1927: Can You Hear Me Now?

Time to leave behind 1926 and look to 1927.  And wow, what a year it is.



There is a lot of focus on making connections.  Charles Lindbergh completes the first transatlantic flight in The Spirit of St. Louis, which also presumably featured the first instance of an airline losing someone's baggage.  The first transatlantic phone calls happen and the Holland Tunnel connects New York City to New Jersey.  In other transportation news, after 19 years of successful sales of the Model T, Ford unveils the Model A (which is most noted for being the antique car that ferried my wife and I from our wedding to our reception).



In movie news, it's a big year, but one development clearly supersedes the others: sound.  While there had been successes with the use of sound in cinema, The Jazz Singer is considered to be the watershed moment for the technology.  Few quotes in cinema history are as understated but critical as Al Jolson telling the audience "Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet."  I have heard it numerous times, most notably on The Great Movie Ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios.



What else happened in the film world?  Douglas Fairbanks founds the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which, two years later, will begin handing out the Academy Award.  Twenty-four frames per second becomes the standard for film.  Metropolis debuts (enough said).  The Hays Office issues guidelines as to what should be avoided in film (though they are still a few years from being able to enforce anything).  The iconic Grauman's Chinese Theater opens in Los Angeles.  And MGM's mascot Leo the Lion survives a plane crash while on a cross country tour.



So what are we watching? The Jazz Singer obviously (though no Neil diamond in sight).  Wings (the first Oscar winner) if I can find it.  Metropolis (which is on Watch Instantly).  Clara Bow in It (which is where the expression "It Girl" comes from).  Sunrise from F.W. Murnau (because Murnau is awesome).  Lon Chaney in The Unknown.  The Second Hundred Years (first appearance of Laurel and Hardy!).  The Lodger (Alfred Hitchcock!).  I'm sure there will be others, but that is a hell of a list to start with.