User Reviews

When someone asks the question, "What was the first talking picture?" the answer that immediately comes to mind is THE JAZZ SINGER (1927) starring Al Jolson. Well, that's partially correct. For anyone who's never seen THE JAZZ SINGER might expect an all-sound motion picture with songs. In retrospect, THE JAZZ SINGER does include songs, but much of the scenario was silent accompanied by a Vitaphone orchestral score. With other major studios experimenting the methods of silent films by adding talking sequences to its existing underscoring and inter-titles, LIGHTS OF NEW YORK (Warner Brothers, 1928), directed by Bryan Foy, scripted by Murray Roth and Hugh Herbert, was a step in the right direction for being the first all-talking feature length movie. As with many Hollywood firsts, LIGHTS OF NEW YORK was and still is not a great film due to awkward acting and offbeat dialogue, yet the result is another landmark during the dawn of sound made essential to the history of motion pictures.

Opening with a prologue, the first inter-title reads: "This is a story of Main Street and Broadway - a story that might have been torn out of last night's newspaper. Main Street - 45 minutes from Broadway - but a thousand miles away." Because his girlfriend, Kitty Lewis, has gone to New York and made a success for herself, Eddie Morgan (Cullen Landis), a barber yearning for a better life outside his small own where nothing ever happens, asks his mother (Mary Carr), proprietor of the Morgan Hotel, for a $5,000 loan so that he and his friend, Gene (Eugene Palette) can go into partnership with Jake Jackson (Walter Percival) and Dan Dickson (Jere Delaney), guests in Room 21. At first Mrs. Morgan relents loaning the money until she meets with these "gentlemen" before heading back to New York the following morning. Story: "Broadway - 45 minutes from Main Street, but a million miles away." Six months pass. Eddie and Gene, owners of the White Way Barber Shop on 46th Street, come to realize their big mistake for being talked into having their barbershop as a front for bootleggers. Unknown to Eddie, "Hawk" Miller (Wheeler Oakman), owner of the Night Hawk Club ("where anything can happen and usually does") is not only the ring leader of the bootleg operation, but out to get his Kitty, dancer at his club, for himself, much to the jealous nature of Molly Thompson (Gladys Brockwell), his rejected mistress. As Miller plots to do away with Eddie by placing the boxes of Old Century liquor in his barbershop, Miller is later shot and killed by a mysterious assassin, leaving poor Eddie as the prime suspect.

A straightforward melodrama with an amusing bit reminiscent of a vaudeville routine where a drunk approaches a cop (Eddie Kane) on Broadway asking where the other side of the street is. For a motion picture that began as a two-reel Vitaphone short, LIGHTS OF NEW YORK, with its backstage musical sounding title, is basically an underworld melodrama with gangster types speaking in gangster lingo. The most memorable line comes from Wheeler Oakman giving an order to his boys, Sam and Tommy (Tom Dugan and Guy D'Ennery) about Eddie, to "Take him ... for ... a ride." This particular scene is the one usually clipped into documentaries of motion pictures, especially when the subject matter is about early talkies. The film is also historical in a sense in offering a inside glimpse of 1920s night clubs better known then as "speakeasies," consisting of chorus girls, dancing patrons and one vocalization of "At Dawning" by the master of ceremonies (Harry Downing).

With no "major star" names in the cast, the only one of some familiarity is Eugene Palette, whose distinctive gravel voice made recognizable during his long range of character parts lasting through the late 1940s. His one crucial scene finds him trying to hide the fact from a couple of detectives (Robert Elliott and Tom McGuire) that the customer sitting in his barber chair with his face covered with a towel happens to be a recently murdered Hawk Miller. Aside from Palette and Tom Dugan, other members of the cast, namely silent screen veterans Cullen Landis and Helene Costello, have virtually drifted to obscurity shortly after this film's release. Gladys Brockwell as the girl "who's loved and lost," gives a type of performance of a middle-aged Joan Crawford from the 1960s. Sadly Brockwell passed away the following year (1929) from complications sustained in an automobile accident.

