The Tri-Ergon
sound-on-film
Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is recorded on photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog ...
system was developed from around 1919 by three German inventors, Josef Engl (1893–1942), Joseph Massolle (1889–1957), and Hans Vogt (1890–1979).
The system used a
photoelectric
The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons when electromagnetic radiation, such as light, hits a material. Electrons emitted in this manner are called photoelectrons. The phenomenon is studied in condensed matter physics, and solid sta ...
recording method and a non-standard film size (42mm) which incorporated the sound track with stock 35mm film. With a Swiss backer, the inventors formed Tri-Ergon AG in
Zurich, and tried to interest the market with their invention.
Ufa
Ufa ( ba, Өфө , Öfö; russian: Уфа́, r=Ufá, p=ʊˈfa) is the largest city and capital city, capital of Bashkortostan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Belaya River (Kama), Belaya and Ufa River, Ufa rivers, in the centre-n ...
acquired the German sound film rights for the Tri-Ergon process in 1925, but dropped the system when the public showing of their first sound film suffered technical failures.
The Tri-Ergon system appeared at a time when a number of other sound film processes were arriving on the market, and the company soon merged with a number of competitors to form the
Tobis syndicate in 1928, joined by the Klangfilm AG syndicate in 1929 and renamed as Tobis-Klangfilm by 1930. While Tri-Ergon became the dominant sound film process in Germany and much of Europe through its use by Tobis-Klangfilm, American film companies were still squabbling over their respective patents. For a time Tri-Ergon successfully blocked all American attempts to show their sound films in Germany and other European countries, until a loose cartel was formed under an agreement in Paris in 1930.
However,
William Fox of the
Fox Film Corporation
The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American Independent film production studio formed by William Fox (1879–1952) in 1915, by combining his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attractions Film ...
acquired the US rights for the Tri-Ergon system and, backed by Tri-Ergon AG, began a patent infringement battle in the courts in 1929 against much of the American film industry. The dispute wasn't settled until 1935, when Fox lost his final appeal in the
US Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of ...
. A new Paris accord was signed in March 1936, which held until the start of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The Tri-Ergon system continued in use in Germany and the continent during the war.
There were a number of companies which used the Tri-Ergon name:
* Tri-Ergon AG (
Zurich, Switzerland), acquired the rights to the original 1919 patents from the inventors in 1923
* Tri-Ergon-Musik AG (
St. Gallen
, neighboring_municipalities = Eggersriet, Gaiserwald, Gossau, Herisau (AR), Mörschwil, Speicher (AR), Stein (AR), Teufen (AR), Untereggen, Wittenbach
, twintowns = Liberec (Czech Republic)
, website ...
, Switzerland), founded c1926, held the patents for the rest of the world outside Germany
* Tri-Ergon-Musik AG (Berlin), which made phonograph records and owned the patents for Germany, formed in 1927: a subsidiary or branch of the St. Gallen company
* Tri-Ergon-Photo-Electro-Records (Berlin), a record label subsidiary of Tri-Ergon-Musik AG (Berlin)
Etymology
The name Tri-Ergon means "the work of three", and is derived from el, τρία, translit=tria, meaning three, and , , meaning 'deed, action, work, labour, or task'; cognate with ang, weorc (English work). The
erg
The erg is a unit of energy equal to 10−7joules (100 nJ). It originated in the Centimetre–gram–second system of units (CGS). It has the symbol ''erg''. The erg is not an SI unit. Its name is derived from (), a Greek word meaning 'work' o ...
also derives from the same word .
Design
![Optical-film-soundtrack](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Optical-film-soundtrack.svg)
The Tri-Ergon process involved recording sound onto film using the "variable density" method, used by Movietone and
Lee De Forest
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and a fundamentally important early pioneer in electronics. He invented the first electronic device for controlling current flow; the three-element "Audion" triode va ...
's
Phonofilm
Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s.
Introduction
In 1919 and 1920, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, ...
, rather than the "variable area" method later used by
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was an opt ...
.
Tri-Ergon used a special form of microphone without mechanical moving parts (Cathodophone) for sound pickup and a special
electric discharge tube for variable density film recording. For reproduction of sound, the system used an
electrostatic loudspeaker
An electrostatic loudspeaker (ESL) is a loudspeaker design in which sound is generated by the force exerted on a membrane suspended in an electrostatic field.
Design and functionality
The speakers use a thin flat diaphragm usually consistin ...
.
Two specific patents in the Tri-Ergon system would later cause controversy. The Tri-Ergon film used an extra 7mm sound strip attached to the edge of a standard 35mm film, resulting in a new film 42mm wide. This was achieved by a "double-printing" method by which the film and sound tracks were recorded and developed separately, then printed together onto a common positive. This required special adjustments on the standard projectors, which was not well received by the industry. The other patent was a "flywheel" which allowed the film to flow smoothly through sound reproducing equipment.
An original Tri-Ergon sound
movie projector
A movie projector is an optics, opto-mechanics, mechanical device for displaying Film, motion picture film by projecting it onto a movie screen, screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illumination and sound devices ...
(dated to 1923) is in the collection of the
Deutsches Museum
The Deutsches Museum (''German Museum'', officially (English: ''German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology'')) in Munich, Germany, is the world's largest museum of science and technology, with about 28,000 exhibited objects from ...
in
München,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
.
History
Beginnings
Massolle, Engl and Vogt secured patents from 1919 in Germany, and applied for a US patent on 20 March 1922.
[American Tri-Ergon Corp v. Altoona Publix Theaters (1933)]
''Casetext''. Retrieved 3 September 2017.
The first public showing of Tri-Ergon sound films took place in the at 68
Kurfürstendamm
The Kurfürstendamm (; colloquially ''Ku'damm'', ; en, Prince Elector Embankment) is one of the most famous avenues in Berlin. The street takes its name from the former ''Kurfürsten'' (prince-electors) of Brandenburg. The broad, long boulevar ...
