Phonofilm is an optical variable density sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s.
In 1919 and 1920, de Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back into sound waves when the movie was projected.
The Phonofilm system, which recorded synchronized sound directly onto film, was used to record vaudeville acts, musical numbers, political speeches, and opera singers. The quality of Phonofilm was poor at first and while it improved somewhat in later years, it was never able to match the fidelity of sound-on-disc systems such as Vitaphone, or later sound-on-film systems such as RCA Photophone or Fox Movietone.
The films of de Forest were short films made primarily as demonstrations to try to interest major studios in Phonofilm. These films are particularly valuable to entertainment historians, as they include recordings of a wide variety of both well-known and less famous American vaudeville and British music hall acts which would otherwise have been forgotten.
Development
In November 1922, de Forest founded the De Forest Phonofilm Corporation with studios at 314 East 48th Street in New York City, and offices at 220 West 42nd Street in the Candler Building. However, de Forest was unable to interest any of the major Hollywood movie studios in his invention.The Educational Screen (January 1944), Chapter 12, "Now They Must Talk" by Arthur Edwin Krows
To record on film, de Forest tried using a standard incandescent bulb to expose amplified sound onto film. The bulbs quickly burned out, and, even while functioning, never produced a clear recording. To reproduce his nearly inaudible soundtracks, de Forest used a photocell that could not react quickly enough to the varying light coming to it as the soundtrack passed through the sound gate, resulting in an incomplete reproduction of sound from an inadequate recording – a dual failure.
Having failed to create a workable sound-on-film system by 1921, de Forest contacted Theodore Case to inquire about using a Case Research Lab invention, the Thallofide (thallium oxysulfide) Cell, for reproducing the recorded sound. Case provided de Forest with that major upgrade and later provided him with another Case Research Lab creation, the AEO Light, to use for recording the soundtrack.
Debut On March 12, 1923, de Forest presented a demonstration of Phonofilm to the press.Randy Alfred, Wired magazine (12 March 2008) On April 12, 1923, de Forest gave a private demonstration of the process to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Building's Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City.ASCE website entry
Phonofilm would at this point in time be distributed through Paramount Pictures, led by Adolph Zukor, and be billed as "Adolph Zukor presents Phonofilm."
On April 15, 1923, de Forest premiered 18 short films made in Phonofilm — including vaudeville acts, musical performers, opera, and ballet — at the Rivoli Theater at 1620 Broadway in New York City. The Rivoli's music director Hugo Riesenfeld co-hosted the presentation. The printed program gave credit to the "DeForest-Case Patents", but according to a letter Theodore Case wrote to de Forest immediately after the event, no credit was given to Case during the presentation itself.
De Forest later took his show on the road, pitching Phonofilm directly to the general public at a series of special engagements across the country. The shorts shown at one such demonstration in 1925, were as follows:
(Overture) What the Phonofilm Means (Bart Doyle [?]) A Study in Contrasts (comparing sound and silent film segments) From Far Seville (Concha Piquer) Old Melodies (Charles Ross Taggart) The Harlequin's Serenade [no other identification, adaptation of Harlequinade by Riccardo Drigo (d. 1930)] Stringed Harmony (Roy Smeck) Parade of the Wooden Soldiers [Franco-Russian ballet troupe Le Chauve Souris] A Few Moments With Eddie Cantor, Star of "Kid Boots" A Musical Monologue (with Phil Baker) President Calvin Coolidge Taken on the White House Lawn (August 11, 1924) (Intermission—Five Minutes) Ben Bernie's Orchestra ("Ben Bernie and All the Lads") Rigoletto, Act Two (Eva Leoni [1895-1972] and Company) The Bubble Dance (Lillian Powell) Weber and Fields (their famous poolhall skit) A Boston Star (Borrah Minevitch) DeWolfe [sic] Hopper (reciting "Casey at the Bat") Negro Folk Songs (Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake) Opera Versus Jazz (Eva Puck and Sammy White) (Exit March)
De Forest was forced to show these films in independent theaters such as the Rivoli since Hollywood movie studios controlled all major U.S. movie theater chains at the time. De Forest's decision to film primarily short films (one reel), not feature films limited the appeal of his process. De Forest kept to one-reel films because he was unable to solve the problem of reel changes, and the disruption in sound which would occur, when a projectionist in a movie theater changed reels. One of the few two-reel films made in the Phonofilm process was Love's Old Sweet Song (1923), starring Louis Wolheim, Donald Gallaher, and the 20-year-old Una Merkel.
All or part of the Paramount Pictures features Bella Donna (premiered April 1, 1923) and The Covered Wagon (premiered March 16, 1923) were filmed with Phonofilm as an experiment. In the case of The Covered Wagon, Hugo Riesenfeld composed the music for the film. However, the Phonofilm versions were only shown at the premiere engagements, also at the Rivoli. "Siegfried", the first part of the Fritz Lang film Die Nibelungen (1924) had a Phonofilm soundtrack, but only at the New York City premiere at the Century Theatre on August 23, 1925.SilentEra entry for The Covered WagonSilentEra entry for Bella DonnaSilentEra entry for Siegfried
Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tunes series of cartoons which introduced the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick starting in May 1924. Of the 36 titles in the Song Car-Tunes series, 19 used Phonofilm. Also in 1924, the Fleischer brothers partnered with de Forest, Edwin Miles Fadiman, and Hugo Riesenfeld to form Red Seal Pictures Corporation, which owned 36 theaters on the East Coast, extending as far west as Cleveland, Ohio."First Sound of Movies", DVD, Ray Pointer, Inkwell Images
Hollywood chooses other sound systems Hollywood studios largely rejected Phonofilm, and instead introduced different systems for sound film.