For being 1928 production, LIGHTS OF NEW YORK has an advance appeal of one made in the 1940s, not by Warners but something out of a Monogram Pictures programmer. Visual effects with shadows of bootleggers committing their crimes at night simply has that 1940s film noir feel to it. Often labeled as a very bad picture by historians, this remains a real curio as it did way back when, as well as a great opportunity hearing the voices of actors of the silent screen.

Never distributed on video cassette, LIGHTS OF NEW YORK can be found occasionally on Turner Classic Movies where it's been playing since May 13, 1995. So the next time someone asks, "What was the first talking picture?" chances are the reply may still be THE JAZZ SINGER, but the final answer remains THE LIGHTS OF NEW YORK. As far as silent films are concerned, there's no turning back now. (**)

Fascinating and amusingly bad, Lights of New York is the first all talkie feature and one that almost never saw the light of day.

Two naive barbers (Eddie and Gene) from out of town get involved with bootleggers and end up fronting a speak. When a cop is shot by one of the bootleggers the police start to close in, and the Hawk (who shot the officer) decides to pin the murder on Eddie instructing his henchman to "take him for a ride". But it's the Hawk himself who takes the bullet in a twist that will surprise few.

Shot in one week at a cost of $23,000, "Lights" was originally meant as a two reeler but Foy took advantage of Jack Warner's absence to extend it to six. When Warner discovered this he ordered Foy to cut it back to the original short. Only when an independent exhibitor offered $25k for the film, did Warners actually look at the film, which went on to make a staggering $1.3 million.

Seen now this is an extremely hokey piece, with acting that ranges from the passable (Eugene Pallette) to trance like (Eddie's Granny in a particularly risible scene) and much of the playing is at the level of vaudeville. Since it's an early talkie (4 part-talkies preceded it) that's about all the characters do, and very slowly at that. The script feels improvised, visual style is non existent (apart from the shooting scene done in silhouette) and scenes grind on interminably. Title cards are intercut which redundantly announce characters and locales.

Despite all this "Lights" is a compelling experience, as we watch actors and crew struggling with the alien technology, and changing cinema for ever.

Catch it if you can

LIGHTS OF NEW YORK was the first "all-taking" feature film, coming in at a brisk 57 minutes and directed by Bryan Foy (of the famous vaudeville family).

The story has two dopey barbers (Cullen Landis, Eugene Palette) yearning for a chance at "big city life" and getting involved with gangsters and bootleg booze. One of the guys gets framed for the murder of a cop but is saved at the last minute by a gun moll (Gladys Brockwell).

Much of the story takes place in a night club called The Night Hawk, which is run by a crook named Hawk (Wheeler Oakman) who has his eye on a pretty chorine (Helene Costello) who is the girl friend of Landis. Costello gets to do a brief dance, and we hear Harry Downing (made up to resemble Ted Lewis) sing "At Dawning) in his best Al Jolson style.

The acting ranges from good (Palette and Brockwell) to awful (Oakman). A couple of the actors muff their lines but then keep right on with the scene. As noted elsewhere this was intended to be a short 2-reeler and was made on a shoestring budget. Yet the sound quality is surprisingly good, the voices all register clearly, and there is a neat cinematic touch in the silhouette death.

The film was a box-office smash even though it was shown as a silent film where theaters were not wired for the new sound technology. No one expected this little film to gross an amazing $1.3 million. It briefly made stars of Costello and Landis and certainly launched Palette on his long career as a star character actor.

Co-stars include Mary Carr as the mother, Robert Elliott as the detective, Eddie Kane as the street cop, and Tom Dugan as a thug.

Okay so I gave this a 6 but to be fair you can't grade Lights of New York in any ordinary sense. The camera's immobile, the acting's on par with lumber and the script's below second-rate. I love the dialog--- Wheeler Oakman's "But... they... must not... find... Eddie" and the infamous, "Take.. him... for... A... ride" is stupifyingly awful (further proof of his thespian skills can be seen in his death scene... then he keeps on breathing!). But hey, this was the very first all-talking movie! There's every reason in the world to make allowances for every one of it's shortcomings. I've seen The Jazz Singer released around 8 months earlier and this represented a huge leap over part-talkies. It's hard to be overly critical on the technical aspects when it's apparent that everyone was dealing with new fangled sound and heavily soundproofed cameras--- not to mention sound requiring completely new types of direction. This is a gem that deserves to be seen and judged for what it is, a historical artifact. Eugene Palette is the best actor here (no surprise).

