26 April 1929: First Czech “talkie” screened in Ústí nad Labem
The innovation of film with sound first made it to Czechoslovakia 95 years ago. The first sound film to be screened in the country was not a feature film, however, but an advert for a factory in Ustí nad Labem. It had its premiere in the same city, four months before the first sound film was shown in Prague.
Georg Schicht, the owner of a soap manufacturing company in Ústí nad Labem, was behind the successful premiere of the first sound film to be screened in Czechoslovakia. He bought a huge sound system for the Alhambra cinema in Ústí – reportedly so huge that it took up the entire room – and used it to show an ad for his factory.
The memorable screening on April 26, 1929 was attended by the cream of Ústí society as well as people from Prague who travelled to come and see it. The premiere’s aim was not so much artistic as commercial – it was intended to introduce sound film and its advantages to the owners of Czechoslovak cinemas who were in the audience and to emphasise the importance of sound film for advertising.
The audience was first shown a silent movie, with sound played from a gramophone record. Then they were shown a speech by Schicht himself, filmed with sound, so the audience could compare the two.
The show was hailed as a success by the press of the time, although some criticised it for being a commercial rather than an artistic film. Others objected to the idea of sound films altogether on the grounds that the pianists and other musicians who were employed in cinemas at the time to play along to silent films would lose their jobs.
The first feature films with sound to be screened in Czechoslovakia were from the United States and Germany, but the first Czech feature film with sound, Tonka of the Gallows, was filmed in 1930 in Paris, a year after the screening of Schicht’s commercial in Ústí.
