The Roaring Twenties brought great changes to America, not the least significant of which was the introduction of sound—the “talkies”—to Hollywood.Talking pictures emerged practically overnight. In 1926 they were still an experiment; by 1929 they had replaced silent film. Astonishingly, the full effect of this rapid transition in human, artistic, technical, and economic terms has never been chronicled before. Now Alexander Walker explores Hollywood’s most turbulent years, an extraordinary period of panic and opportunism, chaos and innovation, threat to the old ways (and stars) and enormous promise for the new.