It is easy to criticize this movie,which has so many shortcomings.But in all fairness we must remember what handicaps everyone was working under.Actors had to speak slowly,and enunciate very precisely to make sure that the primitive microphones could pick up what they were saying.The fact that they were shooting an entire feature as a talkie, instead of just a few isolated scenes,as in previous "talkies",undoubtedly put extra pressure on everyone. To my mind one of the funniest(unintended) aspects of is, when Hawk was telling his two henchmen to "take him for a ride", one of the henchmen looked, and was dressed, like Stan Laurel! Sort of hard to take him seriously as a hit-man! Primitive as it was,this was still a wonder to audiences who had grown weary of the limitations of silent movies.I have always like old silents, but a steady,exclusive diet would get tiresome very quickly.The jeering reaction of the audience in "Singin in the Rain" to the shortcomings of "The Dueling Cavalier" was an anachronism;that is the reaction of an audience used to PERFECTED sound movies.An actual audience of the day might have laughed,but still would have loved it.

1928's Lights of New York was the first "all-talking" feature, with spoken dialogue throughout, and it shows. That said, it really isn't fair to dock a movie some points for being held back by the technical limitations of its time. What the movie really suffers from, however, is a hammy, melodramatic plot and some of the most wooden acting you'll ever see. It isn't without it charms for anyone interested in late silent/early sound cinema (I've even rewatched it a couple of times), but be advised that even 1928 critics found Lights of New York to be "crude" (New York Times), "second-rate" (Film Daily), and "junk" (variety). Watch it only for the fact that it represents a historical milestone.

This is an important historical film since it was the the first all-talking feature film.

The film was made for a mere 23,000 dollars.

It grossed over a million dollars upon its release.

This film all so helped define the gangster melodramas that were to become the bread and butter of the Warner's studio in the 1930's.

The popularity of this film ended the silent era more so than its more famous part-talkie predecessor, the Jazz Singer. The film deserves its place in history and not as a mere footnote.

The only actor who might be remember today that is in it was Eugene Palette.

One-hour-long, corny, somewhat boring---but still kind of watchable. I liked one song that an entertainer in a nightclub sang (and he did a bit of dance accompaniment). Some decent plot twists. The actors stumble over their lines but one cannot blame the movie that much because I am reading here that it was billed as "the first 100% talkie." The slang expressions and quick-fire dialogue are big pluses.

Though mainly notable for being the first "100% Talkie", this one is still reasonably well-regarded; it is also a fine example of an early gangster film – incidentally, I have a handful of other such efforts unwatched from that first initial burst within this most invigorating of genres.

That said, the mobster of this one is more akin to the hissable villain from some old barnstormer, complete with pencil-thin moustache, rather than the larger-than-life types (fast-talking, no-nonsense, eventually hysterical) subsequently made their own – at the same studio, Warners, no less – by the likes of Robinson, Cagney and Bogart! Even so, the action here is extremely modest – being relegated to the silhouetted shooting of a cop during a bootlegging 'job' and the behind-the-curtain execution of the villain. The aftermath of the latter sequence, however, elevates the suspense quotient considerably as the killing occurs in a barber shop immediately prior to a police 'raid'…so that the victim is put up in a chair by the owner (Eugene Palette), lathered and generally treated as any other customer, before he slips down to the floor!

The rest of the cast is made up of now-forgotten actors (apart from a young Tom Dugan – the Hitler impersonator from Lubitsch's TO BE OR NOT TO BE [1942] – as one of the hoodlum's stooges, here looking an awful lot like Lon Chaney!). Still, the performances (ditto the plot of small-town love rekindled in the big city, the fleecing/selling of naïve fellows by slick-looking-but-obviously-slimy-heels, and the jilted ageing mistress furnishing the villain's inevitable come-uppance) are all delightfully of their time, and the film itself very enjoyable if approached in the right frame-of-mind. Indeed, the only major let-downs here are the static camera-work and the wholly resistible (yet obligatory) musical numbers. By the way, the director had been one of the "Seven Little Foys", sons of popular vaudevillian Eddie Foy; he later changed gears to producing, with perhaps his most successful effort being the 3-D horror classic HOUSE OF WAX (1953).

