Sound and Vision:
An Aural History of Talking Film in Washington

It’s not that recorded sound couldn’t be a form of entertainment. When Thomas Edison unveiled his phonograph machine in 1877, it was originally developed for business purposes. Rather than compose a letter, the operator could instead speak directly into the machine, then have the foil-covered cylinder delivered to the recipient, who could listen to the message and respond in kind.  But, to introduce this scientific breakthrough, Edison hired men to conduct public demonstrations of the technology around the country, resulting in tours that crisscrossed the U.S. between 1877 and 1879.^[1]  For these, however, the phonograph wasn’t being used as the inventor intended, as the presentations were structured more as an entertainment feature, allowing the public to experience the technology in a more engaging way.  And while Edison’s phonograph never caught on as a business tool, a process had nonetheless been established.  The initial rollout of the phonograph, with its public demonstrations, would be replicated later, in 1894, when the Edison forces began demonstrating his kinetoscope, which featured licensed exhibitors taking the machines from location to location within defined territories, allowing the American public to experience the technology of moving pictures firsthand.

Seattle’s introduction to Thomas Edison’s phonograph machine occurred on September 11, 1878, at Yesler’s Hall, when Edison representative James H. Guild came through on a tour of the Pacific Northwest.  “[O]ur citizens are going to be allowed the privilege of seeing and hearing the most wonderful of all modern inventions, the phonograph or talking machine,” announced the Seattle Daily Intelligencer. “No doubt many of our citizens will embrace their first opportunity of seeing and hearing this wonderful invention.”^[2]  Tickets into Yesler’s Hall cost 25 cents – not a small sum in 1878 – and attracted a “very chaste and intelligent” audience, according to the paper.  “Everyone was highly pleased to hear the machine whistle, sing, crow, squeal, cackle, bray, grunt, snort, and make every other conceivable noise. It could be heard distinctly across the Hall, and often times nearly across the street.”^[3]

This last part was probably an exaggeration – Yesler’s was a small venue more akin to a meeting space than an actual theatre, and the unit didn’t have the amplification to carry the sound that far.  Still, using sound as a form of public entertainment would eventually become a common tactic.  Obviously, Sally Chandler Sloan and James McConahey used “ballyhoo” music to get patrons into their Searchlight venues, something employed by many theatrical and movie showmen well into the 20^th century.  Even in the mid-1920s, sound could be used to good effect, even if the methods were a bit of a throwback.  In 1925, at the Rose Theatre in Tacoma, manager Bob McKinnell had a panatrope machine installed inside the box office, at the foot of the cashier, fooling patrons into believing that the Rose had installed a new pipe organ.  Meanwhile, two years later, in Port Orchard, exhibitor John McGill set up speakers outside the front doors to his venue so he could “broadcast” the musical portion of his bills, and sometimes switched them on mid-show when he had a picture that generated a lot of laughter or applause – a reminder to everyone on the street about how much his audience was enjoying themselves inside.^[4]

When the Edison laboratories began developing the first kinetoscope machines, the inventor’s initial thought was to marry his new invention with the phonograph, giving the viewer both the sensation of sight and sound.  Even so, most kinetoscope units, such as the ones that came through the Northwest in the fall of 1894, had none.  But eventually a newer model, version 2.0, was dubbed the kinetophone, and (imperfectly) combined these technologies so the viewer could have both a visual and aural experience.  Debuted in April 1895, the kinetophone had a short lifespan – the eventual development of projected motion pictures overshadowed whatever technical accomplishment Edison hoped to achieve.  Still, an Edison kinetophone turned up in Northwest at least once, in June of that year, went a machine came to Olympia – brought to the South Sound by none other than Joseph Chilberg, who would go on to introduce projected motion pictures to the city about 18 months later.  In this case the kinetophone (sometimes dubbed in the press as a “talking kinetoscope”) appears to have been his first venture into the moving picture business.

As before, we don’t know how or when Chilberg became interested in exhibiting a kinetophone, which would have cost of several hundred dollars to obtain, but it’s likely he sourced the unit through Edison representatives in San Francisco. It’s also not clear whether Chilberg’s machine was an official kinetophone or whether (and more likely) it was a kinetoscope with a special adapter developed by the Edison forces that allowed it to play sound through a set of “earbuds.”^[5]   Either way, Joseph Chilberg put up a good chunk of money to secure this unit and bring it up to Olympia. “Jo. Chilberg has a kinetoscope, Edison’s latest invention,” announced the Washington Standard on June 14, 1895, “whereby the motions of life as well as the sounds which accompany them are reproduced.”^[6]  A little over a week later that kinetophone was available for public inspection at the local Odd Fellows Hall, where a reporter for the paper was particularly taken with pictures of a “skirt-dancer.”  (This may have been the famed Serpentine Dance that Annabelle Moore performed for Edison’s camera just a few months earlier.)  “You can see every step and each succeeding movement of the drapery, which constitutes the chief beauty of this graceful dance,” he noted, “as well as the fleeting smile of the dancer which was doubtless called forth by some manifestation of approval of the auditors after a peculiarly graceful pirouette, accompanied by the music, in perfect time, just as it was given when the picture was taken.”^[7] Moreso than the film itself, however, this journalist was enthralled with the “magic” of how the kinetophone worked, from the concept of printing a series of photographs on a celluloid strip to reproducing sound that could be synched with the images. Here the writer struggled to explain the process while knowing that readers who hadn’t experienced the machine might find his description hard to believe. “The kinetoscope is the wonder of the nineteenth century,” he concluded, “and indicates the progress made the past few years in this branch of scientific research.”

But despite being the “wonder of the 19^th century,” the kinetophone had drawbacks.  Like the kinetoscope it could only play to one viewer at a time, so both the visual and aural sensations were solo experiences.  Synchronization was also a problem – this was less obvious when the film was of a dancer or a band, but for a dialogue performance where the sound and image needed to synch, the machine frequently couldn’t deliver.  There were also fewer kinetophone films produced by the Edison Company; according to their 1895 catalogue, there were only 55 subjects in total.^[8]  And they weren’t cheap: on top of purchasing the film, kinetophone exhibitors also needed to purchase the special music cylinder that paired with it, and added cost that many showmen didn’t want to take on.