, Berlin on 17 September 1922. One of the sound films shown was titled ''Der Brandstifter'' ('The Arsonist' in English). It was an adaptation for the screen of a 1903 one-act play ' by Dutch author
Herman Heijermans
Herman Heijermans (3 December 1864 – 22 November 1924), was a Dutch writer.
Heijermans was born in Rotterdam, into a liberal Jewish family, the fifth of the 11 children of Herman and Matilda (Moses) Spiers. Painter Marie Heijermans was his ...
who lived in Berlin from 1907 to 1911. The peculiarity of this play rests in the fact that all the parts were played by the same actor. No known copies of this film remain.
In order to continue developing their process, the inventors sold their patent to Swiss financial backers in
St. Gallen
, neighboring_municipalities = Eggersriet, Gaiserwald, Gossau, Herisau (AR), Mörschwil, Speicher (AR), Stein (AR), Teufen (AR), Untereggen, Wittenbach
, twintowns = Liberec (Czech Republic)
, website ...
who formed Tri-Ergon
AG in
Zürich
Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...
,
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
.
In 1924
Universum-Film AG (Ufa) produced three hours' worth of vaudeville shorts with sound, similar to those produced by
Warner Brothers
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American Film studio, film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, Califo ...
, using a
sound-on-disc Sound-on-disc is a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or play back sound in sync with a motion picture. Early sound-on-disc systems used a mechanical interlock with the movie projector, while more recent syste ...
system. Tri-Ergon AG licensed the recording film rights to Ufa in January 1925 and Masolle briefly became technical director of Ufa's first sound-film division.
However, the non-standard film format was not popular: even a well-publicized tour of Germany in 1925 failed to generate much interest.
Ufa's first sound film using the Tri-Ergon system, the 20-minute short ' ('The Match Girl'), was directed by Guido Bagier. Bagier (who worked at Ufa between 1922 and 1927 as producer and musical advisor) also wrote the music for the film; the screenplay was by Hans Kyser. It premièred at the Mozartsaal in December 1925, but was a total flop in terms of technical sound quality. According to Bagier, the fiasco was due to technical problems with the playback equipment.
The Parufmet agreement
In the meantime,
Ufa
Ufa ( ba, Өфө , Öfö; russian: Уфа́, r=Ufá, p=ʊˈfa) is the largest city and capital city, capital of Bashkortostan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Belaya River (Kama), Belaya and Ufa River, Ufa rivers, in the centre-n ...
, having ducked the whole issue of sound films, had still fallen into severe financial difficulties with productions of vastly expensive silent films accompanied by a live symphony orchestra playing a specially-composed score, such as
F. W. Murnau
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe; December 28, 1888March 11, 1931) was a German film director, producer and screenwriter.
He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at t ...
's ''
Der Letzte Mann
''The Last Laugh'' (german: Der letzte Mann, ) is a 1924 German silent film directed by German director F. W. Murnau from a screenplay written by Carl Mayer. The film stars Emil Jannings and Maly Delschaft.
Stephen Brockmann summarized the film' ...
'' (1924), with
Emil Jannings
Emil Jannings (born Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz, 23 July 1884 – 2 January 1950) was a Swiss born German actor, popular in the 1920s in Hollywood. He was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Actor for his roles in '' The La ...
and ''
Faust (1926 film)
''Faust – A German Folktale'' (German: ) is a 1926 silent film produced by Ufa, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Gösta Ekman as Faust, Emil Jannings as Mephisto, Camilla Horn as Gretchen/Marguerite, Frida Richard as her mother, Wilhelm Di ...
''; and both parts of
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety'', August 4, 1976, p. 6 ...
's ''
Die Nibelungen
''Die Nibelungen'' ("The Nibelungs") is a two-part series of silent fantasy films created by Austrian director Fritz Lang in 1924, consisting of ''Die Nibelungen: Siegfried'' and ''Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge''.
The scenarios for bo ...
'', with a score by
Gottfried Huppertz
Gottfried Huppertz (11 March 1887 – 7 February 1937) was a German composer who is perhaps most known for his scores to German expressionist silent films such as the science fiction epic ''Metropolis'' (1927). He collaborated with director Fritz ...
.
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
and
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded o ...
stepped into the financial breach with the highly restrictive
Parufamet Parufamet was the name of a distribution company established by the American film studios Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an ...
agreement of December 1925, whereby the American firms took control (and revenue) of all Ufa's first-run theatres to show American films. Only one significant German film was shown in Ufa first-run cinemas in Berlin during this whole time the agreement was in effect:
Joe May
Joe May (born Joseph Otto Mandl; 7 November 1880 – 29 April 1954) was an Austrian film director and film producer and one of the pioneers of German cinema.
Biography
After studying in Berlin and a variety of odd jobs, he began his career a ...
's silent ''
The Farmer from Texas
''The Farmer from Texas'' (german: Der Farmer aus Texas) is a 1925 German silent film, silent comedy film directed by Joe May and starring Mady Christians, Willy Fritsch, and Lillian Hall-Davis. It was based on the play ''Kolportage'' by Georg Ka ...
''. The film received no publicity build-up and was dropped after only one week at the
Ufa-Palast am Zoo
The Ufa-Palast am Zoo, located near Berlin Zoological Garden in the New West area of Charlottenburg, was a major Berlin cinema owned by Universum Film AG, or Ufa. Opened in 1919 and enlarged in 1925, it was the largest cinema in Germany until 19 ...
. Almost no German films were shown in US cinemas: and Ufa made no new films in Germany at all while the Parufamet contract was in force.
Although this injection of foreign capital allowed the construction in 1926 of Ufa's enormous new Große Halle studios at
Neubabelsberg
Babelsberg () is the largest quarter (''Stadtteil'') of Potsdam, the capital city of the German state of Brandenburg. The affluent neighbourhood named after a small hill on the Havel river is famous for Babelsberg Palace and Park, part of the Pala ...
