Prologue is dead! On with THE SHOW OF SHOWS.
FROM THE FILM "PROLOGUE" TO THE SHOW OF SHOWS, 1929

For exhibitors and for audiences, the coming of sound and the coming of hard times after 1930 caused permanent changes in the institution of moviegoing. In retrospect, it seems as though filmgoers abandoned with few regrets a cherished form of entertainment, the silent cinema. "This is one of the great mysteries of this part of film history," Alan Williams has aptly observed. "Why, with no previous indications of dissatisfaction, did audiences suddenly embrace the talkies, acting as if they had been dissatisfied with 'silent' cinema for a long time?"¹ Perhaps the shift to sound films seems mysterious because it has been assumed that producers were pressing their wares on a passive public resistant to change. A look at exhibition during the transition will...