The problem with Joseph Chilberg as an exhibitor, however, is that he doesn’t seem to have toured enough to make his kinetophone profitable.  He took the machine to Portland following the Olympia engagement, but there’s no indication that he traveled extensively throughout the region.^[9]  In fact, besides the Olympia debut and his trip to Portland, there are only two other known engagements of the kinetophone in Washington, which Chilberg may or may not have been involved with.  One was in Olympia in January 1896, about seven months after debuting the machine.  In this case, a kinetophone (presumably Chilberg’s) was part of a special Masonic entertainment given at the Grand Army Hall by the ladies of the Order of the Eastern Star, which included a banquet, card games and music, plus the “phonograph and kinetoscope” as a side attraction. “All who participated seemed to have enjoyed a season of unalloyed pleasure.”^[10]  The second was a strange one-off kinetophone engagement later that summer in, of all places, the Pullman post office, but this was likely the work of another exhibitor.^[11]

Thomas Edison’s kinetophone wasn’t a successful marriage of sound and the moving image, but others were exploring the possibilities.  In April 1898, for example, Professor G.W. Dutton appeared in Olympia with a “very interesting exhibition of the magniscope, accompanied by zonophone…”^[12]  This engagement is somewhat of a mystery – there’s nothing to indicate that the magniscope and zonophone were being operated in unison, although that’s what the notice in the Washington Standard seems to imply.  Another mystery about this engagement was the zonophone itself; this was an actual recording unit marketed out of New Jersey, but it didn’t become formal company until 1899, or about a year after the Olympia engagement.  The assumption here is that Professor Dutton was using prototype model, rather than an entirely different machine that just happened to share the same name.  Regardless, there are no other known engagements for Professor Dutton and his equipment in the Northwest, nor did the Washington Standard provide details about his Olympia visit.

Although many early film shows were shown in complete silence, there were plenty of shows that incorporated sound into the presentation, even if incidental.  The ballyhoo used at the Searchlight, while directed at the street, would have also been audible to patrons viewing the films, though it was untethered from the screen action.  And even in cases where music was specifically part of the show, it didn’t necessarily mean that it went with the film.  The presence of a piano or other instruments inside a theatre space may have been to support a singer of illustrated songs, or perhaps played separately while the operator changed reels.  The Sears & Roebuck catalogue, which began selling motion picture projectors in the late 1890s, suggested that a phonograph could be used in conjunction with projected film, but those two features likely would have been operated individually.  There just wasn’t a hard and fast rule about pairing sound with film – it depended on the time period, the theatre and the manager’s preferred method of showmanship.^[13]

Eventually, however, the process became formalized.

By Eric L. Flom – November 2025

Notes:

[1] Charles Musser (with Carol Nelson), High Class Moving Pictures: Lyman H. Howe and the Forgotten Era of Traveling Exhibition, 1880-1920 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press – 1991), Pages 22-23.
[2] “Phonograph,” Seattle Daily Intelligencer, 11 September 1878, Page 3.
[3] “The Phonograph, Seattle Daily Intelligencer, 12 September 1878, Page 3.
[4] See “Future Looks Brighter for Washington State Showmen,” Moving Picture World, 14 March 1925, Page 157; and “Northwest,” Moving Picture World, 12 February 1927, Page 503.
[5] See Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 (Berkley: University of California Press – 1990), Pages 87-89.  Musser claims that only 45 actual Kinetophones were produced by 1900, which may lend credence to the fact that Joseph Chilberg’s likely a Kinetoscope with an Edison-made adaptor.
[6] “Jo. Chilberg…,” Washington Standard, 14 June 1895, Page 3.
[7] “The Kinetoscope,” Washington Standard, 21 June 1895, Page 3.
[8] Rick Altman, Silent Film Sound (New York: Columbia University Press – 2004), Page 81.
[9] See “Jos. Chilberg…,” Washington Standard, 19 July 1895, Page 3.
[10] “The ladies of the Eastern Star chapter…,” Washington Standard, 17 January 1896, Page 3.
[11] See “The kinetophone man…,” Pullman Herald, 18 July 1896, Page 8.
[12] “A very interesting exhibition…,” Washington Standard, 22 April 1898, Page 3.
[13] Rick Altman, Silent Film Sound (New York: Columbia University Press – 2004), Pages 89-90.

Once the nickelodeon boom took hold in the early 20^th century, several companies began taking a fresh look at sound technology, if only to distinguish themselves in the burgeoning film market.  By mid-1908, for example, there are at least 12 different companies across the United States purporting to have “perfected” the talking motion picture, almost all of whom were using a form of sound-on-disc technology – updated versions Thomas Edison’s kinetophone.  In many ways, however, these newer units encountered the same set of difficulties.  The Gaumont Company, for example, debuted their chronophone around this time, but even this unit (considered one of the better apparatuses on the market) was bedeviled by synchronization and amplification issues.

Still, if it was difficult to introduce sound mechanically, you could still do it naturally.  Most synchronization efforts, at least initially, centered around bringing music together with film, given the difficulty of synchronizing dialogue precisely.  But that’s not to say that dialogue wasn’t attempted.  Travelogue exhibitor Lyman Howe was one of the first showmen to put live actors behind the screen to provide dialogue and sound effects for his shows, something that turned into a minor fad (primarily on the East Coast) around 1908/1909.^[1]  This facet of showmanship didn’t necessarily catch on in the West; in an apocryphal story, Seattle exhibitor James Clemmer claimed to have tested the idea in 1908 at his Dream Theatre, hiring a group of local actors to provide dialogue for the Biograph film The Ingrate. This may have been a grand idea in Baltimore, but audiences at the Dream rejected it immediately.  “‘…I got the idea that it would be an improvement if the picture would talk like the actors on the legitimate stage,’” he recalled. “‘Actors were placed directly behind the screen and spoke the lines as the film was shown. However, the subtitles showed just the same, and people thought it was distinctly amusing. The idea was a decided flop. Our talkies lasted only one week.’”^[2]

That same year, however, Seattle’s Lois Theatre (a venue that typically showcased stock theatre productions) put on their own “talking picture” show in July.  The venue had just closed a full season of stock productions and was looking forward to introducing a new troupe of players in September. But, rather than stay dark for several weeks, the venue experimented a bit beginning July 15^th, when it showcased an all-motion picture bill featuring, by their own account, “[t]he first showing in this city of the famous talking moving pictures…”  With continuous shows running in the afternoons and evenings, Lois management asserted that “[t]he talking moving picture is a complete novelty to local people and it should attract much attention.’”^[3]

The problem with this bill, which only ran at the Lois for a few days, was that we can’t tell whether all films shown were “talking” pictures, or even if these pictures were demonstrating some type of new technology, as the advertisements suggested. Unlike weeks when there was a formal stock company at the Lois, there was very little coverage of these shows – this was an interim engagement, so Seattle newspapers didn’t pay it much attention. All we know is that the bill included a pair of vaudeville acts and several film scenes, including a courtroom depiction, pictures of the U.S. naval fleet in the Atlantic and a recent flood event.  The descriptions suggest that not every selection was a talking film, as the naval and flood pictures don’t seem to have lent themselves to dialogue. Even so, there’s no press mention at all about how the sound was reproduced or how it was received by audiences.  “Moving pictures that talk are being shown at The Lois this week,” is all that could be mustered out of the Daily Times. “This great novelty is startling in its realism.”^[4]

The fact that we can’t really determine what was shown that week, in what was the first known engagement of sound film in Seattle, is even more disheartening when you consider that the Lois advertised this engagement as “Talking and Singing Moving Pictures. Harbeck’s Newest Invention.”^[5]  Harbeck, of course, was William Harbeck, the Seattle-based cameraman who later perished on the Titanic. But what was it that he was exhibiting?  A device of his own making, as the advertisement suggests? A new technology brought to Seattle that was (rightly or wrongly) attributed to him?  Live actors behind the screen?  We just don’t know, and it stands out as an anomaly in his history. Harbeck typically made documentary and travelogue films, and was not known to have been an inventor or a showman of this type.

