# Has anyone ever added dialogue and other (non-background music) sound to a silent? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 17, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794 "2010-03-17T21:19:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/1 "2010-03-17T21:19:47Z")
So the geeks over at Slashdot are having a palaver over how 3D is the worst scam to come down the pike since they colorized the talkies, with special scorn for _Alice_, a film shot in 2D which was made into 3D later on. That got me thinking about Teddy Turner, the man who added color to black-and-white films so they’d play in Peoria, and his horrifying masterpieces DOA on the Superstation. So, given the perversity and perfidy of Hollywood, has anyone ever gone back and added ‘normal’ (non-orchestral, non-soundtrack) sound to a silent film? Has anyone, to our collective knowledge, put words in Rudy Valentino’s mouth _ex post facto_? ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/2 "2010-03-18T02:22:47Z")
In 1942 Charlie Chaplin released a version of his 1925 masterpiece “The Gold Rush” with a musical score and adding narration. I remember it as pretty dreadful but it was the original artist himself doing it. > **[The Gold Rush](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gold_Rush#Background)** > > The Gold Rush is a 1925 American silent comedy film written, produced, and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The film also stars Chaplin in his Little Tramp persona, Georgia Hale, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman, and Malcolm Waite. > Chaplin drew inspiration from photographs of the Klondike Gold Rush as well as from the story of the Donner Party who, when snowbound in the Sierra Nevada, were driven to cannibalism or eating leather from their shoes. Chaplin, who believed tragedies and comics wer... ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/3 "2010-03-18T02:56:59Z")
It’s really not that bad, though the original is better. When sound first came in, there were some silent films in production that had sound sequences added (remember, very early talkies like **The Jazz Singer** were not “all talking” and people would accept a silent film with sound sequences, though this quickly changed). However, sound took over so completely that there was no reason to release silent films with soundtracks. Remember, too, that films at the time were considered disposable: Once their run was ended, there was no reason to keep them. Other than a few blockbusters, all films vanished (often literally as studios either destroyed the film stock or just let it deteriorate). Because of very few films were re-released at all, there was no real point in taking the time and spending the money to re-release a silent film as sound. Chaplin could do it because he had plenty of money (and plenty of time – it took him years to do his features), but the average studio didn’t need to re-release silents when they had plenty of sound films in production. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/4 "2010-03-18T15:57:43Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > In 1942 Charlie Chaplin released a version of his 1925 masterpiece “The Gold Rush” with a musical score and adding narration. I remember it as pretty dreadful but it was the original artist himself doing it. > > [The Gold Rush - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gold_Rush#Background) Didn’t know about this. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > When sound first came in, there were some silent films in production that had sound sequences added (remember, very early talkies like **The Jazz Singer** were not “all talking” and people would accept a silent film with sound sequences, though this quickly changed). _Singin’ In The Rain_ is about such a quicky conversion. > [@](#): > > However, sound took over so completely that there was no reason to release silent films with soundtracks. > > Remember, too, that films at the time were considered disposable: Once their run was ended, there was no reason to keep them. Other than a few blockbusters, all films vanished (often literally as studios either destroyed the film stock or just let it deteriorate). > > Because of very few films were re-released at all, there was no real point in taking the time and spending the money to re-release a silent film as sound. Chaplin could do it because he had plenty of money (and plenty of time – it took him years to do his features), but the average studio didn’t need to re-release silents when they had plenty of sound films in production. All of this makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/5 "2010-03-18T16:37:02Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > When sound first came in, there were some silent films in production that had sound sequences added (remember, very early talkies like **The Jazz Singer** were not “all talking” and people would accept a silent film with sound sequences, though this quickly changed). In some cases, this caused real problems. Hitchcock was filming _Blackmail_ when sound burst forth, so while he wanted to make the film a talkie, the actress he had cast was Czech, and her strong accent did not match her role of a young English girl. Because ADR and looping would not be invented for a few years (despite what _Singin’ in the Rain_ alleges), Hitch had a British actress speak the dialogue off-camera while the Czech actress mouthed the words during the scene–essentially a live synch. [Here’s a picture](http://www.dga.org/news/mag_archives/v22-2/hitchcock.jpg). Ultimately, the film was released both as a silent and as a talkie (probably because during that transition time, not all theaters were yet equipped to handle audio). ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/6 "2010-03-18T17:22:39Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Because of very few films were re-released at all, there was no real point in taking the time and spending the money to re-release a silent film as sound. Chaplin could do it because he had plenty of money (and plenty of time – it took him years to do his features), but the average studio didn’t need to re-release silents when they had plenty of sound films in production. Something you did see, though, were sound remakes of silent films only separated by a few years. Some examples: _Anna Christie_: Silent 1923, Sound 1930 _The Awful Truth_: Silent 1925, Sound 1929 _The Devil Horse_: Silent 1926, Sound 1932 _The Drums of Jeopardy_: Silent 1923, Sound 1931 _The Great Divide_: Silent 1925, Sound 1929 _Kick In_: Silent 1922, Sound 1931 _Ladies of Leisure_: Silent 1926, Sound 1930 _The Lodger_: Silent 1927, Sound 1932 _Manslaughter_: Silent 1922, Sound 1930 _Nell Gwynne_: Silent 1926, Sound 1934 _Outside the Law_: Silent 1920, Sound 1930 _Romance_: Silent 1920, Sound 1930 _Tess of the Storm Country_: Silent 1922, Sound 1932 _The Unholy Three_: Silent 1925, Sound 1930 _All the Brothers Were Valiant_: Silent 1923, Sound 1928 (retitled _Across to Singapore_) _The Bat_: Silent 1926, Sound 1930 (retitled _The Bat Whispers_) _The Charm School_: Silent 1921, Sound 1929 (retitled _Sweetie_) _The Flirt_: Silent 1922, Sound 1931 (retitled _The Bad Sister_) _Good and Naughty_: Silent 1926, Sound 1932 (retitled _This is the Night_) _Her Sister from Paris_: Silent 1925, Sound 1934 (retitled _Moulin Rouge_) _Ladies of the Mob_: Silent 1928, Sound 1931 (retitled _City Streets_) _Lily of the Dust_: Silent 1924, Sound 1933 (retitled _The Song of Songs_) _The Mirage_: Silent 1924, Sound 1931 (retitled _Possessed_) _The Sign on the Door_: Silent 1921, Sound 1929 (retitled _The Locked Door_) _So’s Your Old Man_: Silent 1926, Sound 1934 (retitled _You’re Telling Me!_); both with W.C. Fields _Twenty Dollars a Week_: Silent 1924, Sound 1933 (retitled _The Working Man_) _Vamping Venus_: Silent 1928, Sound 1933 (retitled _Roman Scandals_) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/7 "2010-03-18T22:01:46Z")
> [@](#): > > So, given the perversity and perfidy of Hollywood, has anyone ever gone back and added ‘normal’ (non-orchestral, non-soundtrack) sound to a silent film? Has anyone, to our collective knowledge, put words in Rudy Valentino’s mouth ex post facto? Are you kidding? All the time. A lot of times it was obviously added afterwards, because, you know, the audience wouldn’t go to a truly silent movie (just as people on this Board have admitted they wouldn’t watch anf black and white movie). In other cases it was a serious attempt to bring the film up to date. They added sound to the 1925 **Phantom of the Opera** , and Lon Chaney was _pissed_. He angrily declared that it wasn’t _his_ voice, and the suits weaseled out of it with some absurd explanation. The two-disc DVD has a selection of the sound recordings used with the film. as far as I can tell, it adds nothing to it. In later years, people took to adding slide-wistle sounds, cowbells, and the like to silent comedies. Jay ward and Bill Scott (the powers behind _Rocky and Bullwinkle_) built a whole TV show around this – **Fractured Flickers**. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/8 "2010-03-18T22:11:41Z")
I have a DVD copy of the silent Semon and Hardy Wizard of Oz that has an atrociously awful narration added to it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/9 "2010-03-18T23:03:50Z")
But none of this answers the exact question in the OP. > [@Derleth](#): > > So, given the perversity and perfidy of Hollywood, has anyone ever gone back and added ‘normal’ (non-orchestral, non-soundtrack) sound to a silent film? Has anyone, to our collective knowledge, put words in Rudy Valentino’s mouth _ex post facto_? The answer to that question is, as far as I know, a solid no, not even for [Phantom of the Opera](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera_(1925_film)). > [@](#): > > In November 1929, after the successful introduction of sound pictures, Universal dubbed and re-shot a new cut of The Phantom of the Opera with the new Western Electric sound-on-disc process. Ernst Laemmle re-shot a little less than half of the picture in sound, while the remainder contained music and sound effects, with stock cues and original pieces by Sam A. Perry and David Broekman. Lon Chaney was at MGM, and by