The best motion picture comedy that ever was thrown on the screen was a certain experimental “talking movie” whose production I witnessed five years ago.  It was a scream, not so much because of plot and action or humor in the lines; it was before the lines, between the lines, and after the lines, that the show scored.

             Apparently the inventor of the machine knew nothing and cared less about synchronizing his phonograph with the silent actors, for the audience was kept convulsed by the way in which different characters had other parts than their own foisted upon them. One supremely ridiculous moment occurred in a barnyard scene.  While th e heroine was placidly feeding the chickens one olf rooster stretched himself, flapped his wings and crowed.  That was all right, but apparently the wax record phonograph accompaniment was asleep at the switch, for it scratched along with nary a crow.  About three minutes later, just as the hero came in the picture, the phonograph woke up, flapped its wings, and emitted a husky cockadoodledoo! 

            And things of that sort happened right along!  Even the best of the machines----Thomas Edison’s among the number---made bad foozles of their attempts at timing voice to action.

             Today however, the talking movie is staging a real come-back.  A machine was tried out recently at the Keystone studios that does the trick in finished style. It times the voice and the shadow actors so well that every inhalation of breath, every fierce gesture of the hands that causes a strained voice inflection, and every quiet retort has its exact place in the sight and sound harmony.  I cannot be otherwise. 

            This is a mechanical marvel.  If George Washington were living today he would find more in it to mystify him than we would in either the racing automobile or the telephone; even laymen of today find it hard to understand and believe, because its success depends entirely upon the photography and reproduction of things man cannot see----sound waves. 

            Yes, Mr. W.F. Adler, a Los Angeles, California, inventor, has found means by which he can photograph the singing or talking voice, or, in fact, any sound of any pitch or intensity, directly upon a moving-picture film, and then, when the film is thrown upon the screen in a cinema palace, a means of changing that wavy line record directly back into sound again!

             The sounds are gathered by means of large sounding boards and telephone transmitters just off the stage.  The telephone circuit is connected with the talking arc amp apparatus in front of the special “vibration” lens of the camera.  Thus every sound on the stage acts on the transmitters which in turn act on the telephone circuit.  This circuit being imposed on the arc-lamp circuit causes the light of the lamp to fluctuate on a revolving mirror (very similar to the Pallophotophone, available from the Museum Preview Page---note by Art, May, 2004) and these fluctuating reflections are photographically registered on the outer edge of the moving-picture film.  It is the principle that has been utilized by Mr. Adler in securing the sound photographs on the film.  This ray from the arc lamp is reflected on a revolving mirror on which it appears in the various shapes fashioned by the impulses by the sounds given to the telephone transmitter.  In appearance these shapes are much like the teeth of a circular saw if the were set in a straight line.  The reflection is photographed on the sensitive moving-picture  film.   (what for decades has been known as a variable area soundtrack---note by Shiffy, May, 2004.) The outlines of the sound as shown by the reflected rays make distinct clear cut lines on the film in the same way was the outlines of the actors whose motions make each succeeding picture on the film. 

            The audion (sic..should be capitalized) (talking) arc lamp is the chief agent employed in the first step of this process.  This queer device, that same that is employed in wireless telephony and which Mr. (did he yet have his doctorate?---note by Shiffy, May, 2004) De Forrest recently has been experimenting with in regard to his light wave musical instrument the audio organ, is briefly a light bulb that sputters whenever sound waves are superimposed upon its circuit.  

These sputters vary.  If the sound is high in pitch the audion trembles imperceptibly; if low, the light is extremely agitated.  (The writer misunderstood the function of the audion: which was to amplify the weak voltages from the telephone pickups, not to act as a converter, changing electricity into light.  Such converters within a few years, would be used by DeForrest in his “Phonofilm” and  Theodore Case in his “Fox-Case” or “Movietone” methods---note by Shiffy, May, 2004). 

  This variation is thrown on the film at the same time the picture is being taken, and photographs as would a line of shorthand written by a hasty stenographer.