(designed by Carl Stach-Urach, who had re-built the Ufa-Palast am Zoo the previous year), the Ufa management with
Erich Pommer in charge of production continued to over-spend by enormous amounts. Lang's ''
Metropolis
A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications.
A big c ...
'' cost over an (estimated) . Yet the only venue where ''Metropolis'' could be seen in the whole of Germany was at a single, small—yet exquisitely decorated—cinema showing second-rate films, the
Ufa-Pavillon am Nollendorfplatz
The Ufa-Pavillon am Nollendorfplatz was a cinema located at 4 Nollendorfplatz, Schöneberg, Berlin. Built in 1912–13 and designed and decorated by leading artistic practitioners of the day, it was the German capital's first purpose-built, ...
.
[.] The box office receipts amounted to approximately , slightly over 0.01% of the budget.
Expansion
![William Fox 1921](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/William_Fox_1921.jpg)
From 1926, needing more revenue, Tri-Ergon AG sought backers in the US. On 5 July 1927 the Hungarian-American
William Fox of the
Fox Film Corporation
The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American Independent film production studio formed by William Fox (1879–1952) in 1915, by combining his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attractions Film ...
personally purchased the US rights to the Tri-Ergon patents for $50,000, forming the American Tri-Ergon Corporation.
Fox Film had also purchased sound-on-film patents from
Freeman Harrison Owens
Freeman Harrison Owens (July 20, 1890 – December 9, 1979) was an early American filmmaker and aerial photographer.
Biography
was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the only child of Charles H. Owens and Christabel Harrison. He attended Pine Blu ...
and
Theodore Case
Theodore Willard Case (December 12, 1888 – May 13, 1944) was an American chemist and inventor known for the invention of the Movietone sound-on-film system.
Early life and education
Theodore Willard Case was born in 1888 in Auburn, New Yo ...
, although it seems that only the Case patents were actually used in creating the new sound-on-film system he dubbed
Fox Movietone
Movietone News is a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States. Under the name British Movietone News, it also ran in the United Kingdom from 1929 to 1986, in France also produced by Fox-Europa, in Australia and New Zealand until 197 ...
. One of the first feature films to be released in Fox Movietone was ''
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans'' (1927) directed by
F. W. Murnau
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe; December 28, 1888March 11, 1931) was a German film director, producer and screenwriter.
He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at t ...
. Fox also used the system for the long-running
newsreel
A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, informa ...
series ''
Fox Movietone News
Movietone News is a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States. Under the name British Movietone News, it also ran in the United Kingdom from 1929 to 1986, in France also produced by Fox-Europa, in Australia and New Zealand until 1970 ...
''.
On 5 March 1927
Alfred Hugenberg
Alfred Ernst Christian Alexander Hugenberg (19 June 1865 – 12 March 1951) was an influential German businessman and politician. An important figure in nationalist politics in Germany for the first few decades of the twentieth century, Hugenbe ...
's industrial Hugenberg-Gruppe took over Ufa and, as part of their initial cost-cutting measures, closed down the Tri-Ergon department. Ludwig Klitzsch, the managing director, dismissed Bagier and his team, sidestepping the problem of "the talkies" with their vast technical, financial, and legal problems.
On 12 May 1927, Tri-Ergon-Musik-AG (Berlin), a subsidiary of Tri-Ergon-Musik-AG (St. Gallen) was formed by Joseph Masolle. By 1931 it was a subsidiary of
IG Farben
Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate (company), conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies—BASF, ...
, which was founded in 1925. In December 1927 the Dutch firm of H. J. Küchenmeister founded a new company, International Maatschappij voor Sprekende Films NV (Sprekende Films NV) to profit from its patented 'Meisterton' system. Within a year the Dutch company would have almost total control of the Tobis and the Tri-Ergon patents.
At the 1927
Baden-Baden festival of contemporary chamber-music, pioneering sound films with original scores by leading avant-garde composers were shown at special 'Film and Music' sessions.
Walther Ruttmann
Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) was a German cinematographer and film director, an important German abstract experimental film maker, along with Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger. He is best known for dire ...
's abstract experimental film ''Opus III'' (1924), with an original score for chamber orchestra by
Hans Eisler
Hanns Eisler (6 July 1898 – 6 September 1962) was an Austrian composer (his father was Austrian, and Eisler fought in a Hungarian regiment in World War I). He is best known for composing the national anthem of East Germany, for his long artisti ...
, was shown twice: firstly as a silent film with the music performed live and synchronized using Blum's Musikchronometer, and then as a sound film (no longer extant) using the Tri-Ergon process. The sound-film recording was supervised by Bagier, now working for Tri-Ergon-Musik A.G.
Other films shown at the festivals in 1928-9 included American cartoons with music by
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith (; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the ''Ne ...
and
Ernst Toch
Ernst Toch (; 7 December 1887 – 1 October 1964) was an Austrian composer of classical music and film scores. He sought throughout his life to introduce new approaches to music.
Biography
Toch was born in Leopoldstadt, Vienna, into the family ...
, newsreels (
Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud (; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as ''The Group of Six''—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions ...
), and abstract films by
Hans Richter (Hindemith).
By mid-1928 a number of short films had been made using the Tri-Ergon process, produced by Tobis-Industrie GmbH (TIGes) (Berlin). Some of them were shown at the first public showing of sound films in
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
on 8 June 1928 at the cinema in the
Urania, Vienna
Urania is a public educational institute and observatory in Vienna, Austria.
Urania Observatory (German: Urania Sternwarte) was built in 1909 according to the plans of Art Nouveau style architect Max Fabiani (a student of Otto Wagner) at the outle ...
, a public educational institute and observatory (''see also''
Urania-Kino (de)) They included:
* Overture to ''
The Thieving Magpie
''La gazza ladra'' (, ''The Thieving Magpie'') is a ''melodramma'' or opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, with a libretto by Giovanni Gherardini based on ''La pie voleuse'' by Théodore Baudouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigni ...
