Photoplay/Volume 36/Issue 2/Princeton Goes Talkie

"CHANGE the needle!""

That's the new cry of the picture audiences in Princeton, for talking pictures have "come to college."

This venture of the Vitaphone and Movietone into the lair of the Princeton tiger is a hazardous one. The boys have been accustomed to furnishing their own dialogue and sound effects. In the era of the mum movie, some leather-lunged undergraduate provided deep bass wise cracks for the lip action of modest heroines; a sophomore soprano would put sweet words into the lips of villains; and one student considered it a duty to bring his alarm clock to every performance so that the ringing of a telephone on the screen might be made realistic.

The first talking picture was "The Singing Fool," with Al Jolson. All the seats were filled by show time. Many sat in the aisles. Not only was this to be the first talking picture for Princeton—it was the first for a good many Princetonians.

Seemingly resentful that they were no longer to provide necessary sound effects, part of the audience had armed themselves with whistles, cow-bells, inflated paper bags, and every noise-making device within their resources. The lights went out; the audience became hushed in anticipation. A girl appeared on the screen and began to sing. With the first note, bedlam broke loose—bells, whistles, bicycle sirens, bursting bags, and the rhythmic clap-clap-clap of disapproval of the short subject. No one knew what song she sang. They had come to scoff and were scoffing. Not a note was heard above the confusion.

The feature followed and the audience quieted itself in appreciation of a promising story. For the first few reels all was well, but by the time Al Jolson had married Josephine Dunn the inexperience of the local hired help contributed an amusing situation. Al Jolson sang an entire song without a sound issuing forth from the ​Vitaphone! When the sound finally came, it was way behind the action on the screen. In the course of the next five minutes, Josephine Lunn spoke Jolson's lines, Jolson talked nothing but baby-talk, and Davey Lee sang "Sonny Boy."

"Fix it!" cried the audience, but it was not fixed until the beginning of the next reel. The noise-makers had gained their end.

Subsequent showing of talking pictures has shown that the Princeton students will have nothing else. They pack the theater for "talkies" as they formerly did only to see Greta Garbo. And they no longer bring bells and whistles, or alarm clocks. They are loud in their approval and their criticism. That makes it easy for the manager when booking future programs. And he doesn't need to proclaim talking pictures a success—he just points to the line at the box office.