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The Speed of Sound

Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926–1930

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The Speed of Sound

By: Scott Eyman
Narrated by: Adams Morgan
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It was the end of an era—it was a turbulent, colorful, and altogether remarkable period, four short years in which America’s most popular industry reinvented itself.

Here is the epic story of the transition from silent films to talkies, that moment when movies were totally transformed and the American public cemented its love affair with Hollywood. As Scott Eyman demonstrates in his fascinating account of this exciting era, it was a time when fortunes, careers, and lives were made and lost, and when the American film industry came fully into its own.

In this mixture of cultural and social history that is both scholarly and vastly entertaining, Eyman dispels the myths and gives us the missing chapter in the history of Hollywood—the ribbon of dreams by which America conquered the world.

©1997 Scott Eyman (P)1997 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Entertainment & Performing Arts Film & TV
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Reviews

“Anyone with an interest in accurate film history or a desire to know what really happened in the era of the transition to sound would enjoy this book. You ain’t read nothing like it yet.”

(Washington Post)

“Eyman combines a historian’s zeal for detail and context with a storyteller’s talent for the perfect illustrative anecdote…A remarkable book that belongs in every film history collection.”

(Library Journal)

“Eyman captures the tenor and the terror of the times…A fascinating account of what Eyman terms ‘the destruction of one great art and the creation of another.’”

(Booklist)

“Eyman is particularly good at conveying the beauty of the fully developed art that was silent cinema…Eyman tells this story with wit and skill, detailing a surprisingly overlooked but crucial period in Hollywood history.”

(Kirkus Reviews)
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