The film is MOVIE CRAZY (1932), and Harold Lloyd is a star-struck fan who, through improbable twists of fate, finds himself making a screen test. He embraces his leading lady and emotes, "Oh, Marjorie! I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you." The joke, that nerdy Harold is replaying the talking-picture debut of the matinee idol John Gilbert, would have elicited laughter of recognition from audiences of the time. Lloyd is poking fun at early sound pictures, and perhaps also at the fans' role in making and unmaking talking stars. Harold, the fan, can do no better than the derided star when given the chance to cope with the talkies. The sequence also indicates the implicit tension over who was in control of the movie business: star, studio, or "crazy" fan. As a performer who made a difficult transition to sound and as a producer in decline, Harold Lloyd was intensely aware of the changing taste of the public and the difficulty of gauging it.
Industry organizations, including the Hays Office, theater owners' associations, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, coordinated the dissemination of knowledge about sound in a systematic fashion.
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