August the sixth, seventy years ago at the 'refrigerated' Warner Theater on Broadway at 52nd Street, New York, Warner Brothers premiered their spectacular production Don Juan starring John Barrymore and Mary Astor.
There had been many Warner Bros pictures premiered here before but this one was different. Instead of a live orchestra to play the specially composed score, the music had been recorded and was being played back from disc, synchronised with the picture.
Early in 1925 Sam Warner, one of the four brothers, had been impressed with a demonstration arranged for him by Major Nathen Levinson of Western Electric, at the Bell Telephone Labs in New York. Sam saw and heard Bell Labs system of synchronising picture with sound-on-disc.
His enthusiasm was such that he managed to talk the other brothers into attending a further demonstration. They were not moved by the talking tests that were shown but when a short film of an orchestra playing came on Jack Warner, head of the company, sat up and said "That's what we want!". His idea was to record the music, played live in big city cinemas, so that even in the smallest theatres the audience could have the music of a great orchestra. They also decided to make short films of famous musicians to be used in the first half of the programme.
On the 25th June 1925 Warner Bros went into partnership with Western Electric and The Vitaphone Corporation was formed. At this time Warner's latest silent feature Don Juan was nearing completion and, it being an historical costume picture, an ideal movie to try out the new idea.
The programme was introduced by Will H.Hays, President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America. Speaking in synch from the screen, Hays told the audience that sound would usher in a new era in pictures and music. The remainder of the first half was made up of musical shorts of well known opera stars singing with the Metropolitan Opera Chorus, the violinist Micha Elman and the Don Cossack Choir singing The Volga Boatmen.
There was no recorded dialogue in Don Juan, the narrative being carried on the usual title cards of silent movies. The sound track was music only with a few sound effects such as clashing swords.
The large first night audience was impressed and enthusiastic reviews appeared in the following day's papers, with Variety bringing out a special edition. However, nobody went really wild and most producers and directors agreed that music was OK but audiences didn't want pictures that talked.
It wasn't until a year later (Oct 6, 1927) when Warners released The Jazz Singer, a basically silent movie with several song numbers sung on screen by its star, Al Jolson, that cinema goers, taken by the the snatches of ad-libbed dialogue spoken by Jolson, flocked to see the movie.
Warners had an outstanding box office hit. This coupled with the cinema-going public's demand for 'talkies' caused the other big Hollywood producers to realise that sound had arrived.
There had, since moving pictures began, been many attempts to make talking pictures. Some had been technically effective but it wasn't until the Vitaphone system that they became commercially successful. Because of this it is the Americans who usually get the credit for inventing talking pictures. However, unbeknown to most people it was two British-born and educated electrical engineers working for the Bell Telephone Laboratories who were mainly responsible for the research and development of the sound-on-disc talking picture system that became Warner Bros' Vitaphone. They were Stanley S.A. Watkins and George R. Groves.
Stanley Watkins was born in 1988 and gained a BSc in Electrical Engineering at the London City & Guilds Engineering Course. In 1911 he got a job with Western Electric Research Lab, later known as Bell Telephone Laboratories, in New York, USA,
His first years with Western Electric were spent working on telephone technology, one of his projects being to devise a method of separate individual rings for four party line subscribers.
During the 1914-18 war he worked on top secret projects dealing with gun ranging, aircraft detection from submarines and aircraft tracking for anti-aircraft gun aiming. The working group on these projects was headed by J.P. Maxfield with Watkins second in command.
After the war Watkins continued in Maxfield's group and was given responsibility for the application of sound amplification and speaker systems in concert halls, theatres and sports stadiums. At this time electronic sound amplification was in its infancy so Watkins was able to gain much valuable experience in this field which served him well when it came to the installation of the Vitaphone system in the Warner Theater.
About this time E.B. Craft, who was in charge of development at Bell Labs initiated work on the development of an electrical method of recording and reproducing phonograph records. He assigned the task to Maxfield's group.
By mid 1922 the group had succeeded in producing an experimental prototype system for electrical disc recording which used a condenser microphone developed by E.C. Went, another of Bell's excellent engineers who also designed the light valve used later for variable density photographic recording. The major Gramophone recording studios Victor and Columbia readily took up the new technology and Watkins spent a great deal of time with Columbia while they gained experience in the equipment's use.
Western Electric's first excursion into sound films came at this time when it was suggested that the commentary to a silent, animated diagram film explaining the workings of the Audion valve spoken live by a lecturer should be recorded on disc using the new system and played with the projected picture. Watkins was given the task.
A fairy simple method of keeping the record player in step with the projector was devised consisting of revolution counters mounted on each machine. The record player ran at a constant speed and the projectionist cranked the projector to keep the numbers on the two counters equal. It wasn't exactly frame sync but is was close enough for the non-synch commentary. It was first used at a showing at Yale University to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in October 1922.
The success of this operation inspired the idea of making a 'talking picture'. A system of interlocking the sound recording turntable with the camera, and the reproducer turntable with the film projector so that 'lip synch' could be achieved and maintained was devised. A 'studio' was set up in a small spare room at the lab and Watkins put in charge of making synch, test sound films. Camera noise was discovered and to combat it the camera was put outside and photography done through the glass of a closed window. The result of these tests is what excited Sam Warner and his brothers but left their rivals at the major Hollywood Studios unimpressed.
With the formation in 1925 of the Vitaphone Corporation, Watkins, at the the request of Harry Warner was given a years leave from the Lab to be Vitaphone's Chief Engineer. Watkins and ten young engineers from Bell Labs, along with the equipment, moved over to Warner's old Vitagraph studio in Brooklyn to begin production.