'' (
Rossini)
* The Foreign Minister Dr.
Gustav Stresemann
Gustav Ernst Stresemann (; 10 May 1878 – 3 October 1929) was a German statesman who served as chancellor in 1923 (for 102 days) and as foreign minister from 1923 to 1929, during the Weimar Republic.
His most notable achievement was the reconci ...
opening the Film Exhibition in Berlin
* 'Hans in der Gaud' (Ladi Krupski, a Swiss lute singer and cabarettist) playing an old French ''chanson''
*
:de:Wilhelm Scholz, president of the Prussian Academy of Poetry
* The
Opel
Opel Automobile GmbH (), usually shortened to Opel, is a German automobile manufacturer which has been a subsidiary of Stellantis since 16 January 2021. It was owned by the American automaker General Motors from 1929 until 2017 and the PSA Grou ...
factory (probably at
Rüsselsheim am Main
Rüsselsheim am Main is the largest city in the Groß-Gerau (district), Groß-Gerau district in the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhein-Main region of Germany. It is one of seven special status cities (implementing several functions that counties nor ...
), where the
Opel Laubfrosch
The Opel 4 PS, popularly known as the Laubfrosch ( treefrog), is a small two-seater car introduced by the auto maker Opel early in 1924. Subsequently, various versions of the little Laubfrosch were produced until it was replaced by the Opel 1 ...
(Treefrog) was the first German car to be assembled on a
Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
-inspired
production line
A production line is a set of sequential operations established in a factory where components are assembled to make a finished article or where materials are put through a refining process to produce an end-product that is suitable for onward c ...
.
* A film about medicine by the
Charité
The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine) is one of Europe's largest university hospitals, affiliated with Humboldt University and Free University Berlin. With numerous Collaborative Research Cen ...
, Berlin, with an introduction by Dr. Degner
*
Andreas Weißgerber (later leader of the
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (abbreviation IPO; Hebrew: התזמורת הפילהרמונית הישראלית, ''ha-Tizmoret ha-Filharmonit ha-Yisra'elit'') is an Israeli symphony orchestra based in Tel Aviv. Its principal concert venue ...
) playing ''
Zigeunerweisen
''Zigeunerweisen'' (''Gypsy Airs'', es, Aires gitanos, link=no), Op. 20, is a musical composition for violin and orchestra written in 1878 by the Spanish composer Pablo de Sarasate. It was premiered the same year in Leipzig, Germany. Like his ...
'' by
Pablo de Sarasate
Pablo Martín Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués (; 10 March 1844 – 20 September 1908), commonly known as Pablo de Sarasate, was a Spanish (Navarrese) violin virtuoso, composer and conductor of the Romantic period. His best known works include ...
* A
Potpourri
Potpourri ( ) is a mixture of dried, naturally fragrant plant materials used to provide a gentle natural scent, commonly in residential settings. It is often placed in a decorative bowl.
The word "potpourri" comes into English from the French ...
of waltzes
* ''Ein Tag auf dem Bauernhof'' (1928) ('A day on the farm') (often misnamed "Ein Tag Film"), directed by
Max Mack
Max Mack (1884–1973) was a German screenwriter, film producer and director during the silent era. He is particularly known for his 1913 film ''The Other''. He directed, and co-starred in, an early film adaptation of ''Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'' in ...
with Guido Bagier as unit production manager, starring
Hans Albers
Hans Philipp August Albers (22 September 1891 – 24 July 1960) was a German actor and singer. He was the biggest male movie star in Germany between 1930 and 1960 and one of the most popular German actors of the twentieth century.
Early life
...
,
Georgia Lind
Georgia Lind (1905–1984) was a German stage and film actress. She appeared in a mixture of leading and supporting roles in films. From the mid-1930s she devoted herself increasingly to the theatre, and post-Second World War she also did a large ...
, ,
Willi Forst
Willi Forst, born Wilhelm Anton Frohs (7 April 1903 – 11 August 1980) was an Austrian actor, screenwriter, film director, film producer and singer. As a debonair actor he was a darling of the German-speaking film audiences, as a director, one ...
,
Trude Lehmann
Trude Lehmann (1892–1987) was a German film actress.Grange p.307
Selected filmography
* ''Children of No Importance'' (1926)
* ''We'll Meet Again in the Heimat'' (1926)
* ''Unmarried Daughters
''Unmarried Daughters'' (German: ''Ledige Töcht ...
,
Kurt Vespermann
Kurt Vespermann (1 May 1887 – 13 July 1957) was a German stage and film actor.
Career
Vespermann was born into an actor's family in Culmsee, West Prussia, Imperial Germany today Chełmża, Poland. Already his great-grandparents were ac ...
, and .
* Tri-Ergon Variété
* Closing speech by the playwright and poet
Ludwig Fulda
Ludwig Anton Salomon Fulda (July 7, 1862 – March 7, 1939) was a German playwright and poet, with a strong social commitment. He lived with Moritz Moszkowski's first wife Henriette, née Chaminade, younger sister of pianist and composer Cécile ...
In September 1928 Walter Ruttman's full-length ''Stätten von deutscher Arbeit and Kultur'' was shown in the Vienna Urania cinema, along with ''Hans Moser als Wiener Dienstmann'' (1928), starring the Viennese comic actor
Hans Moser. In the autumn of a touring exhibition of sound films was shown throughout Austria. The German première of ''Ein Tag auf dem Bauernhof'' took place on 12 September 1928 at the Mozartsaal.
In July 1928
German State Radio commissioned Tri-Ergon-Musik A.G. to produce a sound film for the opening of the fifth German Radio Exhibition in Berlin. Their film ''Deutscher Rundfunk'', with music by
Edmund Meisel
Edmund Meisel (14 August 1894 – 14 November 1930) was an Austrian-born composer. He wrote the score to Walter Ruttmann's '' Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis'' (1927), ''The Battleship Potemkin'' (1925), and other films of Sergei Eisenstein. Meis ...