In 1924, Western Electric was developing both a sound-on-disc system, where the film is synchronized with a phonograph containing the sound, and their own optical sound systems. They had settled on 24 frames per second (90 feet per minute) as the standard film speed for sound, as they found slower film speeds could not consistently reproduce sound well.
Warner Bros. was the first to use a sound-on-disc system, Vitaphone. Warner Bros. released the feature film Don Juan starring John Barrymore on August 5, 1926, in Vitaphone"Vitaphone Stirs as Talking Movie; New Device Synchronizing Sound With Action Impresses With Its Realistic Effects— Noted Musicians Heard; Provides Orchestral Accompaniment to Photoplay 'Don Juan,' With John Barrymore", by Mordaunth Hall, The New York Times, August 7, 1926 ("A marvelous device known as the vitaphone, which synchronizes sound with motion pictures, stirred a distinguished audience in Warners' Theatre to unusual enthusiasm at its initial presentation last Thursday evening."), with music and sound effects only. On October 6, 1927, Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson in Vitaphone. The Jazz Singer was the first feature film to use synchronized sound for talking sequences rather than just for music and sound effects, and thus launched the talkie era.
The Fox Movietone system was first demonstrated to the public at the Sam H. Harris Theatre in New York City on January 21, 1927, with a short film of Raquel Meller preceding the feature film What Price Glory?, originally released in November 1926.Edwin M. Bradley, The First Hollywood Musicals: A Critical Filmography of 171 Features, 1927 through 1932 (McFarland, 2004) p6 Later in 1927, Fox released the first sound-on-film feature Sunrise by F. W. Murnau. In 1928, the sound-on-film process RCA Photophone was adopted by newly created studio RKO Radio Pictures and by Paramount Pictures.
Since Western Electric's ERPI division dominated the theater hardware market when the sound revolution finally got underway, its standard 24-frames-per-second speed was universally adopted by Fox and all the other studios as each began making sound films. As a consequence, Case's tests and de Forest's early Phonofilms, shot at about 21 frames per second, gave speakers and singers high-pitched "helium voices" if they are run on a standard sound projector. The Library of Congress and other film archives have printed new copies of some early Phonofilms, modifying them by periodically duplicating frames and correspondingly "stretching" the soundtracks to make them compatible with standard projectors and telecine equipment.
Downfall Case and de Forest had a falling out due to de Forest taking full credit for the work of Case and Earl I. Sponable at the Case Research Lab. The Case Research Lab proceeded to build its own camera. That camera was used by Case and Sponable to film President Coolidge on August 11, 1924, creating one of the films shown by de Forest and claimed by him to be the product of "his" inventions. Case also expressed his displeasure that the program credited only the "DeForest-Case Patents", as Phonofilm's success rested upon the work of Case and his Case Research Lab.
Seeing that de Forest was more concerned with his own fame and recognition than he was with actually creating a workable system of sound film, and because of de Forest's continuing attempts to downplay the contributions of the Case Research Lab in the creation of Phonofilm, Case severed his ties with de Forest in the fall of 1925. On July 23, 1926, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation bought Case's patents, cutting off de Forest's access to them.Raymond Fielding, The American Newsreel: A Complete History, 1911-1967 (McFarland & Company, 2006) p.102 ISBN 9780786426348
Without access to Case's inventions, de Forest was left with an incomplete system of sound film. He gave up on trying to exploit the process — at least in the U.S. (see UK section below). de Forest was in financial difficulty due to his lawsuits against Case, and had resorted to selling cut-rate sound equipment to second-run movie theaters wanting to convert to sound on the cheap. His company declared bankruptcy in September 1926. The Fleischers stopped releasing the Song Car-Tune films in Phonofilm shortly thereafter.
Even so, in June 1927, producer Pat Powers made an unsuccessful takeover bid for de Forest's company. In the aftermath, Powers hired former DeForest technician William Garity to produce a cloned version of the Phonofilm system which became Powers Cinephone.
Phonofilm in the UK In July 1925, The Gentleman, a comedy short film excerpt of The 9 to 11 Revue directed by William J. Elliott, was made using Phonofilm, the first sound-on-film production in England. In 1926, the owner of a UK cinema chain, M. B. Schlesinger, acquired the UK rights to Phonofilm.The Educational Screen (January 1944), Chapter 12, "Now They Must Talk" by Arthur Edwin Krows Schlesinger filmed short films of British music hall performers such as Marie Lloyd Jr. and Billy Merson, along with famous stage actors such as Sybil Thorndike and Bransby Williams performing excerpts of works by Shakespeare, Shaw, and Dickens, from September 1926 to May 1929.