Often the best way to understand a new technology is to compare it to an older one already understood. Frequently when writers in the late 1920s introduced the talkies, the simile of choice was the automobile. George Klee used the car to illustrate his point that the talkies were still in an embryonic stage: "The talking film may by no means be compared to the present film in the same way as the electric engine to the steam locomotive or the airplane to the automobile."1 On the subject of the part-dialogue film, "it was as if Henry Ford had tried to ease into production on his new car by sending out his old model with a new gearshift, promising a complete model in a few months."2 Jesse Lasky of Paramount also used the car as a paradigm: "It would be foolish to pretend that the talking picture has attained its ultimate excellence. Nothing has. But it is here to stay-as substantial a product of our progress as the motor car or the airplane."3
Perhaps the most striking object lesson about technology is contained in the film that Warner Bros. produced in 1927 to showcase its Vitaphone sound system, TilE FIRST AUTO.
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