, showed at the exhibition in August. Reviewers of the Radio Exhibition screenings were impressed by the reproduction of natural sounds, such as street noises, marching soldiers, hammering machines, steam ships and zoo animals. It was later released in a shorter version, ''Tönende Welle''.
Tobis and cartel wars
Competing American sound film companies such as
RKO
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheu ...
(formed by
RCA
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
) were becoming more organised in Germany. To protect the market from American domination the German government lobbied for a cartelization of all important German sound film patents, and on 30 August 1928 the Tobis Tonbild-Syndicate A.G. was formed to consolidate the Tri-Ergon patents and several hundred more. The four original main companies who made up the Tobis syndicate were:
* Messter-Ton Film, founded in Berlin by
Oskar Messter
Oskar Messter (21 November 1866 – 6 December 1943) was a German inventor and film tycoon in the early years of cinema. His firm Messter Film was one of the dominant German producers before the rise of UFA, into which it was ultimately merg ...
, the founder of the German film industry who had been making and showing
sound-on-disc Sound-on-disc is a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or play back sound in sync with a motion picture. Early sound-on-disc systems used a mechanical interlock with the movie projector, while more recent syste ...
films since 1903. He merged his companies with
Ufa
Ufa ( ba, Өфө , Öfö; russian: Уфа́, r=Ufá, p=ʊˈfa) is the largest city and capital city, capital of Bashkortostan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Belaya River (Kama), Belaya and Ufa River, Ufa rivers, in the centre-n ...
at its founding in 1917, and owned a number of significant sound film patents.
* Tri-Ergon-Musik AG (St. Gallen) formed c1926 by Tri-Ergon AG (Zurich), which since 1923 had owned the patents registered by the original inventors in 1919. This was the parent company of Tri-Ergon-Musik AG (Berlin), formed by Masolle on 12 May 1927, which made both sound films, and also phonograph records with the same photo-electric method used in the film soundtracks. The records were sold under the name Tri-Ergon-Photo-Records.
* Deutsche Tonfilm AG (Hannover), which in 1925 acquired the Petersen-Poulsen patents for German-speaking countries, signed a monopoly contract with Phoebus-Film (Berlin) to produce sound films. Deutsche Tonfilm, Phoebus-Film and Lignose Hörfilm (see
Jules Greenbaum
Jules Greenbaum (5 January 1867 – 1 November 1924) was a German pioneering film producer. He founded the production companies Deutsche Bioscope, Deutsche Vitascope and Greenbaum-Film and was a dominant figure in German cinema in the years before ...
) were all affiliated with the chemical-industrial giant
IG Farben
Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate (company), conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies—BASF, ...
, also formed in 1925.
* The Dutch firm of H. J. Küchenmeister, who had started making 'Meisterton' sound films in 1925 with his own Ultraphone
sound-on-disc Sound-on-disc is a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or play back sound in sync with a motion picture. Early sound-on-disc systems used a mechanical interlock with the movie projector, while more recent syste ...
system, which used two gramophone pick-up needles to give a stereo-like sound. He formed a holding company - Küchenmeisters Internationale Ultraphoon Maatschappij NV (Ultraphone) - which launched on the
Amsterdam Stock Exchange
Euronext Amsterdam is a stock exchange based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Formerly known as the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, it merged on 22 September 2000 with the Brussels Stock Exchange and the Paris Stock Exchange to form Euronext. The r ...
in October 1928 It swiftly combined with German interests to form H. J. Küchenmeister-Kommanditgesellschaft (Berlin).
In this deal, Tobis acquired the option to purchase outright Tri-Ergon-Musik AG (Berlin), and made an agreement with Tri-Ergon-Musik-AG (St. Gallen) to use the Tri-Ergon sound film patents. Tobis was almost completely controlled by Küchenmeister by 1929.
![Bundesarchiv Bild 102-13781, Richard Tauber](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-13781%2C_Richard_Tauber.jpg)
''
I Kiss Your Hand, Madame
''I Kiss Your Hand, Madame'' (german: Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame) is a 1929 German drama film directed by Robert Land starring Harry Liedtke and Marlene Dietrich. It was released in the United States in 1932. It was produced by Super-Film. Ther ...
'' ('Ich küsse ihre Hand, Madame') was the first Tobis film with sound. Starring
Harry Liedtke
Harry Liedtke (12 October 1882 – 28 April 1945) was a German film actor.
Early life
Liedtke was born in Königsberg, East Prussia to a merchant as the seventh out of 12 children. After the death of his father in 1896, he grew up in an orphanage ...
and
Marlene Dietrich
Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...
it premièred on January 16, 1929. Free of dialogue, the film's only sound segment occurs when the tenor
Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber (16 May 1891 – 8 January 1948) was an Austrian tenor and film actor.
Early life
Richard Tauber was born in Linz, Austria, to Elisabeth Seifferth (née Denemy), a widow and an actress who played soubrette roles at the local theat ...
sings the title song on the soundtrack (00:32). Although Tauber appears with Liedtke and Dietrich in publicity shots for the film, he didn't appear on screen himself.
The film was distributed by Deutsche Lichtspiel-Syndikat (DLS), a chain of 800 cinemas which had installed Küchenmeister's 'Meisterton' sound system in 1928.
The main competitor of Tobis was the Klangfilm syndicate, a partnership formed in early 1929 between the electrical manufacturers
Siemens & Halske
Siemens & Halske AG (or Siemens-Halske) was a German electrical engineering company that later became part of Siemens.
It was founded on 12 October 1847 as ''Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske'' by Werner von Siemens and Johann Geo ...
,
AEG
Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft AG (AEG; ) was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in Berlin as the ''Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität'' in 1883 by Emil Rathenau. During the Second World War, AEG ...