Whatever William Harbeck was showcasing, he may have been the first person to exhibit sound films in Seattle, if only by a matter of days. The Harbeck show opened at the Lois on July 15, 1908, but almost immediately ads began appearing for the “sychroscope,” which debuted a short time thereafter.^[6]  Messrs. Byrnes and Newell were behind this show, and leased the Family Theatre at 508 Pike Street, a former variety house, which they were refurbishing into what they called the Sychrodome.

The Sychrodome opened on the evening of July 18, 1908, then settled into a schedule of presenting seven shows a day, each an hour long, at a cost of 10 cents per person. The technology itself, according to advance notices, was secured by Byrnes and Newell from “Carl Laemmel [sic] of Chicago,” who owned the exclusive U.S. rights to the German invention. “The Sychroscope, which projects pictures that sing, dance and talk, [offers] life movement is in perfect unison with the pictures,” it was claimed. “The enunciation is clear and distinct.”^[7]

The subjects shown at the Sychrodome and how long it operated are a complete mystery. Byrnes and Newell claimed they signed a long-term lease, but the Sychrodome ceased newspaper advertising almost immediately after it opened; realistically, it appears that the venue only operated for a few weeks at most.^[8]  Why the Sychrodome failed is unknown, but their shows may have fallen prey to the most common complaints about early sound film: the subjects were limited, and it showcased a technology that overpromised and under-delivered.

But while it’s not clear what happened to the Sychrodome shows in downtown Seattle, similar technologies began turning up in other Washington cities within short order. It may be that Byrnes and Newell were behind these screenings, since the presumed demise of their Seattle location appears to coincide, albeit roughly, with its appearance in other locations.  While it may have been another exhibitor entirely, perhaps Byrnes and Newell decided to take their show on the road after their failed experiment in Seattle.

The first of these known engagements appears to have been a special one-night engagement at the Mercantile Company in Leavenworth, held on August 19, 1908.  Here the a talking picture machine (it was not identified specifically as a sychroscope) was part of a traveling variety act, which included a lecture by a Dr. Arthur, a demonstration of wireless telegraphy, a magic act, a clog dance and several illustrated songs, plus something called a “cremation act” that was deemed, rather oddly, as “marvelous” by the The Leavenworth Echo.  The show-stopper, however, were the talking pictures.  “Pictures that actually talk,” the Echo noted in advance of the show.  “Do not mistake this for an ordinary moving picture show. It is not. This is absolutely the first time this new device has appeared on the coast and has only been out in the east a short time.”^[9]

Unfortunately, the Echo was a weekly paper and didn’t choose to review the show.  Was this Byrnes and Newell with their sychroscope, or was it being presented by someone else or perhaps a different sound unit altogether? Without additional detail, we just can’t know much about the was demonstrated in Leavenworth that evening, what patrons may have seen and heard, or what their reaction to these talking pictures may have been.

But the idea that it may have been Byrnes and Newell comes from the fact that there was a known engagement of the sychroscope just six weeks later, in October 1908, when it began an extended engagement at Spokane’s Novelty Theatre, a small venue located on Main Avenue next to the Palace Building.  Like the traveling showmen of a few years previous, it appears a touring sychroscope show was being taken from town to town, playing one- or two-night engagements in various places while heading eastward, before settling down for a longer engagement at the Novelty.  “These pictures have been the sensation of Europe and are as far ahead of the ordinary moving pictures as the latter are over the magic lantern,” announced The Spokane Press.^[10]  Calling the sychroscope “the wonder of the age,” little is known about the pictures being shown Novelty, but two are mentioned by name – The Stars and Stripes and Bill Brown of London.  The pictures played at least 10 days, perhaps longer, before moving out around mid-month.  Interestingly, the Novelty was not only reaching out to locals when advertising their shows, but was openly angling for the entertainment dollars of out-of-own visitors, so unique was the opportunity to hear actors speak, sing and dance like they did on the legitimate stage.^[11]

The next known appearance of a sychroscope machine was in Olympia, where it made a one-week appearance at the New Lyric Theatre.  Again, there are no names connected with the show, but the fact that the sychroscope was playing on the opposite side of the state, and barely a week after the Spokane engagement closed, suggest that there was at least one other showman demonstrating the technology in the region.

The manager of the New Lyric Theatre was a Mr. Wallace, and the Washington Standard was crediting him as the man who introduced moving pictures to Olympia. (Joseph Chilberg might have a few thoughts on that subject.)  This newest innovation, the sychroscope, would only add to his reputation.  More importantly, the Olympia engagement is the only one in Washington state where a local paper offered a formal write-up on what audiences were seeing – a show that the Standard felt was in keeping with Manager Wallace’s sterling reputation.  “The Sychroscope, at the Lyric, is the most marvelous advance in moving pictures, yet made, as crowded audiences testify,” they gushed. “By it the characters cast on the screen, talk, laugh and sing, with all the precision and naturalness of living human beings. A beautiful Amazonian march is one of the features, in which a squad of shapely women go through the manual of arms to martial music, in which the commands are given by the leading officer and obeyed with soldierly order. This scores another success for the Lyric, which always leads.^[12]

Aside from these few known engagements, the sychroscope didn’t catch on with audiences in Washington or elsewhere, and quickly disappeared from the landscape.  But while that technology flamed out rather quickly, it didn’t kill the idea that talking pictures could be an audience draw.  In Seattle, it was just a few months after the demise of the Sychrodome that yet another showman gave sound motion pictures a try. In this case it was the Shannon Theatre, beginning November 26, 1908, when the house heralded the debut of cameraphone pictures to local audiences.

The Shannon was managed by R.T. Shannon, and was a small house on Second Avenue near University Street that had, to that point, specialized in vaudeville – and not very well, according to the city of Seattle.  In operation for just two years, between 1907 and 1909, the venue had been under a closure order for about four weeks before the cameraphone’s debut.^[13]  In the summer and fall of 1908 city officials were busy inspecting the conditions in local theatres, and the Shannon fared so poorly that it was forcibly closed. Nearly every theatre visited by local officials was found to be deficient in some way, but the violations at the Shannon were so egregious (particularly its fire safety and dressing room conditions) that the venue was singled out.

