the turn of the century. I think they had little cylinders in them that played the sound. It's rare to hear a good sounding one, because they deteriorated so quickly. Their voices are very creepy to listen to due to sound quality.

I didn't know there was such a thing! Are there any audio or video recordings of them?

Yes! There's a Wikipedia page on them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison% ... graph_Doll

Thanks! Fascinating... There is also a good Smithsonian article linked at the bottom.

donnie wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 04, 2019 7:11 pm

Thanks! Fascinating... There is also a good Smithsonian article linked at the bottom.

Yeah, I looked at all of those. Interesting stuff!!

It seems surprising that Edison would have thought a cylinder machine inside a toy like that would succeed. With the delicacy of those things, and considering you had a needle in the groove of a wax cylinder...it seems almost an impossibility that they would have worked reliably.

And I wonder why the women making the voice recordings used such a loud voice, almost as if they're shouting. Maybe they had to for it to register on the cylinder...

donnie wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 04, 2019 7:50 pm

And I wonder why the women making the voice recordings used such a loud voice, almost as if they're shouting. Maybe they had to for it to register on the cylinder...

I think you hit the nail on the head.