Vitagraph was an old, glass roofed studio with shocking acoustics. This problem was largely overcome by using rugs, carpets and drapes from the studio prop room. But there were other problems like pigeons that had been using the place for some years and the railway that ran right alongside. It soon became clear that if they were to prepare and shoot films for public exhibition they would require a much quieter place with better acoustics.
The obvious move would have been to shift the the operation to Warner's Hollywood Studio but it was music that they were concentrating on at this time, and all the big musical talent was in New York. After searching around for possible venues, Watkins and Sam Warner (who was in charge of production) hired the Manhattan Opera House with it's four foot thick walls, and moved in. The stage was extended by boarding over the seats in the stalls. There were no pigeons but shortly after moving in, construction of the 8th Avenue subway started and underground blasting caused havoc with the cutting stylus should a blasting shot be fired during a take. The four foot thick walls were no protection from this problem.
It took several months of work day and night to produce the shorts for the first half of the opening programme and to record the score for Don Juan. George Groves, an accomplished musician, was in charge of recording the music for Don Juan. In those days a single microphone was used for recording symphony orchestras but Groves applied a new technique of using six microphones to cover the various sections of the 107 strong New York Philharmonic Orchestra, a technique which is still standard practice in symphony music recording today.
There was also the preparation of the Warner Theater to be done. After acoustic tests it was found that the existing loudspeakers weren't capable of handling the power and quality required for that theatre so it was back to the drawing board for E.C. Went and A.L. Thuras to quickly develop a design that would fit the bill.
With the projection and sound equipment installed, the theatre acoustics adjusted and the amplification and speakers sorted out out, rehearsals were necessary to ensure that all possible snags would be cured before the big night of the premiere,
All went well on the first night but a few problems did occur at later shows and so the management insisted that Watkins be present at every showing. The programme ran two shows a day for nine months Warners shifted the Vitaphone operation to Hollywood, built a soundstage on their lot and Watkins and his team went west.
The other major studios, now realising that sound was here to stay, wanted to get equipped as quickly as possible which meant that the Bell Labs/Western Electric boys were in great demand installing gear and training staff. Douglas Shearer of the MGM's Sound Department fame was personally trained by Stanley Watkins.
The rest of the world's studios also wanted sound so in 1929 Western Electric sent Watkins to head equipment sales and installation in Europe. His first assignment was for Herbert Wilcox designing and equipping the sound department at British & Dominions Studio in Borehamwood.
During his time in Britain as Western Electric engineer in charge, he was responsible for equipping many of the silent studios then in existence, helping with the training of staff and sorting out recording problems encountered on several large productions. He was also responsible for designing and equipping the sound departments of the two newly-built studio complexes at Denham and Pinewood.
As it was Western Electric's policy not to allow it's engineers to stay at overseas postings for prolonged periods he was recalled to New York in 1936. From then on he had little to do with motion picture sound recording. He became involved in the development of equipment to produce speech artificially which resulted in The Voder. The Voder, which by means of a keyboard could be made to pronounce words, caused quite a sensation at the 1939 New York World Fair. Watkins had trained a bevy of pretty girls to operate the equipment and although there was plenty for visitors to see and do in the Western Electric Pavilion, Voder demonstrations always attracted large crowds.
Work on research and development of a number of projects including television, AA-gun direction WWII-style, a sound spectrograph and visible speech for the deaf occupied him until 1948 when he decided to take early retirement. He returned to Britain for the sake of his children's education and to enjoy living in the land of his birth. He died in 1975.
George R. Groves was born in St Helens, Merseyside in 1901 and educated at the local Grammar School. He gained a Liverpool University Honours Degree in Engineering and Radio Telephony. First working for GEC in Coventry manufacturing early radio sets, in 1923 he secured a job with Bell Telephone Labs, New York.
The best way to tell George Grove's story is to quote the citation given with the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers Samuel L Warner Memorial Award in 1972.
"It is the purpose of this award to do honour to the individual by recognizing outstanding contributions in the design and development of new and improved methods and/or apparatus for sound-on-film motion pictures including any step in the process.
George R. Groves graduated from Liverpool University, England and came to the United States in 1923. From 1923 to 1925 he was at Bell Telephone Laboratories, New York during the period of development of electrical recording of phonograph records and synchronization of sound in motion pictures.
In 1925 he transferred to Warner Brothers with the first Vitaphone installation and recorded the first Vitaphone public showing August 6, 1926, which included the recorded musical score for 'Don Juan' and various Vitaphone short subjects. In April 1927 he moved to Hollywood to record the original 'Jazz Singer' with Al Jolson and in 1928 recorded the first all-talking picture 'Lights of New York'.
Mr Groves has participated actively and in a supervisory capacity on all Warner Brothers productions to date, including 32 productions that have received Academy nominations for sound, three of which received Oscars.
From 1942 to 1945 Mr Groves served as officer in charge of sound recording for the Army Air Force. He is presently engaged as consultant on modernization and extension of recording, re-recording and music scoring facilities for the Burbank Studios."
So George Groves responsible for the recording on The Jazz Singer and Lights of New York became the first Production Sound Mixer, he was already the first film music mixer having previously recorded the score for Don Juan.
He retired in 1972 after 49 years in the business just shortly after his planned modernised scoring stage and sound dept at Warners was completed and named in his honour. He died in 1976.
BOB ALLEN