Introduction The first lesson one learns almost immediately after
undertaking to write a comprehensive and critically
weighed history of the American sound film is that
one can never finish; one can only stop. After many
years I have decided to stop, at least as far as the period between 1927
and 1949 is concerned. I could work until the next millennium sifting
the endless trivia for clues to the tantalizing mysteries of the medium,
but my marvelously patient editor has urged me to cease and desist, and
I do so with a sense of relief. Mine is more a macrocosmic than a microcosmic treatment in that I
have chosen to focus on stylistic ...
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