The movies broke their silence in 1927, as Warner Bros. introduced the first major synchronized sound film, The Jazz Singer. Stage-trained actors were suddenly in demand, and among those to break though in the early sound era were James Cagney, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Katharine Hepburn and Edward G. Robinson. For the most part, the movies were able to ride the storm of the Great Depression, as crowds flocked to escapist Astaire/Ginger Rogers musicals. Most of the moguls toughed out the hard times, though some tumbled.
Christopher Plummer
Narrator
Leonard Maltin
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Ricky Jay
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Carla Laemmle
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Daniel Selznick
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Gregory Orr
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Marc Wanamaker
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Bob Balaban
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Samuel Goldwyn Jr.
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Tony Maietta
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Molly Haskell
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Donald Bogle
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Peter Bogdanovich
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Richard D. Zanuck
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Robert Osborne
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Gore Vidal
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William Wellman Jr.
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Andrew Bergman
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Marsha Hunt
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Sidney Lumet
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Paul Mazursky
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Roger Corman
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Mark Harris
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Walter Mirisch
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David Brown
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Peter Guber
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Robert Benton
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Buck Henry
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John Sayles
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