First 'talkie' draws huge crowds in Wellington

Moviegoers flocked to see Frank Borzage’s Street angel, a silent picture with a recorded musical soundtrack, at Wellington’s Paramount Theatre. There were also five ‘talkie shorts’, including an interview with the King of Spain. Silent movies were usually accompanied by live music, so a recorded soundtrack was a real novelty.

Street angel told the story of a ‘spirited’ young woman, Angela (Janet Gaynor). Down on her luck and living on the streets, she joined a travelling carnival and met a ‘vagabond painter’, Gino (Charles Farrell). Gaynor won the Best Actress Oscar for this and two other performances.

The first feature-length movie with synchronised dialogue was The jazz singer, released in the United States in October 1927. Not everyone was convinced by the new technology: United Artists president Joseph Schenck asserted in 1928 that the talkies were just a passing fad. But by the following year, virtually every American film had a recorded soundtrack. The first New Zealand-made talkie screened in January 1930 and by the early 1930s they were a global phenomenon.

Image: Janet Gaynor in a scene from Street angel (IMDB)