I love to catch early talkies on Turner Classics (the only place I can ever see them), and the earlier the better. Usually 1929 is the best I can do. I saw one called Tanned Legs that featured stilted dialogue spoken by people clustered around potted palms. Well, this one isn't much better, folks, but as an unintentional comedy it works quite well. The thing is, no one moves in this thing, except for a few chorus girls who are trotted out from time to time. The felt-hatted gangstas sit so close to each other that their foreheads are almost touching. In fact, everyone gets up-close and personal in this thing, maybe because they're afraid to move or the mic won't pick them up. It's been described as "stagey", but it's more like "nailed in place", so static that the characters begin to resemble cutouts glued onto popsicle sticks and moved around only when it's time to change microphones. I'd see it, however, if you're curious about how sound film developed. This was a quick cash grab and it worked, though the critics soon buried it. Within a couple of years we'd have Garbo asking for "whiskey, baby. . . and don't be stingy." Guess they had to start somewhere.

Lights of New York was the first all-talking feature film. There had been, of course, The Jazz Singer, released in Oct. 1927 as the first feature film incorporating synchronized dialog. However, this film released in July 1928 is virtually unremembered for its place in film history. It had started out as a short, but gradually more was tacked on until - clocking in at 58 minutes - it accidentally became the first all-talking feature film. It opened to a grind house run and to Warner Bros. surprise, made over a million dollars. That was good money back in 1928.

The plot is quite simple. Two country barbers naively buy into a barber shop on Broadway that fronts as a speak-easy for "The Hawk", a gangster. When they learn the truth they can't afford to get out, because the younger barber, Eddie, has all of his mother's money tied up in the place. Kitty is the younger barber's girlfriend, and gangster Hawk (Wheeler Oakman) has an eye for turning in his older girlfriend (Gladys Brockwell) for a newer model - chorus girl Kitty(Helene Costello). A cop is killed while trying to stop the Hawk's men from unloading a shipment of bootleg liquor, and the Hawk sees it as an opportunity to frame Eddie, thus getting Kitty for himself.

This early talkie is loads of fun for the enthusiast of these pioneering works. Sure, the plot is elementary and the dialog stilted, but there is something you don't see much of in early talkies - background musical scoring. Vitaphone had originally been used for this very purpose, and here they are still using it for musical accompaniment along with the dialog. And there are singing and dancing numbers! The scenes in Hawk's nightclub are used as an opportunity to show off what films could never do before - musical numbers. There is even a wild-eyed emcee with some heavy makeup left over from the silent era that is a hoot to watch.

Vitaphone could not go outdoors at this point due to the static camera booths, so the scene in the park between the two lovers Eddie and Kitty is simulated - and cheaply. The greenery looks like something out of an Ed Wood movie or perhaps a high school production of "Our Town".

Gladys Brockwell, as the Hawk's castoff girlfriend, delivers her lines with punch. She's a real trooper considering what lines she has to deliver. To the Hawk - "So you think you can have any chicken you want and throw me back in the deck!". Huh? mixed metaphors anyone? And then there are her final lines "I've lived, and I've loved, and I've lost!" Did someone get paid to write this dialog? Brockwell was making a good success of her talkie career after scoring some triumphs in silent films (the evil sister in "Seventh Heaven"), when a fatal car accident cut her career short.

Then there is Eugene Palette - the older of the two barbers in our story. His frog voice, natural delivery of lines, and cuddly appearance gave him a long career as a character actor usually appearing as a put-upon family man/businessman with a gruff exterior and heart of gold. In fact, Mr. Palette is the only member of this cast who still has a notable career in films just three years after this movie is released.

Finally there is the question of "where is that microphone hidden?" Microphones were still stationary at this point, and it's fun to figure out where they've hidden it. There is one famous scene, though, where everybody can pretty much figure it out. Hawk is in his office talking to his two henchman - who seem to comprehend as slowly as they talk - about "taking Eddie for a ride". If you watch this scene you'd swear the phone on the desk is a character in this film. It's front and center during the whole conversation. The microphone is likely planted in the phone.