So in the month prior to the cameraphone’s debut, R.T. Shannon wasn’t playing to audiences but was instead making required changes, forcing him to temporarily abandon the vaudeville format. Transforming the space from a variety house to a picture theatre seems to indicate that the backstage conditions at the Shannon weren’t easily remedied, so the manager was searching for a way to reopen without live performances.  To that end, the Post-Intelligencer noted that “[t]he interior has been rebuilt, newly decorated and new comfortable chairs have been installed.”^[14]

R.T. Shannon and the cameraphone were a good match.  The company’s goal was to get people to buy their technology, but to get a foothold in the market they started out by renting the equipment.  Shannon was one of these early renters, and it was a good deal for him – the cameraphone got him out of a jam with the city of Seattle while providing a show that distinguished him from competitors.  And it came at a minimum cost, with no commitment to eventually purchase the cameraphone equipment.  As a technology, however, the cameraphone had problems, some of them significant.  This was a sound-on-disc system, which meant that the record needed to start at a specific point for it to synchronize with the onscreen action; frequently, it did not.  The sound was amplified from behind the screen, but was tinny and didn’t carry throughout the space.  The recordings were short and so were the films.  The cameraphone did have longer subjects that used multiple discs, but those required switching from one to the next while maintaining synchronization, and this was in addition to the fact that some recordings played louder than others.  In addition, the setup probably entailed an operator to run the projector, but the engagement of a second man to work with the cameraphone’s sound equipment at the front of the house, the two working in tandem to deal with any synchronization and amplification issues.^[15]

The cameraphone was a newer technology, but it had already debuted in the East – an apparatus that claimed, as they all did, to perfect talking pictures. According to the Shannon’s publicity, about 100 such machines were in operation throughout the United States, with audiences enthralled by the experience. “No other mechanism now used can be compared with this in the produced result,” they claimed, hailing the cameraphone as a marvel of science. “The vitalized figures on the curtain dance and sing and talk to the amazement and delight of all observers.”^[16] For the first week of the Shannon engagement, the pictures included scenes from Act 1 of the stage play Chimes of Normandy, singing and dancing by the Elton sisters and an unnamed comedic singer performing the song “Any Rags,” in a scene shot live on the streets of New York. At 10 cents for adults and 5 for children, the Shannon promised that their show was “[n]ot a cheap amusement but amusement for cheap for the wage earners and their families.”

Unfortunately, given the Shannon’s small size and dubious reputation, reviews of their cameraphone shows are hard to come by. All the Daily Times could say after its debut was that the Shannon offered “a very entertaining program.”  The Post-Intelligencer, meanwhile, noted that “[t]he exhibition of the Cameraphone at Shannon’s theater Thursday was witnessed by a large attendance…The illusion is so perfect that the shadow figures seem to even breathe, and the singing and talking were in exact unison with the music.”^[17]  Two days later, in the Sunday edition, the Post Intelligencer added that “[i]f this class of [filmed] vaudeville amusements continues to improve, the regular [live] vaudeville shows will have to look to their laurels.”^[18]

The Shannon continued projecting cameraphone films the following week, beginning November 30. Selections included a pair of songs from The Merry Widow, including “Vilia” and “Women,” the song “Dixie Dan” from the stage show Gay White Way, as well as songs performed by three other stage and vaudeville personalities. And, like the previous week, there was very little written about this cameraphone show or how audiences were receiving this new “wonder.”

Unlike the failed Sychrodome, the Shannon aggressively promoted its talking picture format and offered a variety of new subjects each week. For the shows beginning December 7, for example, the Shannon had a bill that included scenes of British comedian Harry Lauder, parts of Act III from Chimes of Normandy, a selection from the musical Floradora, plus the blackface comedy team of Collins and Harlan.^[19]  Throughout December 1908, in fact, the Shannon changed its bill each week, although repeat subjects were already beginning to crop up.  But, other than the venue’s print ads, Seattle dailies largely ignored the cameraphone technology. Perhaps this was because, week in and week out, the subjects were almost always the same – filmed reenactments of vaudeville, stage or musical productions, the same kind of subjects that drove Thomas Edison’s earliest pictures made at his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory. But in this case it wasn’t motion, but the novelty of sound that proved the selling point for these films.

If only that novelty could hold people’s interest. Following the January 3, 1909, performance at the Shannon, the venue stopped running print ads altogether, although the Post-Intelligencer’s theatrical column indicated that the Shannon was still presenting cameraphone subjects at least through the middle of February.  When the cameraphone finally disappeared from the Shannon Theatre, it was likely because the novelty wasn’t viable in the long-term, so manager R.T. Shannon cancelled the service. By that time he may have resolved his fire and backstage issues at the Shannon, so he was ready to move on to a different type of entertainment program.

But, despite having left the Shannon, there was still a market for cameraphone exhibitions in other parts of the state.  In April 1909 the Washington Cameraphone Company was incorporated to the tune of $125,000, with Francis Fitch, Benjamin C. McPherson, Walter Schaffner, F.A. Montgomery and H.G. Koller listed as officers.^[20]  This may be the group behind a series of roadshow cameraphone engagements in the state’s smaller cities, such as the four-day engagement that played the Gem Theatre in Wenatchee beginning June 20, 1910.^[21]  The subjects at the Gem were entirely different than the films shown at the Shannon in Seattle: a three-act comedy entitled Selling the Baby Elephant, an excerpt from a stage version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as a number of comedic acts and singers, topped by a performance by the Original Georgia Minstrels. Calling the technology “all the rage in the Eastern cities now,” the Wenatchee Daily World reported crowded shows and a good deal of enthusiasm for the novelty. “The talking scenes were so realistic that last night’s audience felt inclined to encore the machines,” they noted – an indication that the technology was as much an attraction as the subjects themselves.^[22]

Interestingly, midway through the Gem engagement the exhibitors changed the entire picture bill, an effort to lure audiences back to see the new show. It’s not clear what exactly changed, but the Georgia Minstrels, a crowd favorite in Wenatchee, played both halves of the engagement. “Judging by the ticket receipts, everyone in town has attended the entertainments [at the Gem] this week,” said the Daily World. “Manager Ritz states that the Cameraphone has been the most popular feature that he has yet found to offer the public.”^[23]

Within a matter of days the cameraphone turned up for a short engagement in Puyallup, and probably played other locations in Washington as well.  But despite the glowing notices from Wenatchee, the end was already near for these roadshow engagements.^[24]  In July 1910 cameraphone’s parent company went bankrupt, forcing the demise of the Washington Cameraphone Company.

So as a novelty sound had some appeal, but tended to wear out its welcome rather quickly and failed to have a lasting impact on audiences.  Up to this point the track record wasn’t very good, since these technologies had numerable limitations.  Still, attempts to marry sound and film persisted.  Over a period of six weeks in late 1909/early 1910, Seattle’s Lyceum Theatre showed series of what they called “Perfect Singing and Talking Pictures” but, once again, there was little written about the engagement.^[25]  Not once during this run were the subjects identified in any of the city’s dailies, but the sound pictures appear to have been shown alongside other selections that were completely silent.

