ABSTRACT

The joint signing of identical contracts by Paramount, Loew’s/MGM, and UA (that is by Zukor and the Schenck brothers, Nicholas head of Loew’s and Joseph head of UA) on May 11, 1928, signaled the beginning of the spread of talkies across the United States. The record popularity of Warner’s The Singing Fool accelerated the process. There was no chaos or confusion, but a speed of transformation which set a record within the mass media of the day. Beginning in September of 1930 talkies had taken over the movie industry, with the silent film rendered instantly obsolete. In other words, once Adolph Zukor and Nicholas Schenck decided to follow Warner Bros. and Fox, the stage of wide spread use of the new sound technology began. This is called by economic historians, the diffusion phase.