"Have You Heard It Yet?": Advertising the First American Sound Films in Sweden

When a new invention seems to change the very foundation of existing conditions overnight, the immediate reactions that follow are often oversimplified, with numerous arguments put forward regarding the invention's benefits or drawbacks. When it is time to tell the invention's history, it, too, is often told as a black-and-white success story about an eminent breakthrough by some ingenious inventor, while the trials and errors, which are part of any invention, are mentioned as mere curiosities on the way to the final product. The invention is seldom, if ever, contextualized in a larger discourse so that the gray shadows of the same story are lost.

The introduction of sound film in Sweden during the last years of the 1920s does not constitute an exception to this rule. At the time, several independent yet intertwined companies and other organizations tried to get a grip on a situation that might have led to a complete change in the film industry. Particularly through winter and spring 1929, the rumors around sound film from America were much discussed and debated in Sweden. Often events were described in journals and newspapers with little reflection on whether these rumors were accurate. Before 1929, very few in Sweden had actually heard of this wondrous new technology that, it was being argued, would either augment the spectacle of film viewing or destroy the medium once and for all. The premiere of the first sound films with effects and a synchronized music score, Love and the Devil (1929) and White Shadows in the South Seas (1928), on Thursday, May 2, 1929, in Stockholm at the Palladium and Piccadilly theaters, respectively, therefore became a highly anticipated event. ¹

The changeover to sound in Sweden follows the same pattern as in the rest of the world. First, the most prominent cinemas were equipped (eight hundred to one thousand seats), followed by medium-sized cinemas (four hundred to eight hundred seats), and finally, the smallest, if they were able to cover the initial cost of installing the necessary equipment. An analysis of the advertising campaigns in Sweden during late winter and spring 1929, which were based on the American production companies' templates, demonstrates how sound film gradually phased out silent film. As the following pages suggest, the audience played an active part in this process. Their reactions, in fact, fed back into the studios' advertising campaigns, ultimately making the Swedish public participants in the cinematic event, to use Rick Altman's concept. ² A closer look at the advertising campaigns for these initial screenings is important because it shows the speed with which sound film replaced silent film in Sweden. Analyses of the advertisements for the first US sound films in the Swedish repertoire during 1929 demonstrate that it took less than a year for sound film to establish itself in Sweden, where the first Swedish sound film, Säg det i toner (Say It with Music; 1929), premiered on December 26, 1929.

Beginning with the successful distribution of Wings (screened with its sound track containing sound effects in January 1929), the essay will discuss the disappointing cases of The Jazz Singer (screened as a silent film in February 1929) and Midnight Madness (a silent film screened in February 1929 with a Swedish dialogue articulated by actors inside the cinema). Finally, an exploration of Love and the Devil and White Shadows in the South Seas (both screened with their music and effects sound tracks in May 1929) will show the way that these early sound film "experiments" in the Swedish repertoire changed exhibition practices in Sweden during this important, transitional period.

Generally speaking, using editorials, articles, and reviews from contemporary periodicals and newspapers is problematic as these voices tend to stand in for a film's actual public reception. This is particularly troublesome in instances when we actually know very little about the audience composition at the time and their reactions toward a specific film. One must, in other words, take care not to mix ideas regarding a film's social context with writings about...