So what to make of this flurry of sound film activity in Washington between mid-1908 and early 1910?  From a technology standpoint, there were several innovative machines coming into the marketplace, from the sychroscope and cameraphone to whatever was on display at the Lois and the Lyceum. But it’s also clear that these technologies tended to play to smaller audiences, and were not so innovative that they attracted crowds on their own – at least, not at this point.  Two factors probably contributed to the failure of sound to catch on during this timeframe. One was the fact that not enough subjects were being produced to support these emerging technologies, something that impacted venues like the Sychrodome or the Shannon that looked to show talking pictures exclusively. The other, of course, was the technology itself; no matter what the advance notices claimed, there just wasn’t a reliable way to pair sound with moving pictures.  Technologies like the cameraphone, which used a phonograph disc to provide its sound, could easily get out of synch with the picture itself, with just the slightest delay or malfunction throwing the entire presentation off. The other units were largely variations on projector/phonograph combination, and would have suffered from the same types of synchronization and amplification problems.

Clearly, however, this 18-month period was a unique one where the talking picture, once the goal of Thomas Edison himself, took on a renewed focus for inventors and exhibitors.  The technology was developed enough to demonstrate its potential, but wasn’t so advanced that it was commercially viable.  The technologies of this period may have been ahead of their time, but they needed some additional work before they could become a viable alternatives to silent pictures.  While these novelty attractions allowed some exhibitors, like R.T Shannon, to differentiate themselves from others, ultimately they never caught on with the viewing public.  But the next big effort – and a much more serious attempt to conquer the medium’s technological challenges – was just on the horizon.

By Eric L. Flom – November 2025

Notes:

[1] See Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 (Berkley: University of California Press – 1990), Pages 438-439.
[2] James Q. Clemmer, quoted In Elizabeth Rhodes, “The First Picture Palace,” Seattle Times, 11 April 1982, Page F1. A cultural exception to this story was the fact that Asian audiences were frequently exposed to the Japanese benshi tradition of live film in Seattle’s Chinatown neighborhood, which was another way of bringing the voice and the moving picture together.  There are a handful of references to picture shows with benshi narration, but they are few and far between, and likely do not reflect its actual usage in movie exhibitions within that community.
[3] “Talking Pictures at The Lois,” Seattle Daily Times, 15 July 1908, Page 8.
[4] “Moving Pictures at The Lois,” Seattle Daily Times, 17 July 1908, Page 10.
[5] See Lois Theatre advertisement, Seattle Daily Times, 15, July 1908, Page 11.
[6] “See the genuine pictures…,” Seattle Daily Times, 16 July 1908, Page 13.
[7] “The Family Theatre…,” Seattle Daily Times, 19 July 1908, Page 40; see also “New Picture Show,” Seattle Daily Times, 18 July 1908, Page 3 and Sychrodome advertisement, Seattle Daily Times, 19 July 1908, Page 21.
[8] See Eugene Clinton Elliott, A History of Variety-Vaudeville in Seattle: From the Beginning to 1914 (Seattle: University of Washington Press – 1944), Page 67.
[9] “Pictures that actually talk…,” The Leavenworth Echo, 14 August 1908, Page 5.
[10] “Marvelous Sychroscope at the Novelty Theater,” The Spokane Press, 5 October 1908, Page 3.
[11] “See This Show,” The Spokane Press, 6 October 1908, Page 7.
[12] See “The Sychroscope…,” Washington Standard, 23 October 1908, Page 2; see also “Beginning on Sunday night…,” Washington Standard, 16 October 1908, Page 2.
[13] See “Shannon Theatre Must Close Doors,” Seattle Daily Times, 23 October 1908, Page 20; and “Theatre Placarded as Dangerous,” Seattle Daily Times, 24 October 1908, Page 14.
[14] “Shannon Theater,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 26 November 1908, Page 7.
[15] See Rick Altman, Silent Film Sound (New York: Columbia University Press – 2004), Pages 165-166.
[16] “The Cameraphone,” Seattle Daily Times, 25 November 1908, Page 9.
[17] See “Everton Tells of a Theatrical Thanksgiving in Canada,” Seattle Daily Times, 26 November 1908, Page 9; and “The Cameraphone,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 27 November 1908, Page 7.
[18] “Cameraphone,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 29 November 1908, Magazine Section II, Page 2.
[19] See “Shannon Theatre,” Seattle Star, 5 December 1908, Page 3; and Shannon Theatre advertisement, Seattle Star, 9 December 1908, Page 2.
[20] See “Corporations File Articles,” Seattle Post Intelligencer, 9 April 1909, Second Section, Page 2.
[21] See Gem Theatre advertisement, The Wenatchee Daily World, 18 June 1910, Page 8.
[22] See “Talking Pictures,” The Wenatchee Daily World, 22 June 1910, Page 8; and “Gem Cameraphone,” The Wenatchee Daily World, 20 June 1910, Page 8.
[23] “Georgia Minstrels,” The Wenatchee Daily World, 23 June 1910, Page 8.
[24] “The Cameraphone…,” Washington Standard, 15 July 1910, Page 2.
[25] See Lyceum Theatre advertisement, Seattle Daily Times, 5 December 1909, Page 39; Motion Pictures – Lyceum,” Seattle Star, 15 January 1910, Page 5; and “Lyceum Theatre Opens Week With Complete Change,” Seattle Daily Times, 18 January 1910, Page 9.

Thomas Edison, for one, wasn’t ready to give up on his longtime goal of synchronizing sound and film, and late in his career picked up the concept yet again.  Edison’s renewed interest prompted Robert Grau to contribute an article to Scientific American on the subject, something that was reprinted, in part, in the September 1911 edition of Motography.  “I have already been privileged to hear and see almost an entire act of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, including the famous sextette, as sung by Caruso, Sembrich, Pancon and others,” Grau claimed. “Although perfection has not yet been achieved, no great stretch of the imagination is necessary in order to predict that another year or two at most will witness the attainment of absolute synchronism.”^[1]

This was, as Robert Grau portrayed it, a return to form for Thomas Edison, who seemed to be on the verge of changing the world yet again with one of his inventions. In fact, on the occasion of his 65^th birthday, in February 1912, notices began appearing on the pages of many daily papers (the Seattle Daily Times included) offering reflections on Thomas Edison’s life and detailing his visions for the future. And of the two ideas most occupying his mind at that point, one was talking pictures. “This talking picture idea is well worked out and I have the actors working every day under a tent in West Orange putting on scenic and talking performances,” said the Wizard of Menlo Park. “While the scheme appears to be pretty close to perfect I want to keep at it until there is nothing further to do.”^[2]  We can thank Thomas Edison for being so engaged with this talking picture reboot, since his other big idea was centered around the production of concrete furniture.

