‘Dead as the wooden battleship’: The Fate of Silent British Features in the Transition to Sound

Abstract

Dead as the wooden battleship, dead as the magic lantern: such were the similes used in 1929 by some in the British film industry to describe the fate of silent cinema in the new talkie era. Other voices predicted a lingering half-life. Either way, most film companies faced a common problem: what to do in 1929 with their stock of silent films which were completed but unreleased. Foregrounding the activities of British International Pictures, Gainsborough Pictures and the distributors Equity British, this article explores the aesthetic, practical and technical problems in exhibiting and sonically titivating silent product as the industry adjusted to sound technology. Topics include the problems generated by the Cinematograph Films Act 1927; the damage caused by awkwardly dubbed voices; the perils of management divisions; the re-release of older silent films; audience and critical dissatisfaction; and the output of young film-makers such as John F. Argyle, who made his last silent feature, The Final Reckoning, in September 1931. British silent cinema's death, it turns out, was neither quick nor painless.