, and
Polyphon
Polyphon is a disc-playing music box, a mechanical device first manufactured by the Polyphon Musikwerke, located in Leipzig, Germany. Invented in 1870, full-scale production started around 1897 and continued into the early 1900s. Polyphons were ...
-Werke A.G. (who sold
Polydor
Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...
records). By March 1929 Tobis merged with Klangfilm, and the resulting syndicate was renamed
Tobis-Klangfilm in 1930.
Tobis-Klangfilm made a deal with the British and French Phototone companies, and British Talking Pictures, Ltd. This made the patents of
Lee de Forest
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and a fundamentally important early pioneer in electronics. He invented the first electronic device for controlling current flow; the three-element "Audion" triode va ...
available to Tobis-Klangfilm. Tobis-Klangfilm now had branches for production, distribution and equipment throughout Europe (including
Tobis Portuguesa) and the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, also in 1929, Ufa and Klangfilm planned a separate contract to develop their own sound film production. Tobis (possibly because its earlier failure with Ufa in 1925) stood in direct competition with the giant Ufa as a producer of film.
[''The Emergence of German Sound Film'']
Filmportal.de. Retrieved 3 September 2017.
The premiere in March 1929 at the Baden-Baden Festival of
Walther Ruttmann
Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) was a German cinematographer and film director, an important German abstract experimental film maker, along with Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger. He is best known for dire ...
's Tobis film ''Melodie der Welt'' (''
Melody of the World''), introduced the longest German sound film at the time with some 40 minutes running time.
The Dutch firm of H. J. Küchenmeister planned a massive expansion of Tobis across Europe, and on 19 May 1929 issued 5,000 shares of its new company, 'Internationale Maatschappij voor Accoustiek NV' (Accoustiek NV) on the
Amsterdam Stock Exchange
Euronext Amsterdam is a stock exchange based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Formerly known as the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, it merged on 22 September 2000 with the Brussels Stock Exchange and the Paris Stock Exchange to form Euronext. The r ...
. This was the largest Dutch flotation to date, netting
ƒ5 million (approx. ,
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
2 million, £500,000
stg). It was over-subscribed by ƒ3 billion (about ), in keeping with the general stock exchange euphoria of the times.
Although Tobis-Klangfilm's preparations were complete by the spring of 1929,
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
was still technically far ahead and in May 1929 tried to present ''
The Singing Fool
''The Singing Fool'' is a 1928 American musical drama part-talkie motion picture directed by Lloyd Bacon which was released by Warner Bros. The film stars Al Jolson and is a follow-up to his previous film, '' The Jazz Singer''. It is credited w ...
'' in Germany, a Part-Talkie with
Al Jolson
Al Jolson (born Eizer Yoelson; June 9, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American Jews, Jewish singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-bi ...
in a follow-up to ''
The Jazz Singer
''The Jazz Singer'' is a 1927 American musical drama film directed by Alan Crosland. It is the first feature-length motion picture with both synchronized recorded music score as well as lip-synchronous singing and speech (in several isolated ...
''.
Tobis-Klangfilm sued both Warner Bros. and Electrical Research Products, Inc. (ERPI)—
Western Electric
The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A wholly owned subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment ma ...
's subsidiary for distributing its sound motion picture equipment—for patent infringement. After a number of court cases, on 22 July 1929 the German appeals court upheld Tobis-Klangfilm's exclusive rights to sound-on-film recording in Germany: the company was victorious in all subsequent appeals.
Tobis-Klangfilm won further injunctions in Switzerland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Holland, and Austria. Even William Fox, owner of Tri-Ergon's American rights, was prevented from presenting films in Berlin. No American films were shown at all in Berlin, and Tobis-Klang refused an offer from ERPI,
Will H. Hays
William Harrison Hays Sr. (; November 5, 1879 – March 7, 1954) was an American Republican politician.
As chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1918–1921, Hays managed the successful 1920 presidential campaign of Warren G. Ha ...
organised an American boycott through his company
Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America
The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...
(MPPDA).
The première of
Carmine Gallone
Carmine Gallone (10 September 1885 – 11 March 1973) was an early Italian film director, screenwriter, and film producer, who was also controversial for his works of pro-Fascist propaganda and historical revisionism. Considered one of Itali ...
's Tobis production, ''
Das Land ohne Frauen
''Land Without Women'' (german: Das Land ohne Frauen) is a 1929 German drama film directed by Carmine Gallone and starring Conrad Veidt, Elga Brink and Clifford McLaglen. It was based on the novel ''Die Braut Nr. 68'' by Peter Bolt. The film is ...
'' ('The Land Without Women') - almost two hours long - on September 30, 1929, was hailed by reviews in the press as "the first feature-length German sound film".
On 29 October 1929 the
Wall Street Crash
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...
occurred, triggering a worldwide financial crisis.
Ufa's first major sound film,
Melody of the Heart
''Melody of the Heart'' (german: Melodie des Herzens) is a 1929 German musical film directed by Hanns Schwarz and starring Dita Parlo, Willy Fritsch and Gerő Mály.
The film was the first successful sound film produced by the German major st ...
, was released in December 1929, followed in April 1930 by ''
The Blue Angel
''The Blue Angel'' (german: Der blaue Engel) is a 1930 German musical comedy-drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg, and starring Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings and Kurt Gerron. Written by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmöller and Rober ...
'' with Dietrich and
Emil Jannings
Emil Jannings (born Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz, 23 July 1884 – 2 January 1950) was a Swiss born German actor, popular in the 1920s in Hollywood. He was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Actor for his roles in '' The La ...
, and music by
Friedrich Hollaender
Friedrich Hollaender (in exile also Frederick Hollander; 18 October 189618 January 1976) was a German film composer and author.
Life and career
He was born in London to a Jewish family, where his father, operetta composer Victor Hollaender, w ...
; and in September that year ''
The Three from the Filling Station'' with
Lilian Harvey
Lilian Harvey (born Helene Lilian Muriel Pape; 19 January 1906 – 27 July 1968) was an Anglo-German actress and singer, long based in Germany, where she is best known for her role as Christel Weinzinger in Erik Charell's 1931 film ''Der Kongr ...