Less than a year later, in January 1913, Thomas Edison was ready to roll out his new talking picture idea.  Also known as the kinetophone, this updated unit had sound recorded on a large wax cylinder, then used an amplifier to project the sound to the audience.  There was also a critical design enhancement in that the cylinder movement drove the projection, a new feature designed to better keep the screen image synched with the sound.  “After four years of the hardest kind of work to get the machine perfected that will make it possible for persons to both see and hear the drama enacted elsewhere, Mr. Edison has perfected the work so that it is now what he calls ‘fool proof.’”^[3]

That month Thomas Edison struck a deal with Morris Meyerfield, Jr., head of the Orpheum vaudeville circuit, the pair formally announcing that this new, updated version of the kinetophone would be installed in Orpheum circuit houses over the next several weeks. In Seattle, this installation took place on February 14, 1913, barely a month after the deal had been inked. “That the Orpheum Circuit meant business when it announced a few weeks ago that it had contracted for Edison’s kinetophone is shown by the arrival at the local playhouse yesterday of the huge crates containing the apparatus for the new devise,” commented J. Willis Sayre in the Daily Times.  The crates were followed, in short order, by the arrival of an expert technician to install the unit, and though Sayre himself had seen enough “sound” technology to be skeptical, he reasoned that Thomas Edison’s version would be better than previous attempts. “It seems certain that the Orpheum Circuit would not have contracted for [the kinetophone’s] use had there been any doubt of its practicability.”^[4]

Turns out, those were famous last words.

It took nearly two weeks after the kinetophone arrived for its engineer, Peter Gosselaar, to meet up with the unit.  Gosselaar came to Seattle directly from Chicago, spent some time combing the backstage areas of the Orpheum, then confidently announced that he could have the kinetophone up and running by March 9^th.  The only hitch – he needed to drill several holes in the venue’s back wall to complete the installation.

The good news was that Peter Gosselaar completed his work on time. The bad news was that J. Willis Sayre, reviewing Orpheum shows for the Daily Times, was already having doubts about the technology’s viability, which was costing the venue about $200 per week in rental fees.  Sayre tipped his hand the week before the kinetophone’s Seattle debut, wondering aloud if fans of silent pictures were ready to embrace sound. “It is to be noticed that all the exhibition arrangements for talking pictures have been made by vaudeville men, and not by motion picture men,” Sayre observed. “The talking pictures somehow seem logically to belong to talking entertainments.” Many picture people only went to movies, he argued, and while some vaudeville patrons tolerated the film portion of the bill, others walked out entirely when the final act came on (movies being the so-called “chaser” of the show). “And so it is not only possible that while the kinetophone may be a complete success in vaudeville, it may not interest the genuine motion picture fans in the slightest degree.”^[5]

Sayre’s thinking was roughly in line with the trade paper Motography, which editorialized on the new kinetophone right around the time the Seattle Orpheum was having their unit installed. With operas such as Faust and Il Trovatore having been chosen as test subjects, Motography was intrigued, but careful to note the kinetophone was just one in a long line of machines attempting to bridge the sound/film gap, most of which failed miserably.  “The new Edison Kinetophone…is not the first solution [to] the problem, but merely the latest. Being the latest, it may be supposed to have some advantages over earlier attempts; although it is too early to form an opinion on any basis but the reputation of the inventor.”^[6]

So it was left to the public, then, to put the new kinetophone to the test; at Seattle’s Orpheum Theatre, the machine debuted on an early March bill that included a comedian, several playlets and a few musical numbers, plus a high wire and trained leopard act.  And J. Willis Sayre, writing for the Daily Times, was right there to take in all in, noting that the live bill had “exceptional merit.” His longest diatribe, however, was saved for the kinetophone, which he found to be crude, capitalizing solely on the Edison name, and merely suggestive of how sound could enhance motion pictures. “The Edison Kinetophone, or talking pictures, registered only mildly,” he began. “In their present form they will create little stir. They consist merely of a talking machine placed in plain view under the screen, and some elementary pictures of little intrinsic merit. The phonograph develops all the pronounced metallic sound of that instrument in its earliest stages and sometimes it is in exact beat with the pictures and sometimes it is not. There is nothing about all this to make a spectator stand up in his seat and yell ‘Eureka.’”^[7]

So as an experimental technology, Thomas Edison’s kinetophone held less promise than its advance notices claimed.  And that would have been well and good, except for the fact that the Orpheum circuit contracted for three months of weekly kinetophone offerings, meaning that vaudeville audiences were going to see it (and hear it) week in and week out, whether or not they wanted to. And it wasn’t long before J. Willis Sayre just didn’t want to.

The pictures shown during the kinetophone’s opening week at the Seattle Orpheum weren’t disclosed – the discussion around these pictures centered on the technology, not the subject matter. For its second week, however, the kinetophone showed an abbreviated clip from the first act of Faust – specifically, the part where Mephisto draws up the contract. Sayre was a little more positive after his second kinetophone experience; the subject matter was more interesting and the operators did a better job of synching the sound with the action.^[8]

As the weeks progressed, however, J. Willis Sayre’s tolerance for the kinetophone waned and his poison pen started coming out. Just as the kinetophone occupied the “chaser” position on the Orpheum bill, being the last act of the full show, so too did Sayre’s comments occupy the last of his commentary on each week’s bill.  That’s what occurred during the first two weeks of shows, after which he changed tactics and simply mentioned that the films had screened, without going into detail on the subjects or the apparatus.  But the week of April 14^th, the fifth week of the kinetophone engagement, ignoring the films was no longer a possibility. “The talking pictures introduce an act of the Werba & Luescher drama, The Master Mind,” he noted at the end of that week’s review. “In this, Edmund Breese evidences his clever acting, though his utterances are often indistinct and it is hard to follow the story.”^[9] It would be the last time J. Willis Sayre was even halfway open-minded about the films being shown at the Orpheum.

Five weeks of Edison’s kinetophone was about all the longtime Seattle dramatic critic could take.  Which was interesting, since the next week’s film was perhaps the most interesting subject thrown onscreen during the kinetophone’s Seattle run: a picture showcasing 14 of New York’s most prominent suffragettes, in a direct appeal to Orpheum audiences to support their cause.  Entitled Votes for Women, Orpheum advertising actively courted local women’s groups, attempting to pack the Monday afternoon showing by arranging for speakers to appear from a number of Seattle’s own suffragette organizations.

This was an extraordinary engagement – progressive, socially conscious and prominently featured as one of the key drawing cards for the week. If you discount, that is, the fact that Votes for Women had to share top billing with Don the Talking Dog.

This was the presentation that put J. Willis Sayre over the edge.  It was a full lineup at the Orpheum the week of April 21, 1913.  In addition to the film and the dog routine, there was a large dance act, farce comedy, ventriloquist, trapeze artist, pianist and two men, dubbed The Romanos, who stripped down and mimicked Greek statuary.  And Sayre was largely impressed…with the live portion of the bill.  “Individually each act is up to a good standard, and collectively they fit together into what is often impossible to construct even with individually good acts, a well-arranged and nicely balanced program.”^[10]

The highlight for Sayre was the dance act, featuring 12 hoofers in a variety of settings, which he felt more worthy of being the top act.  “As a talking dog Don is about as successful as the talking pictures,” he noted, which wasn’t saying much.  Don, a German shepherd, had been trained to bark in different tones, allowing his handler to construct an entire stage act based on what those barks allegedly sounded like.  Other than that, Don did a few tricks and wagged his tail a lot – his owner had the burden of carrying the act.

