Attending one of the early sound movies, this film reviewer did not find it odd in the least as to why the audiences laughed uproariously while listening to perfectly ordinary dialog during the viewing of the new release, War Nurse (directed by Edgar Selwyn):

“It was not so much [that they chortled] at these isolated bits of dialogue that the audience laughed, as it was a resort to laughter caused by the absurdity ceaseless chatter that prevails throughout the entire production.”

“What one British statesman said of another might be applied to the motion picture industry. Talkies are “Intoxicated by the exuberance of its own verbosity.”

Read The Audience Laughed at the First Talkies<br>(Film Spectator, 1930) for Free

The Audience Laughed

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