George Groves The Movie Sound Pioneer

In April 1927 George Groves and other members of the New York-based Vitaphone team were relocated to Warners' Sunset Boulevard studios in Hollywood. Western Electric veteran Colonel Nugent H. Slaughter, who'd been in Army radio during the war, was detailed as chief recording engineer.

In Fitzhugh Green's 1929 history of "talkie pioneering", The Film Finds Its Tongue, the author wrote that: "George Grove (sic), a quiet little Englishman who had been working with Vitaphone so long, handled the mixing". Warner technician A. M. "Doc" Salomon was seconded to work with the Vitaphone newcomers from New York. Fitzhugh Green described him as a "hard-boiled little fighter who didn't know the word quit".

Vitaphone took over Stage Three on the Warner lot, which was of wooden construction and looked like a barn from the outside. However inside it was state-of-the-art, or as Fitzhugh Green wrote, it was "a scientific marvel of its day". The soundproofed studio was specially designed to shoot talking pictures with careful consideration given to its acoustics, lighting and sound. George was no longer recording the sound from six flights of stairs away from the action, as in the Manhattan Opera House. Instead a special room was constructed adjacent to the set, some 15 feet off the ground. It had glass sides which allowed George to monitor and mix while viewing the action.

The Vitaphone Corporation had its own offices and production department on the lot, although Warner staff provided many services, such as set construction. An increasing number of theatres were investing in the new technology, although they weren't all successful. Of the first 90 to 100 installations, 65 theatres had done excellent business but 25 reported no improvement to their box office returns. A further six sent back their Vitaphone equipment and reverted to silent films. Strong content was considered crucial in preventing such churn and encouraging more theatres to take the plunge. So Vitaphone was asked to score all of Warner Brothers 1927 pictures, although its main task was to make and sell four short subjects a week. They'd learnt from past experience that eight minutes was the optimum duration for a short film and that vaudeville and concert performers went down best with audiences. 29-years-old Bryan Foy, who came from a vaudeville family, was hired to book the acts and direct the shorts. George Groves, a talented amateur musician himself, became used to working with top talent, later saying: "All the great concert and opera stars of the day, I had the privilege of recording." By the time George arrived in Hollywood, Warners had already begun shooting a picture called The Jazz Singer. It was based on Samson Raphaelson's stage play and director Alan Crosland decided to incorporate some singing sequences. So George was invited to record the soundtrack to what would become a seminal sound film.

He was already acquainted with the picture's star, Al Jolson, having recorded him in 1926 in New York in a ten-minute short subject called A Plantation Act. In this Jolie sang When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob-Bob Bobbin' Along, plus two other songs in blackface make-up. In The Jazz Singer, Jolson – who was third choice for the role of Jakie Rabinowitz – was given six songs to perform, including Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye, My Mammy and Dirty Hands, Dirty Face. Musical accompaniment was planned for other 'silent' sections of the picture but spoken dialogue was neither scripted nor rehearsed. So the production crew were quite taken aback when Jolson began to ad-lib, as George Groves explained: George also commented on the microphone placement in one scene in the film: The film was premiered on October 6th 1927 and was a huge success. It was tagged on promotional posters as "Warners Supreme Triumph" and film historians have labelled it a cinematic landmark. In financial terms alone it was a massive success. Produced by Warners and the Vitaphone Corporation for $422,000, it grossed $2,500,000 at the box office. It demonstrated to the reticent film executives in Hollywood that audiences could, after all, appreciate talking movies. However, not everyone was impressed with the sound innovation. Writer Aldous Huxley commented on his own experience of hearing Al Jolson's performance of My Mammy:
Warners' Head of Production, Darryl F. Zanuck, was presented with a special Oscar at the very first Academy Awards which took place in 1929 for: "Producing The Jazz Singer, the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry”. With George Groves responsible for the all-important sound within the film, this was also a tribute to the young engineer from St Helens who had followed his Tiller girl fiancé to America not knowing that he would end up at the birth of talking pictures.

George made such an impression on Jolson that he dubbed him "The Quiet Little Englishman" and insisted on him recording all his future pictures. Groves in his oral history – that he recorded for the American Film Institute – remembered how "the world's greatest entertainer" had made a big impression on him too: