If a revolution is a sudden event which throws over the past regime and substitutes a new oppositional rule, then the conversion to sound was certainly no revolution. The talkies were not instantaneous, although once sound film was in place, it was accepted very quickly. Part 2 presents a survey of major studio releases to look at what happened to the films themselves during the period following the signing of the ERPI and Photophone licenses and the twilight of silent exhibition.
As the talkies fanned out from the urban centers toward smaller towns, the nature of the film audience changed. The statistically average moviegoer who had access to talking pictures was increasingly likely to inhabit a small or medium-sized town. Hollywood tinkered with adjusting content to accommodate regional tastes. With more and more people experiencing the "thrill" of talking pictures, the novelty of sound for its own sake soon wore off. Fascination gave way to discrimination. The use of sound in motion pictures went through distinct-though overlapping-phases, from silent film supplement to integrated component. These changes were motivated in part by Hollywood's rapidly increasing technical mastery, but technology alone is not sufficient to explain the direction in which the industry took sound.
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