There is something heroic about these pioneers flying blind in the face of the new technology of sound. You have silent actors who are accustomed to using pantomime for expression, vaudevillians who know how to play to a live audience but don't know how to make the same impression on a Vitaphone camera booth, and you have dialog writers either trying to write conversation as compactly as they did title cards or filling up films with endless chatter.

Check this one out. It is not boring, moves fast, and is loads of fun if you know what to look for. And no, I don't expect this one to ever be out on Blu-Ray, but I hope that the folks at Warner Brothers add it to the Warner Archive soon so everyone can see it.

Directed by Brian Foy. Starring Cullen Landis, Wheeler Oakman, Helene Costello, Eugene Pallette, Gladys Brockwell, Robert Elliott, Mary Carr.

The first all-talking feature film, made with the Vitaphone sound system, is a six-reeler bootlegging drama that only has that historical footnote going for it. Movie itself suffers from static presentation, unrefined plotting, and amateurishly stiff acting (only Pallette survives unscathed). Landis is a young rube who doesn't realize he's running a barber shop that serves as a speakeasy front, makes moon-eyes at hometown sweetie Costello and defies prominent bootlegger Oakman. Despite its poor qualities, the picture became a big hit when it was released, and proved that talkies were the wave of the future. Best (unintentional) laugh is saved for the end: after being told by a detective he should take the train out to the country, Landis says to Costello, "Train? Honey, we'll fly"...then cuts to stock footage of rail wheels chugging along before fading to black.

26/100

This is it. The first all-talking feature film. Although at 57 minutes it barely qualifies as a feature. The Lights of New York has a reputation for being a pretty bad film. Even contemporary reports from back in the day rather kindly label it as experimental. Watching it today it does not seem nearly as bad as it's reputation. Sure, there are pregnant pauses between lines, and Mary Carr as the hero's mother appears to deliver her lines as though she had been drugged, but the film is more fun to see than I care to admit. The nightclub scenes are rather lively and there is a music score under a lot of the dialogue. Overall, it is considerably better than Paramount's Interference, released a few moths later. All these pioneer talkies are interesting for buffs to see today as their respective producers and directors felt their way through the first few years of a brand-new medium. The print of Lights of New York had really excellent Vitaphone sound. Much clearer than the sometimes muddy sound in Interference. I believe Interference used Movietone sound-on-film process, but I could be mistaken. You could find worse ways to spend an hour than to watch this.

EARLY talkie... even the poster said "first all talking picture". stars Helene Costello as Kitty, well-meaning chorus girl. Co stars Cullen Landis as Eddie. Eugene pallette is in here as Gene, the barber. He wasn't so big yet, but still had the lower, deep voice. Bootleggers move in. and unfortunately, that's where the money is. the timing is odd, but it IS one of the early talkies, so technical difficulties are to be expected. Speak-easies. the mob. Wheeler Oakman is "the Hawk", mob boss. Wheeler died young at 59... sadly, Costello also died quite young at 50, of tuberculosis. Directed by prolific Bryan Foy, who actually was one (the oldest) of the Seven Little Foys! warner brothers shortie, at only 57 minutes. This one is interesting for history's sake, since it claims to be the first all talking picture, with no music. after the silents, they even have title cards here and there to explain things. It's okay. more important as a piece of history.

Bootleggers Jake Jackson (Walter Percival) and Dan Dickson (Jere Delaney) are hiding in upstate New York. They are returning to New York City and trick a couple of small town friends, Eddie Morgan (Cullen Landis) and barber Gene (Eugene Palette), into their business.

This is most notable for being one of the first talkies. I'm sure that there are disputes about being all-talking and full length theatrical release. It's about nine months after "The Jazz Singer". I'm actually surprised by the quality of the recording. The sound is clear and the dialogue is understandable. Music is fully incorporated into the movie. There are noisy crowd scenes and Foley work. It's downright modern filmmaking. The actors are functional. I don't know any of them. There are some nice filmmaking, but also some less good camera work especially with the actors all standing around in a single room. It's a borderline movie, but I have to give extra marks for its technical advancements. I can see why some scenes are so stationary. They were probably struggling to place the sound equipment which are not moving.

