The first all-talking movie was released in 1928, a technology of recorded and synchronised music and speech that utterly transformed Hollywood in barely a year. Careers and fortunes would be made, and be broken. This fascinating talk featuring dozens of clips reveals the effect sound had on the great silent movies comedians of the 1920s. We’ll see how Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Laurel & Hardy responded to this revolution and how movies began to be made in a totally different way.

An extract from the talk at the Library at Willesden Green in 2018.

FURTHER READING:

THE SPEED OF SOUND by Scott Eyman

KEATON by Rudi Blesh

BUSTER KEATON: TEMPEST IN A FLAT HAT by Edward McPherson

STAN AND OLLIE: THE ROOTS OF COMEDY by Simon Louvish

THE LAUREL & HARDY ENCYCLOPAEDIA by Glenn Mitchell

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Charles Chaplin

CHAPLIN: HIS LIFE AND ART by David Robinson

HAROLD LLOYD: THE MAN ON THE CLOCK by Tom Dardis

HAROLD LLOYD: MAGIC IN A PAIR OF HORN-RIMMED GLASSES by Annette D’Agostino Lloyd

SILENT COMEDY by Paul Merton