,
Willy Fritsch
Willy Fritsch (27 January 1901 – 13 July 1973) was a German theater and film actor, a popular leading man and character actor from the silent-film era to the early 1960s.
Biography Early life
He was born Wilhelm Egon Fritz Fritsch, the only s ...
and songs by the
Comedian Harmonists
The Comedian Harmonists were an internationally famous, all-male German close harmony ensemble that performed between 1928 and 1934 as one of the most successful musical groups in Europe before World War II. The group consisted of Harry Fromm ...
. The success of these early sound films led the Berlin Chamber of Commerce to comment: "By now, sound film has become firmly established."
1930 Paris accord
![Berlin AEG Turbinenfabrik](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Berlin_AEG_Turbinenfabrik.jpg)
The stalemate in the ongoing patent wars between the US and European interests was broken by RCA. In the summer of 1929
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
(GE) acquired a part interest in
AEG
Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft AG (AEG; ) was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in Berlin as the ''Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität'' in 1883 by Emil Rathenau. During the Second World War, AEG ...
, one of the companies making up the original Klangfilm AG syndicate. With GE's influence, RCA and Tobis-Klangfilm signed a cooperative agreement. On 22 July 1930, at a conference in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, RCA, ERPI, and Tobis-Klangfilm formed a loose cartel to divide the world into three regions for selling sound recording and reproducing apparatus.
All pending litigation was dropped. ERPI and RCA acquired exclusive rights to sell their own recording and reproduction equipment, and distribute films in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and the Soviet Union. Royalties collected in the United Kingdom were split, 25 percent going to Tobis-Klangfilm, who also acquired similar exclusive rights in Central Europe and Scandinavia.
Patent battles in the US
In 1930 Tri-Ergon AG's 1922 patent application was still pending in the United States.
William Fox (who had bought the US Tri-Ergon rights in 1926) had lost control of his own company, Fox Studios, to ERPI. Backed by Tri-Ergon AG in Switzerland, he intensified the attempt to get the patent granted. In September 1931 the efforts of American Tri-Ergon Corporation's patent lawyers paid off, and he was finally assigned the US patent for the Tri-Ergon rights in the United States. The assignor was Tri-Ergon AG, who had originally applied for the US patent back in 1922.
The Tri-Ergon patents named particular technical features that claimed to precede all other sound-on-film patents, such as the
flywheel
A flywheel is a mechanical device which uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy; a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, ass ...
on the sound drum.
Fox then separately sued (as test cases) Altoona Publix Theatres Inc., which leased and operated the projection equipment from
RCA
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
;
and
Paramount
Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to:
Entertainment and music companies
* Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...
for infringement of the "double printing" method. He then sued RCA and ERPI - and all the US film companies which used the Tri-Ergon design - for infringement, specifically the
flywheel
A flywheel is a mechanical device which uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy; a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, ass ...
on the sound drum. During a series of legal tussles Fox at first won his lawsuit on appeal and then lost it after an unusual reversal of decision by the
US Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of ...
in October 1934 not to review the case. The Supreme Court surprisingly relented, heard the appeal and finally ruled in March 1935 that neither system was 'new', and that there were prior inventions. An appeal by Alttona Publix was rejected on 1 April 1935.
Although this brought a swift end to the sound film wars between various competing US and European (Dutch, German, and Swiss) interests, it also meant that the original Tri-Ergon system was never formally adopted in the United States. As a result, William Fox's own American Tri-Ergon Corporation failed to collect an estimated $100 million in licensing fees.
Financial woes
In 1931 the effects of the
Wall Street Crash
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...
eventually hit Küchenmeister's Sprekende Film NV, which owned Tobis. The Dutch firm had over-extended itself with bank loans which were not renewed, and its Ultraphone business went bankrupt. The hugely complex chain of inter-linked Tobis companies fell to pieces, necessitating a complete reorganisation of the whole business. Dutch bankers and creditors began re-financing the profitable parts of the company, which emerged in 1932 as 'International Tobis NV' or Intertobis
1932 Paris conference
![Reichstagsbrand](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Reichstagsbrand.jpg)
The cartel rules began to irk foreign film companies, who had to pay ERPI a license fee (royalties) to shoot the film, and then had to pay Tobis-Klang to show the film in the areas allotted to them under the 1930 accord. Another conference was held in Paris during February 1932, but Tobis-Klangfilm demanded extra royalty fees, and American companies began withholding payments.
Following the
Reichstag fire, the NSDAP (Nazi Party) began to suspend civil liberties and eliminate political opposition. The
Communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...
were excluded from the Reichstag.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
called on
Reichstag members to vote for the
Enabling Act
An enabling act is a piece of legislation by which a legislative body grants an entity which depends on it (for authorization or legitimacy) the power to take certain actions. For example, enabling acts often establish government agencies to car ...
on 24 March 1933, completing
his rise to power from 1919 through the
Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,Dan Moorhouse, ed schoolshistory.org.uk, accessed 2008-05-31.Known in German as the or was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party ( or NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler, Erich Ludendorff and othe ...
in 1923 to
Chancellor
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
('Reichskanzler') of the German Reich.
During the nationalisation of the German film industry in 1935, the interests of Intertobis and Ufa were clandestinely transferred to Cautio GmbH. Cautio was personally set up in 1929 by
Max Winkler
Max Winkler (7 September 1875 – 12 October 1961) was a politician and senior political appointee in the local government of West Prussia, the national government of the German Empire, the Nazi government of the German Reich, and the post-war go ...