Compared to most silent films of this period, early talkies were clumsy affairs, both in the acting and the filmmaking. LIGHTS OF NEW YORK is a good example of this, being touted as the first all-talking picture (contrary to popular belief THE JAZZ SINGER is just a silent movie with musical numbers). The story is simplistic, the cinematography a collection of awkwardly framed establishing shots and uninspired two-shots or three-shots. However, the poor acting and clunky dialogue make it perfect MST3K material for classic cinema buffs.

When talking about the first 'soundie', almost everybody automatically thinks of "The Jazz Singer" - wrong; it was only a part-talkie. The first ALL-talkie is a now almost forgotten little gangster drama called "Lights of New York" - and whoever's lucky enough to get the chance to watch it, won't even believe that it was made in 1928, when all the other movies were still silent or at the most contained some experimental sound sequences. The sound quality is so good, and the music numbers so lively, that you may think that this is one of the 30s' gangster movies that tried to recreate the atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties (and not one of the better ones, because the actors were still somewhat stiff and clumsy - no wonder, for they were for the first time acting in front of a camera AND talking!) - but this is the REAL thing: an immeasurable treasure of a time document made up as a movie drama...

The story is simple and not very inventive: a young small town boy wants to hit the big city to make something out of himself - and unwittingly becomes the stooge for a couple of bootleggers whose boss runs a speakeasy where the lad's girlfriend works as a dancer; and so, instead of getting somewhere the decent way (which seems impossible in New York in the 1920s), he ends up with a load of 'hot' illegal booze on his hands and the gangster's men on his heels...

Yes, it DOES sound like an old B movie (and unfortunately, that's what most people, i.e. the ones that at least KNOW it, seem to mistake it for today) - BUT in 1928, it was a sensation: for the FIRST time, the audience could hear the actors speaking and the music playing throughout the WHOLE movie! No need to mention, of course, that it was an enormous financial success back then...

And for us today, it's BETTER than any documentary on the "Roaring Twenties": here, in this little melodrama, you can catch LIVE the atmosphere of the days of Prohibition, the speakeasies, the flappers with their bobs and fluffy dresses, the dance and music numbers of the time - for almost an hour, "Lights of New York" REALLY turns on the time machine for you and takes you back into the 20s. After witnessing THIS, any classic gangster movie of the 30s, as magnificent as it may be, looks just like a mere recreation of the REAL thing, no matter how 'amateurishly' directed and played it may seem to us today...

Lights of New York (1928)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Eddie (Cullen Landis) lives in a small town but dreams of the big city just forty-five minutes away. He talks his mom into letting him go to New York City to visit his girl Kitty (Helene Costello) as well as try to make something for himself. Before you know it Eddie is in New York but he's gotten conned into a bootleg racket by the criminal Hawk Miller (Wheeler Oakman).

Everyone knows the history of THE JAZZ SINGER and how it introduced the world to talking pictures. That movie only had portions of it that were sound but all of that changed with LIGHTS OF NEW YORK, which would be the first all sound picture. It's rather interesting that the film has so much history behind it and yet it was hard to see for many decades and just finally got released to DVD in April of 2018.

When you watch this film you can talk about its place in history, the technique of its use of sound and the movie itself. I'll start with the movie itself, which is mildly entertaining thanks in large part to it just running 57-minutes. The film is rather short but there's no question it's rather unoriginal and especially the story of a small town boy going to the "evil" big city and finding bad stuff. It's not original and there's nothing fresh done with it outside of the dialogue and sound effects.

The performances are all pretty stiff but this here goes to the technology. Mics had to be hidden all over the place to pick up the actor's dialogue and quite often the actors had to stand very close to them. You can tell there were various problems because more times than not the actors in the film are standing close to each other for no reason than so the mics can pick up what they're saying. In fact, there's one scene where you can hardly hear a woman speaking until she takes a step up and then her dialogue becomes audible. With that in mind, it makes sense why some of the performances are rather bad and at times the actors seem to be shouting to get them heard. It should be stated that the star of the picture, Landis, appeared in over a hundred movies but would just make two more after this one.

LIGHTS OF NEW YORK is certainly going to appeal to film buffs who want to see the first sound picture. That alone makes it worth watching but it's also fascinating to see where the technology was at this point and how it hampered the picture. There are some obvious issues with the picture and there's no question that it doesn't have anything original about it but at the same time the movie remains entertaining and worth watching.

