Sound film

I don't know if I'd ever want to go to a public bath.

And in 1927, on this date, the first talkie movie premiered.

Talkie movie.

movie.

1927, the first talkie movie.

And yeah, they were performed, uh, a lot in the early days with music played in a theater.

This particular film was so instrumental and influential because it let audiences hear recorded singing and, yeah, spoken dialogue that was put together in a, quote, "moving picture." The early film here, it still used silent film techniques, and yes, earlier films had experimented with sound, but the bottom line, the impact of this popularity of this movie convinced Hollywood that audiences wanted talking pictures.

Imagine that.

No. Yeah, it's like we take it for granted, but this was huge.

Stanley really did zone out when there was too much dialogue in a movie.

[upbeat music] Talky scenes, they didn't interest him.

He was looking closely at the visuals, the camera work, the editing, and I can just picture him sitting there thinking, "Yeah, I can do better." Now he had to prove it.

[pensive music] I'm your host, Ben Mankiewicz.

He took over management of her career and promoted her as this major massive film actress, right? Silent film actress, and then eventually, um, doing voice acting as, or, well, acting as we know it now.

Talkies, yes? Yeah, and then, you know, she was a model at one point, and she had a, a couple small scandals.

And then, uh, just like Hearst, the Great Depression, well, I'm sure just like everybody at the time, really kind of was brought down by that.

Alcoholism.

Anyway, Mary Astor, who played the role of Bridget O'Shaughnessy, she was very interesting.

She started out in silent movies, but transitioned to talkies as a star.

Talkies? Is that what you called them? Talkies.

That's what they were known as when they transitioned from silence to talkies.

That's what it was called.

And so they all get credit, and I have to play it when I'm here.

This is Alex's, Jason, and Deb's IMDb game, a.k.a. Talkin' Talkies! Woo-hoo! That's what Jason called it, talking talkies.

I never really liked that.

All right, so every actor has an IMDb page.

games.

No, I was just teasing.

I don't think he'll even hear it, but I was just teasing Jason that he called it Talkin' Talkies.

So there's no silent films in this game.

But yeah, so...

All that talky bits aside, main theme from Scooby-Doo Mysteries.

All right, that's coming back from main theme of Scooby-Doo Mystery.

Like zoinks, man.

I booked him because he was on Talksport, and as you just said, what the hell was he doing on Talksport? It was the day of the eclipse, and Chris is a Talk United fan as Charlie Baker is.

And so Charlie knows him 'cause there's about four Talkie fans.

[laughs]

He came on, and it was one of those bits where this was suddenly really exciting stuff compared to just talking about who Liverpool were gonna buy in the window.