Page 10 - CinemaRecord #11R.pdf

The Continental Sound Film by Ken Tulloch

"The Jazz Singer" and the early talkies arrived in Europe in 1928. This new challenge from across the Atlantic
affected the highly developed film industries of Germany and France in remarkably different ways.

The French studios were totally unprepared for the introduction of sound , and the lucrative domestic market
was consequently invaded by the better organised American and German film companies. Yet in Germany
filmgoers had seen talking pictures as early as 1922. The Americans took the lead in exploiting sound, as a ·
result of under investment, lack of interest, and wasted opportunities on the part of German business.

In 1918, three Germans, Hans Vogt, Joseph Massolle, and Joseph Engl. patented a sound film system, and
they called it Tri-Ergon ("the work of three people"). Theirs was a sound on film system and was extremely
advanced for its time. On September 17-1922, Vogt, Masso lie and Eng I mounted the first public show of their
invention at the Alhambra Cinema in Berlin. The audience saw and heard, a two hour film programme of
musical numbers and recitations. By all accounts the Tri-Ergon system scored an immediate hit with the public
who were thrilled at the perfect synchronisation of lip movements and sound.

Under normal circumstances Tri-Ergon would have been ripe for commercial exploitation, but its inventors
were to receive much the same kind of negative reaction from sponsors as the American, Lee De Forest had
encountered for his Phonofilms. Further more Germany had scarcely recovered from the devastation of World
War 1 and the econom9 was at its most inflationary. For a crucial couple of years the ownership of Tri-Ergon
sound on film patents passed from one company to another, with none of them succeeding in capitalising on
the system.

Late in 1924 a contract was signed linking Tri-Ergon with the big U.F.A. studios (stands for Universum Film
Aktiengelschaft) in Babelsberg, Germany's biggest film making company, for the purpose of attempting a
sound feature film. ·The result was a film called "Das Madchen Mit Den Schwefelholzern" based on Hans
Christian Anderson's tale of "The Little Match Girl".

A studio with the necessary technical equipment was constructed and the film was shot at a breathtaking pace.
Its' premiere on December 20-1925 however, was bedevilled with breakdowns and technical mishaps. As a
result U.F.A. turned down the offer of world rights to the system. Three months later, on a visit to Europe, the
movie mogul William Fox purchased the American rights.

The following year the first of Fox's Movietone Newsreels, showing Lindberg's triumphal crossing of the Atlantic,
was watched in Germany by enthusiastic tilmgoers and red faced U.F.A. executives who had finally realised
their mistake in not taking up the option on the Tri-Ergon system. There was little progress made in the three
years since the failure of "Das Madchen Mit Den Schwefelholzern", but the merger of the Tobis and Klangfilm
companies signalled a combined attack on the European film markets.

Early in 1929 the Deuthche Lichtspiel Company gave a sneak preview in Berlin. Two popular stars of the silent
screen, Harry Leidtke and Marlene Dietrich, were billed to appear in "lch Kusse lhre Hand, Madame" (I Kiss
Your Hand Madame.) The film was screened and to everyone's surprise, Liedtke sang the title song, actually
the voice was that of the famous tenor Richard Tauber, but the effect on the screen was totally believable,
meaning that the German sound film had arrived.

By the end of the twenties, the German film producers were convinced of the future of sound films. As in
America it had taken some time to persuade them. Having decided in favour of the optical sound solution, the
German pioneers represented a genuine challenge to the American Vitaphone sound system, (which was
sound on disc).

Walter Ruttman's "Melodie Der Welt" 1929, a kind of travelogue with story sequences made by Tobis Studios,
for the Hamberg-American steamship line, is generally taken to be the first German sound feature. During the
transitional period 1928-29, German producers tried to recapture the markets lost to the Americans at the time
of the release of Jolsons second film "The Singing Fool".

Germany like America had silent films in release, these were quickly withdrawn and some dialogue and music
were added. One in particular was called "Das land ohne frauen" {1929 The Land Without Women). This was
a spectacular production, featuring love stories and stirring action, its leading star was very well known and top
box office star Conrad Veidt.