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Many believe Max Steiner's score for King Kong (1933) was the first important attempt at integrating background music into sound film, but a closer look at the industry's early sound era (1926--1934) reveals a more extended and fascinating story. Viewing more than two hundred films from the period, Michael Slowik launches the first comprehensive study of a long-neglected phase in Hollywood's initial development, recasting the history of film sound and its relationship to the "Golden Age" of film music (1935--1950). Slowik follows filmmakers' shifting combinations of sound and image, recapturing the volatility of this era and the variety of film music strategies that were tested, abandoned, and kept. He explores early film music experiments and accompaniment practices in opera, melodrama, musicals, radio, and silent films and discusses the impact of the advent of synchronized dialogue. He concludes with a reassessment of King Kong and its groundbreaking approach to film music, challenging the film's place and importance in the timeline of sound achievement.
List of contents
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. A Wide Array of Choices: Musical Influences in the 1920s2. Music in Early Synchronized and Part-Talking Films, 1926--19293. Toward a Sparse Music Style: Music in the 100 Percent Talkie, 1928--19314. Interlude: The Hollywood Musical, 1929--19325. Music and Other Worlds: The Hollywood Film Score, 1931--19336. Reassessing King Kong; or, The Hollywood Film Score, 1933--1934ConclusionAppendix: Chronological Filmography, 1926--1934NotesBibliographyIndex
About the author
Michael Slowik is assistant professor of television, film, and new media at San Diego State University. His work appears in Cinema Journal; American Music; The Journal of American Culture; Journal of Popular Film and Television; Music, Sound, and the Moving Image; Nineteenth-Century Theatre and Film; and Quarterly Review of Film and Video.
Summary
Viewing more than two hundred films from the period, Michael Slowik launches the first comprehensive study of a long-neglected phase in Hollywood’s initial development
