1929 in film

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Events

The days of the silent film are numbered. A mad scramble to provide synchronized sound is on.

• January 20 - The movie In Old Arizona is released. The film is the first full-length talking film to be filmed outdoors.
• May 16 - The first Academy Awards, or Oscars, are distributed
• July 13 - The first all color talkie (in Technicolor), On with the Show, is released by Warner Bros. who led the way in a new color revolution just as they had ushered in that of the talkies.
• November 10 - Première of John Grierson's documentary film Drifters about North Sea herring fishermen, made for the Empire Marketing Board, effectively inaugurating the British Documentary Film Movement. (It debuts at the private Film Society in London on a double-bill with the UK première of Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin.)^[1]
• Hallelujah!, first Hollywood film to contain an entire black cast.
• Atlantic is the first sound on film movie made in Germany. It is also the first Titanic movie with sound.
• The Broadway Melody is released by MGM and becomes the first major musical film of the sound era, sparking a host of imitators as well as a series of Broadway Melody films that will run until 1940.

Top grossing films

Academy Awards

• Best Picture: The Broadway Melody - MGM
• Best Actor: Warner Baxter - In Old Arizona
• Best Actor: George Arliss - Disraeli
• Best Actress: Mary Pickford - Coquette

Note: Prior to 1933, awards were not based on calendar years, which is how there are 2 'Best Actor' awards for 1929 films.

Films released in 1929

U.S.A. unless stated

• Alibi
• An Andalusian Dog (Un chien andalou), a short film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí - (France)
• Applause, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, starring Helen Morgan
• Arsenal (aka January Uprising in Kiev in 1918) - (U.S.S.R.) - International release
• Asphalt, starring Gustav Frohlich - (Germany)
• Atlantic, the first sound on film made in Germany and the first sound Titanic movie
• The Awful Truth
• Berth Marks, a Laurel and Hardy short produced by Hal Roach
• Big Business, a Laurel and Hardy short
• Big Time
• The Bishop's Candlesticks, starring Walter Huston, the first sound adaptation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables
• Blackmail, directed by Alfred Hitchcock - (Britain)
• The Bridge of San Luis Rey, starring Lily Damita
• Broadway, a musical comedy with Technicolor sequences
• The Broadway Melody, musical comedy starring Charles King, Anita Page and Bessie Love
• Bulldog Drummond, starring Ronald Colman
• The Canary Murder Case
• Children of the Ritz
• The Clue of the New Pin - (Britain)
• The Cocoanuts, starring the Marx Brothers
• A Cottage on Dartmoor, directed by Anthony Asquith - (Britain)
• Coquette, Directed by Sam Taylor, starring Mary Pickford, Johnny Mack Brown, Matt Moore
• Dance of Life, a musical comedy with Technicolor sequences
• Dangerous Curves
• Desert Nights, a silent film starring John Gilbert
• The Desert Song, a musical operetta with Technicolor sequences
• Devil-May-Care, starring Ramón Novarro - a musical romance with Technicolor sequences
• Diary of a Lost Girl (Tagebuch einer Verlorenen), directed by G.W. Pabst, starring Louise Brooks - (Germany)
• Disraeli, starring George Arliss and Joan Bennett
• Drifters, documentary by John Grierson - (Britain)
• Dynamite
• Escape from Dartmoor, directed by Anthony Asquith - (Britain)
• Eternal Love, directed by Ernst Lubitsch starring John Barrymore
• Fancy Baggage, a part-talkie from Warner Brothers Pictures starring Audrey Ferris and Myrna Loy
• Finis Terræ, directed by Jean Epstein (France)
• The Flying Fleet, starring Ramón Navarro, Ralph Graves, Anita Page, and Edward Nugent
• Footlights and Fools, a musical comedy entirely in Technicolor
• The Four Feathers
• Fox Movietone Follies, a musical revue with Multicolor sequences
• The General Line (Старое), directed by Sergei Eisenstein - (U.S.S.R.)
• Glorifying the American Girl, a musical comedy with Technicolor sequences
• Gold Diggers of Broadway, a musical comedy entirely in Technicolor
• The Great Gabbo, a musical comedy with Multicolor sequences
• Hallelujah!, directed by King Vidor
• Hardboiled Rose, a part-talkie starring Myrna Loy
• Hearts in Dixie, starring Clarence Muse, drama/musical
• High Treason directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Jameson Thomas and Benita Hume - (Britain)
• His First Command, a musical drama with Technicolor sequences
• His Glorious Night, directed by Lionel Barrymore, starring John Gilbert - Gilbert's first talkie, known as the film that destroyed his career
• The Hole in the Wall
• The Hollywood Revue of 1929, a showcase of talent under contract to MGM
• Hot for Paris, from Fox Film Corporation
• In Old Arizona, starring Warner Baxter
• The Iron Mask, starring Douglas Fairbanks
• It's a Great Life, a musical comedy with Technicolor sequences
• The Kiss, starring Greta Garbo and Conrad Nagel
• The Lady Lies, starring Walter Huston and Claudette Colbert
• The Letter
• The Locked Door, starring Rod LaRocque and Barbara Stanwyck
• The Love Parade, starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald
• Lucky Star, directed by Frank Borzage, starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell
• Madame X, directed by Lionel Barrymore
• Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom), a documentary - (U.S.S.R.)
• The Manxman, directed by Alfred Hitchcock - (Britain)
• Married In Hollywood, a musical romance with Multicolor sequences
• The Miraculous Life of Thérèse Martin (La Vie miraculeuse de Thérèse Martin), directed by Julien Duvivier - (France)
• The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu
• The Mysterious Island, starring Lionel Barrymore
• Navy Blues
• The New Babylon (Novyy Vavilon) - (U.S.S.R.)
• New York Nights, starring Norma Talmadge and Gilbert Roland
• On With the Show, a musical comedy entirely in Technicolor
• Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora), directed by G.W. Pabst, starring Louise Brooks - (Germany)
• Paris, a musical comedy with Technicolor sequences
• Piccadilly, a melodrama starring Anna May Wong and Gilda Gray - (Britain)
• Pointed Heels, a musical comedy with Technicolor sequences
• Queen Kelly, starring Gloria Swanson (this film was never finished because producers balked at releasing a silent film in what was quickly becoming a sound film market)
• Red Hot Rhythm, a musical comedy with Multicolor sequences
• Redskin, a drama with Technicolor sequences
• The Rescue
• The Return of the Rat, directed by Graham Cutts and starring Ivor Novello - (Britain)
• Rio Rita, starring Bebe Daniels - a musical comedy with Technicolor sequences
• The River
• The Runaway Princess directed by Anthony Asquith and Fritz Wendhausen and starring Mady Christians and Fred Rains (Britain/Germany)
• Sally, a musical comedy entirely in Technicolor
• The Saturday Night Kid, with Clara Bow, Jean Arthur, and a small early role for Jean Harlow (Uncredited)
• Show Boat, a part-talkie based not on the famous musical, but on the Edna Ferber novel that inspired it
• The Show of Shows, a musical revue with Technicolor sequences
• Side Street, starring the Moore Brothers
• The Single Standard, directed by John S. Robertson, starring Greta Garbo & Nils Asther
• The Skeleton Dance, a Walt Disney animated short
• Smilin' Guns, a Hoot Gibson Western-comedy
• Spite Marriage, a Buster Keaton film
• St. Louis Blues, starring Bessie Smith
• Street Girl, RKO's first "official" film
• Sunny Side Up, a musical comedy with Technicolor sequences
• The Taming of the Shrew
• This Thing Called Love, a musical romance with Technicolor sequences
• Thunder, directed by William Nigh, starring Lon Chaney, Sr. and Phyllis Haver
• Thunderbolt
• A Throw of Dice - (Germany/Britain/India)
• The Trespasser, directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Gloria Swanson and Robert Ames
• The Vagabond Lover, starring Rudy Vallee
• The Virginian, starring Gary Cooper and Walter Huston
• Wait and See, directed by Walter Forde - (Britain)
• Wall Street
• Welcome Danger, starring Harold Lloyd
• Where East is East, directed by Tod Browning; starring Lon Chaney, Lupe Vélez & Estelle Taylor
• White Hell of Pitz Palu (Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü), starring Leni Riefenstahl - (Germany)
• Why Be Good?
• Wild Orchids
• The Wolf Song, starring Gary Cooper and Lupe Vélez
• Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond), directed by Fritz Lang - (Germany)
• Words and Music, first movie in which John Wayne is credited as Duke Morrison

