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Sorry I missed this, but a few hours ago, MoMA screened a 35mm print of The Wind. What's notable about this screening is that it featured Vitaphone music and sound effects!

Not sure if they played a record that was synched to the film, but I was totally surprised by this, I had no idea the film had a Vitaphone soundtrack. Searched a bit online and couldn't find any anecdotal information, just documentation, usually pointing out that the film included a song called "Love Brought the Sunshine" - not a promising title.

Eventually I found Peter Bosma's Dutch language website, and apparently The Wind was more or less a victim of the studios' rush to add sound to all of their films. Bosma says that Irving Thalberg tacked on some very literal sound effects as well as that song, which he describes as sappy. Considering what they did to the ending, this seems very believable. Fortunately, if all they did was issue a record to be played with the film, then this wasn't a sloppy desecration like, say, the sound version of Hitchcock's Blackmail.

Regardless, still waiting for this masterpiece to be released on DVD or Blu-Ray. Kevin Brownlow's celebrated restoration is available, so I don't know what's the deal. (And I'd like to hear Carl Davis' score, I keep hearing it's great.)

hearthesilence wrote:Sorry I missed this, but a few hours ago, MoMA screened a 35mm print of The Wind. What's notable about this screening is that it featured Vitaphone music and sound effects!

Not sure if they played a record that was synched to the film, but I was totally surprised by this, I had no idea the film had a Vitaphone soundtrack. Searched a bit online and couldn't find any anecdotal information, just documentation, usually pointing out that the film included a song called "Love Brought the Sunshine" - not a promising title.

Eventually I found Peter Bosma's Dutch language website, and apparently The Wind was more or less a victim of the studios' rush to add sound to all of their films. Bosma says that Irving Thalberg tacked on some very literal sound effects as well as that song, which he describes as sappy. Considering what they did to the ending, this seems very believable. Fortunately, if all they did was issue a record to be played with the film, then this wasn't a sloppy desecration like, say, the sound version of Hitchcock's Blackmail.

Regardless, still waiting for this masterpiece to be released on DVD or Blu-Ray. Kevin Brownlow's celebrated restoration is available, so I don't know what's the deal. (And I'd like to hear Carl Davis' score, I keep hearing it's great.)

It was meant to be a silent film but as the new "sound film" emerged fast they thought there should be some sound effects in the film.
And as you said "Love Brought the Sunshine" was used as some sort of musical lead-motif there was also some wind and dog barking sounds(amongst some other sounds) accordingly to the Swedish biography about Sjöström.
The book which is from 1980 states that the version with sound had been lost but maybe they have found an copy(with sound) since then or have they just added new sounds to a silent copy?

They screened this Vitaphone restoration at MoMI today (and the print was indeed courtesy of MoMA). A sound print was created with all the music and sounds from the discs recorded on to the print soundtrack. They don’t hurt the film (which looked superb in this restoration - I can’t recall Gish ever looking lovelier) but they don’t enhance anything either. The dog noises and especially the weak tin cup noises (when the cup is thrown around) were the most egregious offenses but that’s it.

A new restoration by MoMA is premiering at the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival in Bo'Ness, Scotland later this month.