In 1922, American inventors Lee de Forest (1873-1961) and Theodore Case (1888-1944) began collaborating to perfect the Phonofilm variable density sound-on-film process, which De Forest had started developing three years earli­er. By 1925, however, Case had grown tired of not getting the credit he felt he was due, severed ties with De Forest, and continued to develop the sound-on-film process at his own lab located in the backyard of his family mansion in Auburn, New York. Here, Case shot a number of short experimental sound films using the process, which he re-chris­tened Movietone, including this perfor­mance by Dutch-born stage entertainer Gus Visser (1894-1967) with his trade­mark “singing duck”; a precious record of a bygone era of the weird and wonderful world of American vaudeville theatre. A year later, in 1926, Case sold his patents to William Fox of the Fox Film Corpo­ration, who commercially marketed the process as Fox Movietone. The sound film “revolution” was just around the corner…

Oliver Hanley