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“Talking Movies” Device Interests Picture Producers

New York, March 13

Motion picture producers here were interested today in the phonofilm, a “talking movie” device invented by Dr. Lee DeForest, who gave an exhibition of his machine in his studio on East Forty-Eighth Street.

The instrument reproduces sound in synchronization with motion pictures. The sound record is photographic and occupies a narrow margin of the film on which the pictures appear. It is converted into sound simultaneously with the picture projection by the same machine so that one sees animated figures on the screen and hears the voices and music accompanying their actions.

Only instrumental musical numbers were offered by the inventor in his first demonstration. Dr. DeForest has been invited to exhibit his invention before the New York Electrical Society.