Serials

• The Ace of Scotland Yard
• The Black Book
• The Diamond Master
• The Fatal Warning
• The Fire Detective
• The King of the Kongo, starring Jacqueline Logan
• The Pirate of Panama
• Police Reporter
• Queen of the Northwoods
• Tarzan the Tiger, starring Frank Merrill and Natalie Kingston

Short film series

• Buster Keaton (1917–1941)
• Our Gang (1922–1944)
• Laurel and Hardy (1921-1943)

Animated short film series

• Felix the Cat (1919–1936)
• Aesop's Film Fables (1921–1933)
• Krazy Kat (1925–1940)
• Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
  • Homeless Homer
  • Yanky Clippers
  • Hen Fruit
  • Sick Cylinders
  • Hold ‘em Ozzie
  • The Suicide Sheik
  • Alpine Antics
  • The Lumberjack
  • The Fishing Fool
  • Stage Stunts
  • Stripes and Stars
  • The Wicked West
  • Ice Man's Luck
  • Nuts and Jolts
  • Jungle Jingles
  • Weary Willies
  • Saucy Sausages
• Inkwell Imps (1927-1929)
• Mickey Mouse
  • The Opry House
  • When The Cat's Away
  • The Barnyard Battle
  • The Plow Boy
  • The Karnival Kid
  • Mickey's Follies
  • Mickey's Choo-Choo
  • The Jazz Fool
  • Wild Waves
  • Jungle Rhythm
  • Haunted House
• Silly Symphonies
  • The Skeleton Dance
  • El Terrible Toreador
  • Springtime
  • Hell's Bells
  • The Merry Dwarfs
• Screen Songs (1929-1938)
• Talkartoons (1929-1932)

Births

• January 3 - Sergio Leone, director (died 1989)
• January 11 - Rod Taylor, Australian actor
• January 31 - Jean Simmons, actress (died 2010)
• February 10 - Jerry Goldsmith, composer (died 2004)
• May 4 - Audrey Hepburn, actress (died 1993)
• August 23 - Vera Miles, actress
• September 2 - Hal Ashby, director
• November 12 - Grace Kelly, actress (died 1982)
• December 6 – Alain Tanner, Swiss film director
• December 9 - John Cassavetes, actor, director (died 1989)

Deaths

• January 5 - Marc McDermott
• February 18 - William Russell, American actor
• May 9 - Fred C. Truesdell, stage & film actor (born 1870)
• July 2 – Gladys Brockwell, American actress
• July 3 - Dustin Farnum, American stage & silent screen star.
• August 2 - Mae Costello, American actress (born 1882)
• October 3 - Jeanne Eagels, American actress
• October 31 - Norman Trevor, actor, Olympic athlete (born 1877)

Film Debuts

• Judy Garland
• Paulette Goddard
• Betty Grable
• Jeanette MacDonald
• Ray Milland
• Paul Muni
• Sylvia Sydney
• Johnny Weissmuller

References