Radio Music for Film -- August 9, 2025

Film Daily, 27-August-1925

Radio was a hot topic in 1925. Ufa, the big German film production company, did an experiment with RCA. An audience of 500 at the Briarcliff Lodge, a ritzy hotel in Briarcliff Manor, New York watched Fritz Lang's Siegfried, which was part one of his adaption of Die Nibelungen. During the first half of the film, the article says "there was no orchestra at that showing." During the second half, guests heard a broadcast on RCA,'s station WJY, which carried a score from the Century Theater in New York City. Composer and conductor Hugo Riesenfeld did the arrangement and led the orchestra. It must have been difficult to keep the music in sync with the movie. 

Automobile Blue Book, Volume One, 1919

New York Daily News, 28-August-1925

Springfield Morning Union, 23-August-1925

This article about the broadcast says how the synchronization problem was taken care of: "A trained musician will be stationed with the projection operator who will instruct the operator as to the speed od showing the film in order to coordinate with the music coming in via the air route."

This seems like an expensive way to bring orchestral music to theaters in small towns.

Film Daily, 27-August-1925

Radio Film on Coast

15 Theaters Screen Special Reel and

Hear Voices of Players in Perfect Synchronization

Los Angeles -- Fifteen theaters on Monday night projected a reel specially prepared, and at the same time broadcast through their radio receiving sets a talk by the principals in the picture in perfect synchronization.

A new angle touching on the possibilities of the radio and the motion picture is believed to have been hit upon. While this particular attempt savors strongly of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer publicilty its import cannot be overlooked. The studio prepared a picture with Norma Shearer and Lew Cody as central figures. It was designed to exploit "A Slave of Fashion" in which both appear. By arrangement with the Examiner, Station KFI and the Freed-Eisemann Radio Corp., the picture was projected simultaneously at nine o'clock in fifteen theaters of the West Coast chain, including the Cameo, Alhamra, Criterion, Strand, Circle, Highland, Rivoli, Rosebud, Alvarado, De Luxe, Apollo at Hollywood and Liberty at Long Beach.

While Miss Shearer and Cody talked at the station, the operator in each of these theaters donned headphones and cranked his machine in unison with the ticking of the metronome, all metronomes being calibrated in harmony with the master mechanism at KFI. The master film was also shown at the broadcasting station in order to give the players their cues when to talk, pause, laugh and inflect the voice. The picture in itself was out and out exploitation. It showed Miss Shearer and Cody leaving their homes for KFI and their arrival. In the last portion, extreme close-ups of them speaking into the microphone were shown, revealing their lip movements for an extreme synchronization test.

The results were proclaimed in no uncertain fashion. The exploitation value is held to be so tremendous by M.-G.-M. that another performance will be staged tonight at Loew's State when the broadcasting will be done in full view of the audience, revealing exactly how it is done.

One important figure here expressed the opinion that the test was sufficient proof to him that radio films were a definite possibility and that one reel dramas with all action spoken might soon become a reality through the air.

Douglas Shearer, brother of Norma worked out the details and conducted the first experiment. The Los Angeles critics praised the effort highly.

Partial Success Here

Static Interferes with "Siegfried" Experiment, But Sponsors Claim

It's Feasible

The broadcasting from the Century, of the Wagnerian musical score for "Siegfried" to Briarcliff Lodge for a special showing of this production on Tuesday night may mark a new development.

This initial experiment is the first step in an attempt to develop a practical method for supplying theaters in small towns with special musical scores played by a high grade orchestra in a big city first-run. Joe Fliesler of Ufa sponsored the idea and he arranged with Major General J. G. Harbord, president of the Radio Corp. of America to broadcast the score through station WJY.

By way of contrast, the first half of the picture was shown without any musical accompaniment to the hundreds of guests at the Lodge. Alongside the screen stood the radio sets ready to tune in for the second half. Exhibitors will be interested to know the steps necessary to bring special orchestra music into their theater to synchronize with their screening of a feature.

The Century screening was showing at a speed of 85, and the music was synchronized to that speed. The Briarcliff operator ran his machine at the same speed. The radio operator tuned in a few minutes before the given time of the screening of the second half. As both pictures were being screened in perfect time together, the synchronizing over the radio became purely automatic. It is held to be easy to take up any variations in the music by increasing the speed of the projector.

In this experiment, results were not conclusive as the wrong broadcasting station was selected, Briarclifif Lodge being badly situated to pick up WJY. Static was present, and made necessary tuning out at frequent intervals. But there were stretches when the orchestration 35 miles a way came through perfectly, and in accurate synchronization.

The Ufa was satisfied with results obtained under these unfavorable conditions. It was said that it represented only the first step in a series of experiments. The opinion was expressed that ultimately it will be possible for example for Famous through the new Paramount theater to broadcast the musical score on all its features to every house in neighboring towns which happens to be playing the current feature.

The whole plan is held to be one of mechanical principles involving nothing but proper team work between a radio station, and the theaters which are to receive the synchronized orchestration. Any problems that may arise are said to be only those that confront any owner of a radio set.

Ordinarily the director of the orchestra synchronizes his music to the film. Here the process is just reversed -- the Film is synchronized to the music. The benefit to the exhibitor apparently is that it gives him the radio to appeal to the radio fans, as well as exceptional music of big city orchestras not ordinarily secured even over the radio.

The reaction of the audience at Briarcliff was very favorable, judging from comments heard after the performance.

Busy on Radio Movies

Writing in the Evening World yesterday, George R. Witte stated that Col. Edward H. R. Green, son of Hetty Green, is experimenting with the sending of motion pictures by wireless. He has conducted a number of expensive experiments but to date has kept the extent of his progress secret.

C. Francis Jenkins, Washington inventor, has likewise been working on the transmission of motion pictures through the air and only recently claimed to have perfected his invention. Even more recent than this is the word from Madison, Wis., of the success along same lines met by Douglas F. W. Coffey, a college student who has wirelessed motion pictures a distance of eight miles.

Meanwhile, in the Los Angeles area, fifteen theaters showed a special one-reeler. Stars Lew Cody and Norma Shearer promoted their film A Slave of Passion. They broadcast their dialogue from radio station KFI and synchronization with the film in the fifteen theaters appeared to work. The projectionist in each theater wore headphones and timed their cranking using a metronome. Norma's brother Douglas was involved in the experiment. He later got a credit as recording supervisor on nearly every M-G-M talkie for twenty years.

The showing of Siegfried at the Briarcliff Lodge did not go smoothly because the radios could not pick up the station without static. 

The item also mentions three experimenters who were working on mechanical television. 

Pasadena Post, 24-August-1925

"Radio-Cinema." That is a new one on me.

Long Beach Press-Telegram, 24-August-1925