, its sole owner and shareholder, as a front company for the secret transfer of funds from the
NSDAP
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
regime. In 1935 Winkler was named by Hitler as "Reich Plenipotentiary for the German Film Industry". He had links to
Max Amann, Hitler's sergeant from 1915 to 1918, president of
Eher Verlag
Franz Eher Nachfolger GmbH (''Franz Eher and Successors, LLC'', usually referred to as the Eher-Verlag (''Eher Publishing'')) was the central publishing house of the Nazi Party and one of the largest book and periodical firms during the Third Rei ...
since 1922, and president of the Reich Media Council and Reich Press Leader from c1933.
The new head of Tobis-Klang-film, Dr. Hans Henkel, journeyed to New York for personal negotiations in March 1936 to effect a new agreement. After two weeks' discussion all parties signed the new 1932 Paris accord on 18 March 1936 which included payment of royalties in the local currency where the film was being shown. Most American companies had withdrawn anyway from the German market by 1936, since much of their revenues were frozen under strict currency laws under the NSDAP.
Ufa continued to use the Tri-Ergon system during
WW2
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
until the collapse of Germany in 1945.
Tri-Ergon records
![Kabarett der Komiker; Bernard Etté 013584a](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Kabarett_der_Komiker%3B_Bernard_Ett%C3%A9_013584a.jpg)
A subsidiary, Tri-Ergon Musik AG of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, made commercial
phonograph
A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
records for the German, French, Swedish and Danish markets from about 1928 to 1932. The records were advertised and sold as "".
The company released records of popular jazz and dance bands, and classical music. The Hungarian dance band leader made numerous records under both his own name and under the pseudonym of 'Harry Jackson'; other recording artists included
Bernard Etté
Bernard Etté (September 13, 1898, Kassel - September 26, 1973, Mühldorf) was a German jazz and light music violinist and conductor.
Etté was the son of a hairdresser and studied music formally at the Louis Spohr Conservatory in Kassel. He init ...
, and
Friedrich Hollaender
Friedrich Hollaender (in exile also Frederick Hollander; 18 October 189618 January 1976) was a German film composer and author.
Life and career
He was born in London to a Jewish family, where his father, operetta composer Victor Hollaender, w ...
with the New Yorkers dance orchestra (e.g. "It's a Million to One You're in Love", TE 5137).
Classical artists included the conductor and pianist
Bruno Seidler-Winkler
Karl Ludwig Bruno Seidler-Winkler (18 July 1880 – 19 October 1960) was a German conductor, pianist and music arranger.
Life
Seidler-Winkler was born in Berlin as the son of a musician and already made his musical appearance in his youth. He ...
(who later made arrangements for the
Comedian Harmonists
The Comedian Harmonists were an internationally famous, all-male German close harmony ensemble that performed between 1928 and 1934 as one of the most successful musical groups in Europe before World War II. The group consisted of Harry Fromm ...
) and the Tri-Ergon-Trio consisting of the cellist
Gregor Piatigorsky
Gregor Piatigorsky (, ''Grigoriy Pavlovich Pyatigorskiy''; August 6, 1976) was a Russian Empire-born American cellist.
Biography
Early life
Gregor Piatigorsky was born in Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipro, Ukraine) into a Jewish family. As a child, he ...
, the pianist
Karol Szreter, and the violinist
Max Rostal
Max Rostal (7 July 1905 – 6 August 1991) was a violinist and a viola player. He was Austrian-born, but later took British citizenship.
Biography
Max Rostal was born in Cieszyn to a Jewish merchant family. As a child prodigy, he started studyin ...
.
Recording process
The Tri-Ergon records were made by a partial reversal of the
photoelectric
The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons when electromagnetic radiation, such as light, hits a material. Electrons emitted in this manner are called photoelectrons. The phenomenon is studied in condensed matter physics, and solid sta ...
process used to encode the sound track in the first place.
[. NB This article is stuffed full of highly detailed technical diagrams and explanations (in Swedish) about the Tri-Ergon process and how it was used to make records from a previously recorded soundtrack.]
See also
*
Phonofilm
Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s.
Introduction
In 1919 and 1920, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, ...
*
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one th ...
*
List of early Warner Bros. sound and talking features
*
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was an opt ...
*
Photokinema
''Photo-Kinema'' (some sources say ''Phono-Kinema'') was a sound-on-disc system for motion pictures invented by Orlando Kellum.
1921 introduction
The system was first used for a small number of short films, mostly made in 1921. These films presen ...
*
Fox Movietone
Movietone News is a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States. Under the name British Movietone News, it also ran in the United Kingdom from 1929 to 1986, in France also produced by Fox-Europa, in Australia and New Zealand until 197 ...
*
Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner
Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner (also known as Joseph T. Tykociner; 5 October 1877, in Włocławek, Congress Poland – 11 June 1969, in Urbana, Illinois, United States) was a Polish engineer and a pioneer of sound-on-film technology.
In 1921 he bec ...
*
Eric Tigerstedt
Eric Magnus Campbell Tigerstedt (August 14, 1887 – April 20, 1925) was one of the most significant inventors in Finland at the beginning of the 20th century and has been called the "Thomas Edison of Finland". He was a pioneer of sound-on- ...
*
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...
*
Sound-on-disc Sound-on-disc is a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or play back sound in sync with a motion picture. Early sound-on-disc systems used a mechanical interlock with the movie projector, while more recent syste ...
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List of film formats
This list of motion picture film formats catalogues formats developed for shooting or viewing motion pictures, ranging from the Chronophotographe format from 1888, to mid-20th century Film format, formats such as the 1953 CinemaScope format, to m ...
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German inventors and discoverers
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This is a list of German inventors and discoverers. The following list comprises people from Germany or German-speaking Europe, and also people of predominantly German heritage, in alphabetical order of the surname.
For the li ...
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German inventions and discoveries
References
;Notes
;Citations
Bibliography
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* NB Swedish goes surprisingly well into English with a machine translator.
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External links
Bimbambulla Foxtroton Tri-Ergon Photo-Electro-Records, with stills of the inventors and some of the equipment.
Tri-Ergon at IMDB
Film sound production
Film and video technology
History of film
Motion picture film formats