The Jazz Age (film)

The Jazz Age (1929) is a sound part-talkie film starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Marceline Day, and Joel McCrea in his first leading role. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The film, directed by Lynn Shores and written by Randolph Bartlett, was released by RKO Radio Pictures soon after RKO was created from Film Booking Offices of America, RCA, and the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain.

Plot
Steve Maxwell (Fairbanks) and Sue Randall (Day), during an escapade, wreck one of her father's streetcars. The elder Randall uses this incident to stop the elder Maxwell (Walthall) from opposing Randall's illegal contract with the city. When Steve tells all to the city council, Mr. Randall (Ratcliffe) threatens Steve with arrest, Sue admits her culpability, and announces her intentions of marrying Steve.

Cast

 * Douglas Fairbanks Jr.	as Steve Maxwell
 * Marceline Day as Sue Randall
 * Henry B. Walthall	as Mr. Maxwell (billed as H. B. Walthall)
 * Myrtle Stedman	as Mrs. Maxwell
 * Gertrude Messinger	as Marjorie
 * Joel McCrea	as Todd Sayles
 * William Bechtel	as Mr. Sayles
 * E. J. Ratcliffe	as Mr. Randall
 * Ione Holmes	as Ellen McBride
 * Edgar Dearing	as Motor Cop

Preservation status

 * The film is preserved in the Library of Congress collection Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation.

Production background
Like the majority of early sound films, RKO released The Jazz Age in a cut-down edited silent version for those theatres not yet equipped for sound. The sound part-talkie version was recorded using the RCA Photophone sound system.

There was a later documentary film produced by NBC News Project 20, narrated by Fred Allen also titled The Jazz Age (1956), and a 15-episode TV series of the same name on the BBC (1968). Both the IMDB and TCM websites, for the 1929 film, show the 1956 film as available on DVD for purchase. No info is given about the availability of the 1929 title.