Director Bryan Foy, of the famous family, directed this, supposedly the first all-talking feature film.

"All talking," although there were inter-titles used by way of narration and introductions, and very non-intrusively.

Foy went on to be the head of the Warner Brothers B picture unit and made some very good movies.

"Lights of New York" is by no means a perfect movie, especially to viewers more used to camera mobility and varied angles. But for its time and as a pioneer in sound production, it is remarkable.

The actors were understated, a style that was not exactly in vogue until later. In fact, Jimmy Cagney mentions in his autobiography how he and some of the others of the Warner stock company were praised for that very characteristic.

Since even Warners, the sound pioneer, was still learning how to use microphones and how to avoid sounds from everything but the actors, Foy deserves all the plaudits he can get for this effort.

The story is about small-towners conned by slicksters from New York and tricked into involvement with bootleggers -- who are also killers. (Alcohol prohibition caused crime, a well-known phenomenon -- well-known today. Yet that lesson has not yet been applied to drug prohibition, despite the fact that this country has the highest incarceration rate and numbers in the world, mostly because of drug laws. We need someone to sing "When Will They Ever Learn?")

Helene Costello plays the girl who left the small town earlier to get into show biz, and she was a truly lovely young woman. Apparently she had personal problems that seemed to contribute to her not making more movies, and I think that a loss for us, as well as for her.

Most of the rest of the cast, with the particular exception of Eugene Palette and the slight exception of Wheeler Oakman, never achieved much by way of fame, but all were acceptable or better in this pioneering movie.

Leonard Maltin, who knows a little about movies, rates it 2.5 out of four stars, which proves he's pretty smart because he almost agrees with me.

"Lights of New York" might be historically interesting more than purely entertaining, but it is that and I hope movie lovers will get a chance to see it. I believe it is on DVD.

This 57 minute film was the first all-talking feature and is a perfect illustration of the effort to combine two art forms to create a third. Silent films + live theatre=the modern movie. Helene Costello is a lovely leading lady and Cullen Landis seems worthy of her. The attempts to "project" beyond the theatre lights are somewhat comical: heavy Tom Dugan menaces but bears an uncanny resemblance to Stan Laurel, with his facial exaggerations and bowler hat; Robert Elliot plays suspicion as the detective too shrewd to be taken in by crooked, villainous Wheeler Oakman; Jere Delaney and Walter Percival perform beneath a neon sign, flashing "Conmen;" only Mary Carr is so sweet and motherly to be taken in; Gladys Brockwell copes with the tragedy of love gone wrong. And the pearl is Eugene Palette, who displayed the distinctive voice that ensured steady employment through the 1930s. But this is unique.

Cinema's first all-talkie feature film was completely different than the prestige picture Warner Brothers Studios had planned to debut its improved audible format. Studio heads Harry and Jack Warner had in their minds to produce a high-end production movie with an entire cast heard speaking from beginning to end of the movie. But they had delayed their ambitious project well after their October 1927 hit "The Jazz Singer" had quaked the film industry because they felt their audible technology, Vitaphone, just wasn't quite advanced enough to deliver an entire movie with synchronous dialogue. They had stuck to their original plan to continue to roll out their movies with musical soundtracks and sound effects, with an occasional short (30 minutes or less) dramatic film to demonstrate their sound-on-disc process.

Warners' intention was for their director, Bryan Foy, to produce a two-reel short about a couple of barbers who buy what they think is a barbershop, only to discover the place is a front for an illegal speakeasy. When the Warners, returning from Europe promoting the studio's "The Jazz Singer," found out, unbeknownst to them, Foy had made July 1928's "Lights of New York," a full-blown 60-minute movie consisting of one-hundred percent talking, it blew their minds. They had no intention of having a low-budget production become their studio's--and Hollywood's--first feature film with completely filled audible dialogue.

