Movie: The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk

Top 10 Billed Cast

Mark Hunt
Mark Hunt

Narrator (voice)

Scott Eyman
Scott Eyman

Self

Rudy Behlmer
Rudy Behlmer

Self

Robert Gitt
Robert Gitt

Self

Jonathan Kuntz
Jonathan Kuntz

Self

A.C. Lyles
A.C. Lyles

Self

Ben Burtt
Ben Burtt

Self

Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin

Self

Vince Giordano
Vince Giordano

Self

Rose Marie
Rose Marie

Self

  • HomePage

  • Overview

    Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies.

  • Release Date

    2007-09-02

  • Average

    7

  • Rating:

    3.5 starts
  • Tagline

  • Genres

  • Languages:

    English
  • Keywords

Recommendations Movies

Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song
80%

Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song(en)

2015-12-25

It’s Christmas Day on a remote human colony and the Doctor is hiding from Christmas Carols and Comedy Antlers. But when a crashed spaceship calls upon the Doctor for help, he finds himself recruited into River Song’s squad and hurled into a fast and frantic chase across the galaxy. King Hydroflax is furious, and his giant Robot bodyguard is out-of-control and coming for them all! Will Nardole survive? And when will River Song work out who the Doctor is? All will be revealed on a starliner full of galactic super-villains and a destination the Doctor has been avoiding for a very long time.

A New Girl in Paris!
64%

A New Girl in Paris!(fr)

2018-07-04

Tamara has been separated from Diego for two years. She finally leaves home to live the student adventure in Paris with his girlfriend Sam. In a galley apartment, they accept a cohabit with Wagner. Problem: Diego is part of the lot, and he is no more single.

The Way Back
68%

The Way Back(fr)

2019-09-18

Hüseyin Al Baldawi arrives in Brussels in August 2015. He has traveled thousands of kilometers until he got there from Iraq. A year after his arrival, he receives his residence permit and decides to go to Greece. This journey from Brussels to Athens involves the viewers on the difficulties faced by Hüseyin and thousands of other immigrants. While the story of Hüseyin is taking shape through the countries he travels, the forgotten people he meets and the selfish society of Europe give us many messages, as well.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties
60%

How to Talk to Girls at Parties(en)

2017-10-06

In 1970s London, a teenage outsider named Enn falls in love with a rebellious alien girl named Zan, who has come to Earth for a party. Together, they navigate the complexities of intergalactic culture and the trials of first love.

Manon of the Spring
76%

Manon of the Spring(fr)

1986-11-19

In this, the sequel to Jean de Florette, Manon has grown into a beautiful young shepherdess living in the idyllic Provencal countryside. She plots vengeance on the men who greedily conspired to acquire her father's land years earlier.

Scooby-Doo! Haunted Holidays
83%

Scooby-Doo! Haunted Holidays(en)

2012-10-16

Scooby-Doo and the gang participate in a toy store's holiday parade where they discover the abandoned haunted clock tower with a troubled past. A sinister snowman haunts the streets and accompanied with a large blizzard, threatens to close down the toy store for good.

My Big Night
53%

My Big Night(es)

2015-10-23

Coslada, near Madrid, Spain, October 2015. Hundreds of extras are trapped in a huge stage where they pretend with hysterical joy that they are celebrating a party that will be broadcast on television on New Year's Eve. But more than a week later, the clash between several staff members threatens to prolong indefinitely such a maddening nightmare.

The Road Within
69%

The Road Within(en)

2014-10-24

A young man with Tourette's Syndrome embarks on a road trip with his recently-deceased mother's ashes.

The Lion Woman
69%

The Lion Woman(no)

2016-08-26

Eva Arctander is born with hypertrichosis, meaning that she is covered from head to toe with fine blonde hair. Her father is so ashamed of her that he hides her away from the world in their apartment. However, Eva’s nanny fights for her right to be treated like everyone else.

Frenchmen 2
61%

Frenchmen 2(fr)

2007-10-24

Alex, Antoine, Jeff and Manu. Four friends, four years later. Their relationships, friendship, shared secrets, feelings of guilt and their desire to change and improve.

The Women on the 6th Floor
68%

The Women on the 6th Floor(fr)

2011-02-16

Paris, in the early 1960s. Jean-Louis Joubert is a serious but uptight stockbroker, married to Suzanne, a starchy class-conscious woman and father of two arrogant teenage boys, currently in a boarding school. The affluent man lives a steady yet boring life. At least until, due to fortuitous circumstances, Maria, the charming new maid at the service of Jean-Louis' family, makes him discover the servants' quarter on the sixth floor of the luxury building he owns and lives in. There live a crowd of lively Spanish maids who will help Jean-Louis to open to a new civilization and a new approach of life. In their company - and more precisely in the company of beautiful Maria - Jean-Louis will gradually become another man, a better man.

Strong Island
64%

Strong Island(en)

2017-01-23

Examining the violent death of the filmmaker’s brother and the judicial system that allowed his killer to go free, this documentary interrogates murderous fear and racialized perception, and re-imagines the wreckage in catastrophe’s wake, challenging us to change.

August 15th
50%

August 15th(fr)

2001-04-18

Three men are abandonned by their wives for a few days in the summer holidays. They are alone with five kids to feed and a house to maintain. And they will learn what they did wrong with their wives.

Let's Be Friends
55%

Let's Be Friends(fr)

2005-02-23

The two friends Claude and Serge are fundamentally different in their temperament. Similarities arise only when they try to have a relationship with a woman, because both fail equally. While Claude is simply too shy to even start a relationship, let alone meet a woman, Serge is too jumpy to have a relationship. Together they go in search of the great love in all sorts of curious situations, from the self-help group on speed dating to wedding celebrations of strangers - in the hunt for the right woman, they are no way too far.