contract Universal could not dub his voice, so “third person” dialogue by the Phantom was looped over shots of his shadow (the voice-overs are uncredited, but are probably Universal regular, Phillip Smalley). Because Chaney’s talkie debut was eagerly anticipated by filmgoers, the posters emphasized, “Lon Chaney’s portrayal is a silent one!” The sound Phantom opened on February 16, 1930 and grossed another million dollars, then was stored away for future use, but has since vanished and is presently considered to be a lost film, although the soundtrack discs survive. Although the notion of dubbing silent films into sound seems to make sense, it wouldn’t work well in reality. Each shot in the original would have been designed to be emoted rather than spoken. It would have been difficult to put the right words in to match the shots,since they weren’t designed for speech. A writer could bang out a new film that was intended for sound in the same length of time needed to go back and match dialog shot by shot to originals. (That’s why you get all those films mentioned by ArchiveGuy.) And why would anyone have bothered except for a couple of very major films? The public had seen them and wanted new marvels. Some high concept artist may have re-created a silent film in this fashion. It would surprise me if nobody had ever done so. If Psycho can be given a shot-by-shot remake, anything’s possible. But colorization would be technically far easier, since you were working with an original whose shot content didn’t need any change. Silents are a different art form than talkies. You can’t just throw dialog in and expect a good result. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/10 "2010-03-18T23:41:26Z")
> [@](#): > > The answer to that question is, as far as I know, a solid no, not even for Phantom of the Opera. I don’t see how you can say this doesn’t fit the OP – I’ve watched the segments with the soundtrack added. Someone clearly _was_ putting words in Chaney’s mouth ex post facto – and it wasn’t Chaney (as he himself angrily pointed out). That they denied it officially and advertised that it wasn’t Chaney (and how many people paid attention to _that_?), it doesn’t change the fact that there’s a voice speaking the Phantom’s lines when he’ (or his shadow) is on-screen. ---
**Author:** ![from\_a\_to\_z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5fc32e/32.png) [@from\_a\_to\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/from_a_to_z)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/11 "2010-03-19T00:44:49Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Has anyone, to our collective knowledge, put words in Rudy Valentino’s mouth _ex post facto_? Maybe. Louise Brooks definitely, for _The Canary Murder Case_ ([imdb link](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019745/trivia)). ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/12 "2010-03-19T02:05:43Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > In other cases it was a serious attempt to bring the film up to date. They added sound to the 1925 **Phantom of the Opera** , and Lon Chaney was _pissed_. He angrily declared that it wasn’t _his_ voice, and the suits weaseled out of it with some absurd explanation. The two-disc DVD has a selection of the sound recordings used with the film. as far as I can tell, it adds nothing to it. But this dialogue was only looped over shots of his shadow, according to **Exapno Mapcase** ’s cite, which is not _quite_ the same thing has having to match lip flaps and facial expressions as you do when adding dialogue to a cartoon. It might well be the closest we can come, though, for the reasons **Exapno** mentioned. (Silent films are indeed a different art form. I’ve always been a little disappointed the form was pretty much left to molder with outdated acting styles and cinematography and effects shots while sound films got to advance. The exceptions are few and far between.) > [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > I have a DVD copy of the silent Semon and Hardy Wizard of Oz that has an atrociously awful narration added to it. See, I don’t think this quite qualifies. They aren’t giving any of the onscreen characters lines, just explaining the action for the audience. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/13 "2010-03-19T02:56:03Z")
> [@from\_a\_to\_z](#): > > Maybe. Louise Brooks definitely, for _The Canary Murder Case_ ([imdb link](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019745/trivia)). That appears to be a case where a silent movie was redone for sound prior to release. A number of movies were remade like that during the transition, but I believe that they were all mainly reshort, rather than merely dubbed. I’m not sure about Canary, though. It’s one I’ve always wanted to see but somehow never caught. But Brooks is the murder victim and not onscreen long, according to IMDb, so there may not have been much that needed to be done. Phantom was half reshot, which is why I say it’s not a full example. (I checked and found an ad in the Moberly MO Monitor-Index for March 8, 1930, that states “Lon Chaney does not talk in this movie.”) Movie companies did a bit of everything during the year or so of transition and I wouldn’t rule anything out. I’m just saying I don’t know of a full dubbing. I’ve recommended [The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926-1930, by Scott Eyman](http://www.amazon.com/Speed-Sound-Hollywood-Revolution-1926-1930/dp/0801861926/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268966228&sr=1-1) as a fascinating look at those years. He would have made a point of noting a studio adding a dialog track to an already released movie and I don’t remember it there. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/14 "2010-03-19T02:56:47Z")
