Davey Lee

This short was released in connection with the 20th anniversary of Warner Brothers' first exhibition of the Vitaphone sound-on-film process on 6 August 1926. The film highlights Thomas A. Edison and Alexander Graham Bell's efforts that contributed to sound movies and acknowledges the work of Lee De Forest. Brief excerpts from the August 1926 exhibition follow. Clips are then shown from a number of Warner Brothers features, four from the 1920s, the remainder from 1946/47.

Skin Deep is a 1929 American talking drama film directed by Ray Enright and starring Monte Blue. It was produced and distributed by the Warner Brothers. It was also released in the U.S. in a silent version for theaters not equipped yet with sound. The film is a remake of a 1922 Associated First National silent film of the same name directed by Lambert Hillyer and starring Milton Sills. All copies of this film are now lost. However, the Vitaphone soundtrack, of music and effects, survive.

Joe Lane, radio entertainer and songwriter, learns that the manager of the studio, Arthur Phillips, has made improper advances to his wife, Katherine. Infuriated, Lane engages him in a fight, and the encounter results in Phillips' accidental death. Joe goes to prison for a few years, and when he is released he visits his son, Little Pal, at school and is begged by him to run away together.

A gangster's wife, fearful that he is about to be murdered by his rivals, tips off the police to his whereabouts in order to save his life. Her husband, however, believes her reason was that she wanted him out of the way so she could have his best friend.

Canine star Rin Tin Tin makes his all-talking (all-barking?) debut in Warner Bros.' Frozen River. In characteristic fashion, Rinty braves the elements to rescue heroine Jane from the villains, a gang of cutthroats and thieves.

After years of hopeful struggle, waiter and aspiring singer-songwriter Al Stone is on his way. He gets his huge break on a magical night when his song wows big-time producer Louis Marcus and gold-digging showgirl Molly, whom Al fancies. Broadway success and marriage follow, but sure enough, hard times are on the way.

Sonny Boy's parents are in the midst of a bitter divorce when the boy's mother talks her sister into kidnapping him because she is terrified that her husband will take the boy out of the country after the divorce.