The latest additions are a rich trove of books, films, songs, and other works from 1927
Wings
The silent film, directed by William A. Wellman, follows two fighter pilots who serve in World War I and fight over a woman named Sylvia Lewis. It’s famous for its pioneering action cinematography—particularly a long dolly shot through a crowd that inspired a scene in Star Wars: The Last Jedi—and for winning the very first Academy Award for best picture. (The Jazz Singer was deemed ineligible for the category and given special recognition, as putting a “talkie” against silent films was thought of as unfair to the competition.) The ceremony, held in 1929, had practically none of the pomp and circumstance inherent in today’s Oscars, when presenters suspensefully open an envelope with the phrase, “And the winner is…” At the 1929 ceremony, per the New York Times, the winners had already been announced in print several months earlier. Announcing the winners took just 15 minutes, and the rest of the night was filled with merriment and dancing.
The Jazz Singer
One of the most seminal pictures in film history, The Jazz Singer marked the end of the silent film era and the rise of the “talkies.” Directed by Alan Crosland, it’s the first feature-length film with synchronized dialogue, and it features six songs performed by its star, Al Jolson. It is, fittingly, a story about the push-pull between tradition and modernization: A Jewish cantor in Manhattan hopes his 13-year-old son will follow in his shoes, but he is shocked to find the boy more interested in singing jazz. Jolson notoriously sings the climactic final number in blackface, a performance he always insisted “symbolized his identification with African American suffering and music,” per Jewish Currents.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Study In Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle
[Most recently updated: October 7, 2022]
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