Max and Dave: Screen Songs of 1929 – All Talking, All Singing
Max’s early talkie efforts concentrated upon a return to the “follow the bouncing ball” format, now referred to as “Screen Songs”.
Max’s early talkie efforts concentrated upon a return to the “follow the bouncing ball” format, now referred to as “Screen Songs”.
Many of the films in today’s post continue to remain silent – until the 1929 output when Walt Disney took a giant leap forward against all of his competitors.
Most of the songs in this week’s post are either old standard favorites or popular songs of the ‘aughts or ‘teens, with something of a plurality of Irving Berlin songs.
During this period Fleischer was working to develop sound cartoons, which didn’t need to depend on dialogue, but to rely upon music and sound effects.
Commencing in 1926, a monthly schedule of Song Car-Tunes began to be released with sound, re-teaming with the DeForest Phonofilms system.
Lots of songs from Irving Berlin and Stephen Foster ruled the day in the silent era Bouncing Ball cartoons.
Max Fleischer had a pioneer’s interest in the burgeoning technology of adding sound to motion pictures. And he added songs to his films before anyone else did.
Our final look at the songs used in the classic Warner Bros. cartoons.
The cartoons from this period, with Milt Franklyn appearing more often as composer, would still retrieve old musical numbers as part of their underscore.
This was also the period when Carl Stalling began to give way to his orchestrator, Milt Franklyn.