Foy and his crew, taking advantage of the Warners being away, expanded the plot and its dialogue of their short film. The director asked Louis Halper, the executive in charge while the brothers were away, for a bit more money, about $10,000, to complete the movie. The Warners, not being told about the doubling of the film's length, forked over the extra cash. When they returned, they told Foy to cut the movie in half. Foy felt the movie's length was perfect and took the liberty to show "Lights of New York" to a friend who happen to be a film distributor. Impressed, he immediately offered to pay the production cost of $25,000 for the film's rights. When the Warners heard about the potential deal, they had their second oldest brother, Albert, view the movie. He loved it. Warner Brothers proceeded to show "Lights of New York" in several lower-tiered "grind-house" theaters equipped with the Vitaphone system. Despite the critics' largely negative reviews of the film, to the surprise of Warner Brothers, viewers lined outside the theaters' doors to catch this novelty of a film. Taking in more than $1.25 million dollars, "Lights of New York" became one of the most profitable motion pictures in the history of cinema in terms of ratio of its production expenses versus box office receipts.

"Lights of New York" confirmed to Hollywood the public's yearning to hear what movie characters were saying on the screen. If "The Jazz Singer" introduced the feature film to singing and to a two-minute burst of dialogue, "The Lights of New York" successfully showcased a full-length movie that was sustainable with total talking voices. Even the most reluctant critic eventually saw the benefits of 'talkies." The New Yorker review claimed, "The talking films have not even progressed to their infancy yet. Bad as it is, though, the film shows what I have been very reluctant to believe, that audibility will be a great help to the movies." The feature film spurred the movie industry to quicken the pace of talkies even more so then "The Jazz Singer" did.

Foy, the oldest of the original vaudeville members, 'Eddie Foy and The Seven Little Foys,' was taking quite a gamble staking his career on "Lights of New York.' Before then, he had directed just one other short film, 'The Swell Head,' a musical, and was helming what he thought was just another short. There had never been a completely audio synchronized feature film using the latest dialogue-capturing technology before, and many veteran silent movie directors were hesitant to handle the new devices in its early days. Studio technicians had placed their microphones inside and behind inconspicuous areas between the actors, situating them inside telephones on desks (the most popular space to hide mics in early sound movies), behind furniture, in flower pots, and even underneath the performers outside the camera frame. The filming involved noisy mechanical motorized cameras, set up inside sound-proof boxes to muffle their sound, with microphone wires directly connected to the Vitaphone recorder off set. It's interesting to see groups of actors bunched up close to the hidden mic so their voices can be captured.

"Lights of New York," was a gangster movie offering a couple of dance numbers. The premise proved sound was ideal for the two genres: crime and musicals. Movies with songs were especially popular during the early stages of talkies by offering popular hits on the screen. Also, the distinctive voices of certain actors stood out and guaranteed future success during the transition to sound. A good example is Eugene Pallette, a veteran of silent films who played Gene, one of the barbers. He spoke in an unusual gravelly voice, which was his calling card in a number of films well into the late 1940s. "Lights of New York" proved to be another nail, a big one, in the coffin sealing the fate of silent movies.

This movie was very good despite the fact that the film company did not hire a well known actors. The way they had such problems with microphone placement in the 1952 movie "Singing in the rain "didn't seem to be evidenced in "The Lights if New York". Also it was not only Foy who extended this short into a full length feature film, Tom Dugan, besides playing one of the henchmen, he was also a screen writer who wrote more dialogue every day after filming, helping to make it to 57 minutes. He was in Vaudeville for 25 years before breaking into the film industry. He was in 263 other films until his death in 1955. I may sound like I'm partial to him , since he is my wife's great uncle. Fred Lamberti

A year after The Jazz Singer changed the movie industry by putting some talkie sequences in a mostly silent picture, the studio behind that-Warner Bros.-would then film the first entirely talking one called by the above title. The plot involves bootleggers, a murder, and a couple wanting to get out of the city. Not very original even then but the novelty of an entire film with not only dialogue but a musical score playing most of the time (though many talkies after that would only have music for beginning and end credits only for a few years on) must have attracted many audiences to the point of them wanting only talkies from then on. The performances are mostly stiff but that's probably because mics had to be hidden in certain places so when the actors are speaking clearly and loudly they could be perfectly heard even when the music is playing. The only player I recognized was Eugene Pallette especially when he used his distinctive voice. Despite what I just cited, I was pretty entertained by this. So I recommend Lights of New York for historical purposes.