As usual, Sayre waited until the end of his review before discussing the kinetophone offering, but this time he unleashed. He wasn’t interested in discussing the subject matter of Votes for Women, but admitted that the presentation was better than most kinetophone pictures he had seen. He just hated everything else.

The talking pictures were held to the last and half the audience walked out on them. This week the phonograph and the films register perfectly, the talk is distinct and the subjects better than usual, and yet Orpheum audiences have shown over and over again that they do not care for them. Motion pictures are perhaps like children, in that they should be seen and not heard. It seems foolish to try to educate the public to something in the amusement line that it does not want. The Orpheum will score a box office error if it retains the talking pictures a day longer than the time called for in the original contract.^[11]

So the gloves were off and J. Willis Sayre, after being polite during the first few weeks of the kinetophone engagement, no longer felt any restraint. “Edison ought to get some real live subjects for his talking pictures,” he wrote derisively in early May, “like [opera singer Enrico] Caruso eating a plate of spaghetti.”  And Sayre was just getting started, ending each of his Orpheum reviews for the next several weeks with pointed jabs at the screen offering.

May 6^th: “Any praise accorded the talking pictures must be empty indeed to correspond to the condition of the house as soon as their showing begins.”

May 13^th: “The walking pictures make [Musical] Director Coleman’s exit march unnecessary.”

May 27^th: “This week sees the finish of the talking pictures. Next week The Orpheum goes back to the films which say less but do more.” (Sayre was incorrect here; there was still one more week of kinetophone films left to go.)

June 3^rd: “Fire drill note – The Edison talking pictures were flashed on the screen, every employee stood at his post and the entire house was emptied without confusion in less than two minutes.”

June 10^th: “You don’t have to run when you see the big white sheet come down, for those weird talking pictures have gone, and if you want to start something just try to sell them to the Orpheum again.”^[12]

All along the Orpheum circuit house audiences were having similar reactions – hardly anyone thought much of the kinetophone, and most managers couldn’t wait to have it dismantled and taken away.  Edison’s new design may have been a technological improvement, but it wasn’t so dazzling as to truly engage audiences – they were still bothered by sound film’s limitations.

This was a dismal failure for the great Thomas Edison, but the kinetophone wasn’t quite done playing to movie audiences just yet. Despite failing in major cities, the Edison forces decided to take their efforts on the road, using a portable version of the technology that could play smaller film and vaudeville houses in an effort to recoup expenses. And it’s in that form that the kinetophone actually found some modicum of success.  In Washington, the first of these engagements came three months after the kinetophone closed in Seattle, when a roadshow version arrived at the Tacoma Theatre to begin a one-week stint on Sunday, September 21, 1913, under the promise of presenting “the only satisfactory talking pictures yet produced.”^[13]

These shorter engagements were better suited to the kinetophone’s novelty appeal.  Whereas enthusiasm for the technology deflated over the first few weeks at the Seattle Orpheum, audiences in Tacoma couldn’t get enough of similar pictures during their brief run in Tacoma. “Edison’s ‘talking movies’ have caught the town by the collar!,” exclaimed The Tacoma Times shortly after they opened.

So powerful a magnet has it proved that the Tacoma theater has been backed at every performance since Sunday, when the engagement opened. The large audiences heard for the first time figures in a picture talk, sing and render selections from the piano and violin, and other truly marvelous sounds were produced.
          So far as movie fans at the Tacoma are concerned, the “talkies” are a decided success and the crowning achievement in picture photography…
          On account of the tremendous crowds that have attended each performance, special matinees have been arranged for Thursday and Friday afternoons.^[14]

A key factor for the success of these pictures, according to The Tacoma Times, was that the show’s engineers did an excellent job presenting the films. “…[W]hen you see a figure on the screen moving his lips,” they insisted, “and hear the words apparently coming from the shadowy image on the white cloth – so carefully regulated that you can read the lips and know that the words are timed to the fraction of a second – you must realize the infinite care exercised in making the pictures.  The talking machine has no metallic sound and voices from it can be heard distinctly in every part of the theater.”^[15]

Among the films shown at the Tacoma Theatre was a song presentation by a group called the Jolly Bachelors, but what seems to have really captured people’s attention – or, at least the attention of the editors of The Tacoma Times – was a short kinetophone speech given by New York Mayor William Jay Gaynor.  Gaynor was up for reelection in 1913, after having survived an assassination attempt in 1910.  But two weeks before the Tacoma kinetophone engagement Mayor Gaynor passed away rather suddenly, the lingering effects of his bullet wound contributing to his death.  And that’s what was fascinating: Mayor William Jay Gaynor was dead – he was laid to rest the very week the kinetophone arrived in Tacoma – and yet there he was, onscreen, walking and talking as if nothing had happened.  “The dead brought back to life?,” questioned the paper in their lead editorial on September 24^th. “It was what actually happened in a local theater last night when the latest product of the creative genius of Thomas Edison was exhibited. You saw the mayor surrounded by his faithful men. You heard them talk and you saw the mayor slowly rise from his chair, look straight at you – and speak!…Suppose the Kinetophone had been invented years ago. We would be able to see and hear today such men as Abraham Lincoln, President McKinley, General Grant – hundreds of famous men dearly beloved in the hearts of Americans!”^[16]

So audiences in Tacoma were eager to embrace the same kinetophone technology that audiences in Seattle tired of so quickly, but that wasn’t the technology’s only stop in Washington state.  Immediately following the Tacoma engagement, the kinetophone was booked into the Grand Theatre in Aberdeen for a two-day run beginning September 27^th, but for reasons unexplained it didn’t play until a week later.

Unlike the case in Tacoma, pre-engagement publicity for the Aberdeen show gave clues as to what this particular traveling show was offering theatre patrons: 12 short subjects, including a minstrel song number with 35 singers, a group of noted suffragettes, a scene from the stage production Chimes of Normandy, several song and dance numbers, including “Musical Blacksmiths” and “Nursery Favorites,” the latter of which featuring riffs on popular nursery rhymes, plus footage of the late Mayor Gaynor.^[17]

No reviews seem to exist indicating how audiences in Aberdeen reacted to their first experience with the kinetophone, but it’s not hard to tell where they stood.  Just months after the traveling kinetophone company passed through the Northwest, they returned for a series of new engagements – one of the earliest being a repeat performance that the Aberdeen Grand.  “Several [kinetophone] companies have been organized by Mr. Edison,” explained the show’s advance publicity, “each equipped with its force of operators and necessary mechanical accessories, machines, etc., and having its [own] advance agent and business manager. These companies are competing successfully with the largest dramatic and musical organizations for volume of business.”^[18]

This second Aberdeen engagement again featured 12 different subjects, but all were new.  Only one was mentioned in the Grand’s advertising: a 12-minute monologue by famed New York Giants’ manager John McGraw.  And again, the Aberdeen Herald didn’t comment on how well the two-day engagement was attended, but the fact that the show returned to the Grand so quickly was probably testament to the public’s interest in Edison’s talking pictures.