Suck Me Shakespeer 2
64%

Suck Me Shakespeer 2(de)

2015-09-10

Dissatisfied with his new work at the Goethe-Gesamtschule, Mr. Müller is tired of early mornings and correcting exams. Meanwhile, director Gerster strives to be a symbol of the new company. To do so, her attempts to improve the school's image involve revoking the partnership from the Schillergymnasium with a Thai school. In a last-ditch saving grace, Mr. Müller, Mrs. Schnabelstedt, and the 10b must take a trip to Thailand.

North Country
72%

North Country(en)

2005-02-12

A fictionalized account of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the United States -- Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines, where a woman who endured a range of abuse while working as a miner filed and won the landmark 1984 lawsuit.

Hellraiser: Hellworld
48%

Hellraiser: Hellworld(en)

2005-09-06

When five hardcore Internet gamers are invited to a special party thrown by the website Hellworld, they endure a night of unspeakable terror.

Veronika Decides to Die
59%

Veronika Decides to Die(en)

2009-05-16

After a frantic suicide attempt, Veronika awakens inside a mysterious mental asylum. Under the supervision of an unorthodox psychiatrist who specializes in controversial treatment, Veronika learns that she has only weeks to live.

Making 'The Shining'
72%

Making 'The Shining'(en)

1980-10-04

Directed and edited by Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian Kubrick, this film offers a look behind the scenes during the making of The Shining.

The House of Sand
68%

The House of Sand(pt)

2005-05-13

A woman is taken along with her mother in 1910 to a far-away desert by her husband, and after his passing, is forced to spend the next 59 years of her life hopelessly trying to escape it.

Similar Movies

Hunting the Panther
44%

Hunting the Panther(fr)

1909-09-24

A hunter and his native helpers set up a trap, then taunt and shoot a panther. Next we see the locals skin the animal.

Dr. Cook at Copenhagen
60%

Dr. Cook at Copenhagen(da)

1909-09-21

On 4 September Frederick Albert Cook (1865-1940) arrived in Copenhagen on the ship 'Hans Egede'. He received a hero's welcome as the first man to set foot on the North Pole. He was greeted by the king, and given an honorary doctorate at the University of Copenhagen. Only a few days later, however, his endeavour was questioned, and in December the University rejected Cook's documentation. Carl Th. Dreyer is seen as one of the journalists taking notes. (DFI)

Hansa
0%

Hansa(de)

1912-09-19

Footage of the German airship Hansa over Copenhagen.

The Birth of a Nation
60%

The Birth of a Nation(en)

1915-02-08

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

The Passion of Joan of Arc
80%

The Passion of Joan of Arc(fr)

1928-04-21

A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

Battleship Potemkin
76%

Battleship Potemkin(ru)

1925-12-24

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and is a masterful example of montage editing.

Nanook of the North
71%

Nanook of the North(en)

1922-06-11

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
75%

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City(de)

1927-09-23

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

How Animated Cartoons Are Made
60%

How Animated Cartoons Are Made(en)

1919-09-06

Wallace Carlson walks viewers through the production of an animated short at Bray Studios.

Laurel & Hardy: Their Lives and Magic
78%

Laurel & Hardy: Their Lives and Magic(de)

2011-12-28

The lives of Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892-1957), on the screen and behind the curtain. The joy and the sadness, the success and the failure. The story of one of the best comic duos of all time: a lesson on how to make people laugh.

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
0%

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)(en)

1909-08-08

Documentary footage of the author and his two daughters at home.

From 3 to 22
70%

From 3 to 22(sh)

1966-11-23

A movie follows a regular working day of a woman who works in a factory. She wakes up at 3am and goes to sleep at 10pm.

The Story of the Kelly Gang
55%

The Story of the Kelly Gang(en)

1906-12-26

Just as Galeen and Wegener's Der Golem (1915) can be seen as a testament to early German film artistry, The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) symbolizes both the birth of the Australian film industry and the emergence of an Australian cinema identity. Even more significantly, it heralds the emergence of the feature film format. However, only fragments of the original production of more than one hour are known to exist, preserved at the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra; Efforts at reconstruction have made the film available to modern audiences.

Dingjun Mountain
100%

Dingjun Mountain(zh)

1905-12-28

Directed by Ren Jingfeng.

Men Boxing
41%

Men Boxing(xx)

1891-04-30

Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.

Dickson Greeting
48%

Dickson Greeting(xx)

1891-05-20

William K.L. Dickson brings his hat from his one hand to the other and moves his head slightly, as a small nod toward the audience. This was the first film produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company to be shown to public audiences and the press.

Women of the Ghetto Bathing
47%

Women of the Ghetto Bathing(en)

1901-07-15

The subject is a group of women bathing in a public swimming pool. The camera was placed on the edge of the pool and the full extent of the film shows the women in the pool. Only the heads and shoulders of most of the women are visible but it is possible to see they are wearing rented bathing attire.

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
71%

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages(en)

1916-09-04

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

Crabs and Shrimp
73%

Crabs and Shrimp(fr)

1930-12-31

Jean Painlevé is interested here, with the help of Eli Lotar, in crabs and shrimps. He is particularly interested in detailing their anatomy and observing their mating and fighting behavior.

Weaving Women
48%

Weaving Women(mk)

1905-12-31

A group of Macedonian women are shown hard at work.