[78-L] Billy Murray on Popeye vol.3, "Finding His Voice"

[victrola78s at aol.com]

Yesterday I picked up the DVD set "Popeye the Sailor vol.3, 1941-1943" at Best Buy. On the second disc, under "Special Features" is the 1929 Fleischer short "Finding His Voice-An Animated Cartoon Synchronized to Voice and Sound"(though the characters are actually a little OUT of synch as they speak!). It's not news that Billy Murray did cartoon voices, but I wanted to point out this set so that Murray fans could actually SEE it when buying this set.

?????????????????? Synopsis:

Murray plays a character called "Talkie", who we see playing the "Anvil Chorus" on a xylophone. He then meets up with a silent character called "Mutie"?(who is mute) & 'speaks' via subtitles over both their heads-which "Talkie" has to look up at to read them! Talkie takes the silent mute to a one "Dr. Western, Film Surgeon, Voices Lifted". He takes Mutie's pulse & says, "Why man, you're running at 60! We'll have to pep you up to 90!"-a reference to silent & sound running?speed of 35mm film's feet per minute rate. Then the Doc takes them both to a movie set, where studio carpenters are hammering away noisily. Doc says, "Now Talkie, let's put on an act for Mutie, and let him follow it through". At this point a recording?bell rings & Talkie sings "Love's Old Sweet Song"-BUT MURRAY DOESN'T ACTUALLY SING THIS!! It's some studio singer rather like Lewis James or any of the 1920s tenors(I'm not denigrating Lewis James here, I've always loved his voice). The Doc then shows off the camera booth to Mutie with what looks like a Bell & Howell 2709 35mm camera with synchronising electric?motor attached. The Doc even comments on how hot it is inside the booth! Talkie sings into a Western Electric condensor michrophone, then the sound waves are shown going to the mixing console, where the Doc twiddles with the volume input knobs & Talkie's voice is heard going up & down in volume. Doc points out that the sound is heard "through this horn"-an 'Orthophonic'-type typical of early movie sound systems. Interesting that the Doc calls it a horn & not a speaker. Doc then takes Mutie to a large rack of [Western Electric?] audio equipment, where the microphone sound is amplified "ten million times". Then off to see the optical sound?film recorder, complete with a demo of the exciter lamp & photocell pickup. Then we see two reels of film, one containing picture the other soundtrack, which are then printed together onto fresh film stock. Next is the sound film projector, again with a demo of the optical sound pickup. Then Doc shows how th

e sound goes through wires around the theater to the two massive horns for soundtrack reproduction-even commenting on the perforated screen that allows the audio to pass through! At long last Mutie cries out. "Whoopee! I've found my voice! Let me onto that screen!" Then he goes wild in front of Talkie, who tells him, "Look here smartie, if you must stay on the screen with me suppose we get together with a little close harmony?" Then the two of them sing "Good Night Ladies" & "Merrily We Roll[Row?] Along"-MURRAY ACTUALLY SINGS HERE:) Then the scene morphs them into a rowboat, and they are both gobbled up by a whale, rowboat and all("Pi-NOCCH-io!!!"), as the end title comes on the screen.

All in all, a really good description of the sound movie process, which had some accurate?technical details in it that surprised me. The?image quality is good but not great, obviously from a 35mm release print, and the sound is a little muffled. Quite a neat extra on this essential Popeye DVD set!

Dennis "Bray Process" Forkel