Not to be outdone, that same show also went right back to the Tacoma Theatre, in an eight-day re-engagement that began March 1, 1914. And did the city’s moviegoing public respond the way they had five months earlier?  The article headline for The Tacoma Times said it all: “Famous Talking Pictures Are Greeted by Monster Audience.”

Local movie patrons were not only enthusiastic about the kinetophone, but they considered the newest set of films a better show than had played the Tacoma Theatre back in September. “Thomas A. Edison’s wonderful talking motion pictures undoubtedly gained instant popularity in Tacoma last summer were shown here for the first time, because yesterday, when a second series of ‘talking-movies’ was introduced at the Tacoma theater, monster audiences were on hand for the novel performance…The series of pictures consists of cabaret acts, dramas, minstrel shows, orchestral concerts, and a set of talking pictures in which John J. McGraw of the famous New York Giants plays a part, laughs, jokes and hands out a few stories.”^[19]  In addition to McGraw’s monologue, audiences were also treated to an abbreviated scene from The Merchant of Venice, songs from the operas Fra Diavolo and Faust, plus some comedy shorts.

These roadshow versions of the kinetophone did well enough, with short runs that allowed the audience to enjoy the novelty before it wore thin, that the Edison folks continued filming new subjects for their touring shows, something that J. Willis Sayre, in reporting on it, found incredulous.^[20]  In the long run, however, Edison’s kinetophone only moved the needle slightly, and failed to revolutionize the film industry.  Despite better success with his roadshows, Thomas Edison seemed to know this; he eventually wound them down and sold the foreign exhibition rights to others.  Eventually the outbreak of the European war, followed by a December 1914 fire at Edison’s West Orange laboratory (destroying the original films and master recordings) effectively ended the inventor’s second kinetophone experiment.

For Seattle audiences, however, the last word on the kinetophone came in February 1914, in a news item out of California. Talking pictures (and we can assume it was the kinetophone, given that traveling shows had been dispersed throughout the U.S.) were shown to the almost 2,000 men incarcerated in San Quentin Prison, with subjects that included some vaudeville acts, scenes from Shakespeare and a snippet from the stage melodrama Way Down East. This was a general news item, available to newspapers as filler, and not something that required attention from a local journalist. But when it was selected to run in the Daily Times, directly below his theatrical column, the article’s headline seemed to have been the product J. Willis Sayre’s editorial hand: “Talking Pictures Add to Convicts’ Misery.”^[21]

Movie sound was still in its incubation period.  Serious efforts to harness the technology were made in 1895, 1908 and again in 1913, but there were significant barriers preventing the talking picture from capturing the public’s interest.  But that wouldn’t hold forever.

By Eric L. Flom – November 2025

Notes:

[1] Robert Grau, “Talking Pictures and the Drama,” Motography, September 1911, Pages 127-128.
[2] “Thomas A. Edison is 65 Years Old Today,” Seattle Daily Times, 11 February 1912, Page 2.
[3] “Talking Pictures Ready for Public,” Motography, 18 January 1913, Page 38.
[4] See J. Willis Sayre, “All Orpheums Will Have Kinetophones,” Seattle Daily Times, 15 January 1913, Page 8; and J. Willis Sayre, “Orpheum Receives its Kinetophone,” Seattle Daily Times, 15 February 1913, Page 12.
[5] J. Willis Sayre, “Talking Pictures to Fill Own Field,” Seattle Daily Times, 2 March 1913, Part II News Section, Page 22.
[6] “Talking Pictures,” Motography, 15 February 1913, Page 108.
[7] J. Willis Sayre, “Exceptional Merit Found at Orpheum,” Seattle Daily Times, 11 March 1913, Page 9.
[8] J. Willis Sayre,” Orpheum Program Again Has Class,” Seattle Daily Times, 18 March 1913, Page 6.
[9] J. Willis Sayre, “Good Acts in Plenty on Orpheum Program,” Seattle Daily Times, 15 April 1913, Page 11.
[10] J. Willis Sayre, “Comedy Rules on Orpheum Program, Seattle Daily Times, 22 April 1913, Page 9; see also “Mrs. Fish Discusses Work of Girl’s Home,” Seattle Daily Times, 18 April 1913, Page 21; Orpheum Theatre advertisement, Seattle Daily Times, 20 April 1913, Page 63; and “Pictures of Suffragettes,” Seattle Daily Times, 20 April 1913, Page 56.
[11] J. Willis Sayre, “Comedy Rules on Orpheum Program, Seattle Daily Times, 22 April 1913, Page 9.
[12] See “J. Willis Sayre, “Super-Attraction Note,” Seattle Daily Times, 2 May 1913, Page 8; J. Willis Sayre, “Orpheum Has Very Fine Musical Act,” Seattle Daily Times, 6 May 1913, Page 9;J. Willis Sayre, “Two Fine Acts Given on Orpheum Program,” Seattle Daily Times, 13 May 1913, Page 9; J. Willis Sayre, J. Willis Sayre, “Laughs Predominate on Orpheum Program,” Seattle Daily Times, 27 May 1913, Page 9; J. Willis Sayre, “Orpheum Has Neat Stage Life Comedy, Seattle Daily Times, 3 June 1913, Page 8; and J. Willis Sayre, “Orpheum Has Good Program This Week,” Seattle Daily Times, 10 June 1913, Page 9.
[13] “At the Tacoma,” The Tacoma Times, 13 September 1913, Page 3.
[14] “Kinetophone ‘Talkies’ Draw Record Crowds at Tacoma,” The Tacoma Times, 24 September 1913, Page 5.
[15] “‘Talkie-Movies’ Astound Audiences at the Tacoma,” The Tacoma Times, 23 September 1913, Page 5.
[16] “Brought Back to Life,” The Tacoma Times, 24 September 1913, Page 4.
[17] See “The Scientific Wonder of the Age,” Aberdeen Herald, 16 September 1913, Page 6; and “Edison’s Talking Pictures,” Aberdeen Herald, 3 October 1913, Page 5.
[18] “Talking Pictures at Grand,” Aberdeen Herald, 20 February 1914, Page 5.
[19] “Famous Talking Pictures Are Greeted by Monster Audience,” The Tacoma Times, 2 March 1914, Page 5.
[20] J. Willis Sayre, “Talking Pictures on Road,” Seattle Daily Times, 19 May 1913, Page 8; J. Willis Sayre, “Many Talking Pictures Sold,” Seattle Daily Times, 25 August 1913, Page 10; J. Willis Sayre, “Orpheum Experience Repeated,” Seattle Daily Times, 8 October 1913, Page 12; J. Willis Sayre, “Those Talking Pictures,” Seattle Daily Times, 14 December 1913, Page 30.
[21] “Talking Pictures Adds to Convicts’ Misery,” Seattle Daily Times, 2 February 1914, Page 14.