 This “line of shorthand” appears on the movie film next to the double rows of perforations which fit the cogs in the projecting machine, and is not thrown upon the screen.  Instead of that, in reproducing a special machine is used or rather an ordinary machine with some additional apparatus the principal feature of which is a special lens through which on the sound impression photographs are projected.  The rays of the projecting lamp pass through the lights and shadows of the sound lines on the edge of the film and are focused and fluctuate upon a selenium cell upon which the whole process is dependent. This mineral selenium has a peculiar property which has caused it to be classed as one of the marvels of the mineral world and which is responsible for it being the base of many wonderful inventions.  This property is its remarkable variation in its electrical conductivity under the action of loight.  For this reason the resistance of selenium to electric currents is in direct proportion to the light thrown upon it.  The more light thrown upon it the better electrical conductor it makes.  It is this quality in selenium which makes possible the reproduction of the photographed sounds.  Selenium is a non-metallic element and may roughly be described as being of the sulphur family and analogous to sulphur in its compounds.  It is found in small quantities with sulphur and sulphurous ores.  In a free state it is a dark reddish powder or a crystalline mass metallic in appearance. It can readily be melted.

             In outward appearance this selenium cell is much like a candlestick at the top of which a disk almost as large as the pediment has been mounted on edge. (sic?) This disk is an apparatus so arranged that the selenium can interrupt the continuity in the telephone circuit.  The apparatus is so arranged that the selenium can interrupt the continuity of the flow of the electric current in the telephone circuit.  The apparatus is connected with terminals mounted on the base and to these the telephone wire is connected.  As the telephone current has to pass through the selenium, it follows that any light impulse received by the selenium must be communicated to the telephone circuit and cause the current to actuate the disk in the receiver, thus producing sounds in accord with that  impulse and varying with the intensity of the light causing the impulse.  The light vibrations act on the selenium cell and thus affect the telephone current in precisely the same way it is affected when the sounds are spoken into a transmitter (microphone…note by Art, May 2004) 

            When the picture is ready to be shown the projecting machine is started and the characters in the play appear on the screen.  Simultaneously the sound pictures are thrown upon the selenium cell and the lights and shadows fluctuating upon it cause the current in the telephone circuit to vary in accordance with the conductivity allowed by the selenium in the cell.  The current acts on the diaphragm in the receiver (loud speaker…note by Art, May 2004) and produces clearly and distinctly the sounds of the photographed words of the dialogue of the actors.  The telephone part of the invention is connected with an apparatus known as an audion-amplifier such as is used in transcontinental telephone circuits.  By this means the sound may be intensified until it can be heard in every part of an auditorium.  In fact, it is possible to make the machine fairly shout.

             As the sound photographs are on the same film depicting the movements of the characters in the play it would be an impossibility for the words and actions not to synchronize.  If the film became broken or a part of it were cut away, a thing not unlikely in these days of censors, (note that at that time, different states had different censoring standards…note by Art, May 2004) the talking part of the film automatically is removed.

 This development will no doubt give rise to another profession within the profession of dramatic art.  The regular or “legitimate” actor with a few exceptions has not proved a success when employed in the silent drama.  Either from “temperament” which compels him to disregard the instructions of the moving-picture director, or from the physical disability which does not permit him to make a good photographic subject, he is not popular with the powers that rule the “movies”. 

On the other hand it is not of record that, with a very few possible exceptions, any of the famous film stars have ever appeared successfully on the legitimate stage.  The two branches of the dramatic art have a distinct and sharp cleavage and they are recognized as separate professions.  With the advent of the talking moving picture yet another class will be created. 

               This new enterprise may be instrumental in placing the legitimate drama back on the pedestal from which it was torn by the phenomenal popularity of the “movie”.  It will be possible to make exact reproductions of the sounds and actions in the great operas and famous plays of the metropolises so that they can simultaneously appear at all the centers of population.  It may seal the doom of the one-night-stand actor even as the moving-picture theater has doomed many of the strolling fraternity of this day.