One other issue: silent films were shot and projected at about 20 frames per second. Sound films were shot and projected at a steady rate of 24 frames per second. In order to lip sych a silent film,\* you’d need to speed it up. This required some expensive (for the time) techniques to make it work at the faster speed without the motion look all wrong. It might work for a comedy, but a drama would just not work correctly. And the number of silent films that would be worth that sort of expense and effort was tiny. As **Archive Guy** mentioned, it was simpler and easier to just shoot a new film. A handful of silent films were rereleased with a sound narration, but those were the exception, and often were done by film historians decades after the films were released (my introduction to silent comedy – not counting the Paul Terry cartoons – was with **When Comedy was King** , a compilation film from 1960, with a lot of footage that hadn’t been seen in 30 years). Remember when James Agee wrote “[Comedy’s Greatest Era](http://goldenageofhollywood.co.uk/Criticism/SilentComedy.html)” in 1949, most filmgoers had never seen any of the silent films of Keaton, Lloyd, or Langdon. (Keaton’s appearance in _Sunset Boulevard_ the next year was portraying him as a forgotten has-been.) Keaton and Lloyd were massively popular (and Lloyd could almost match Chaplin in wealth and I believe he did a narrated version of **Safety Last** ) in their heyday, but there was little clamor for their silent films to be released with sound. \*Note, too, that, despite **Mrs. Doubtfire** , the sound of cartoons is done first, except when they’re dubbed into a new language. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/15 "2010-03-19T22:19:11Z")
This might not be quite what the OP had in mind, but I think it’s worthy of a mention… [Phillip Glass’ Beauty and the Beast](http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/opera--the-odd-couple-philip-glass-has-set-jean-cocteaus-la-belle-et-la-bete-to-music-kevin-jackson-investigates-the-enduring-appeal-of-the-tale-as-old-as-time-1424588.html), which is based on the Jean Cocteau film ‘La Belle et la Bête’ (1946). The original soundtrack was written by Georges Auric, but this version of it strips the film of its original score and replaces it with a small orchestra and four live singers. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/16 "2010-03-20T13:42:16Z")
Again, maybe not quite what the OP has in mind, but a few years ago one of the main non-BBC British TV channels (Five?) did a documentary using a lip-reader to reconstruct what Hitler etc. are saying in some of the silent “home movies” from the Berghof. IIRC, the end result was clips of the footage with actors dubbing the reconstructed German dialogue in sync and an English translation in subtitles. This all turned out to be as pointless as you might have guessed. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/17 "2010-03-20T15:22:45Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > I have a DVD copy of the silent Semon and Hardy Wizard of Oz that has an atrociously awful narration added to it. Is that the one where [Jacqueline Lovell](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0522550/) did the (new) voiceover? Anyway, back to the OP…something that comes to mind is Giorgio Moroder’s version of _Metropolis_ from 1984. Although he specifically did add new music but didn’t add spoken dialogue, sound effects were added—[here’s a good example.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNEjSi9SVAU#t=8m11s) Personally, _I_ liked it, but then again, I also liked _War of the Gargantuas_. So, take that as you will. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/18 "2010-03-25T18:44:51Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > See, I don’t think this quite qualifies. They aren’t giving any of the onscreen characters lines, just explaining the action for the audience. In this one she actually does read the dialogue, as if reading us a storybook. So, yeah probably doesn’t totally fit the op. ---
**Author:** ![marknyc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@marknyc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marknyc)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-added-dialogue-and-other-non-background-music-sound-to-a-silent/532794/19 "2011-02-05T01:15:12Z")
Here’s one. [http://www.archive.org/details/aelita\_queen\_of\_mars\_musical](http://www.archive.org/details/aelita_queen_of_mars_musical)