Monday, Dec. 24, 1928
Telephoned Voice
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture Corp. is showing in Manhattan & elsewhere a "talkie" adaptation of Paul Armstrong's Alias Jimmy Valentine.* It is a "sellout." But "sellout" or no, company directors last week felt that to attract more discriminating, intelligent patrons a certain silent scene would be improved by inserting the spoken words "Is that so?" The actor to speak, William Haines, was in Hollywood; the film to be improved, in Manhattan. Actor Haines spoke at a sound box; his three words were transmuted to a jiggly streak of light on a photograph film; the film sent to the Los Angeles Bell Telephone telephotograph/- station; the jiggly light streak transmuted to electrical impulses and sent across country to Manhattan where they were changed back to a streaked film; and that film prepared and inserted into the Alias Jimmy Valentine picture. Conceivably, but not yet practicably, Actor Haines might have spoken over long distance to Manhattan, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer saved several steps in picturing his voice.
*In turn based on O. Henry's "A Retrieved Reformation."
/-A telephotograph is a Bell Telephone electrical reproduction of any picture. A photogram is such a reproduction of a telegram or document which Bell Telephone sends by its telephotograph for Western Union or Postal Telegraph. Photogram offices are everywhere. Telephotograph despatching-receiving stations are at only Boston, Manhattan, Cleveland, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Los Angeles.