As caretakers of the Warner Bros. Archives, our team has the extreme privilege of working with many incredible partners year after year, but few events are more exciting for our team of historians than the annual display at the TCM Film Festival. 

In celebration of the “Century of Sound”, this year’s display featured incredible pieces related to some of the earliest films to feature synchronized audio, thanks to Warner Bros.’ groundbreaking use of Vitaphone. Highlights included original Vitaphone advertisements and publications, promotional merchandise from the 1920s, an original Vitaphone disc, and most notably, an actual truck door featuring a unique logo which reads “Warner Bros. Vitaphone Talking Pictures.”

We have long been fans of this artifact and were thrilled when our partners at TCM shared our appreciation. In fact, our very first pieces of Warner Bros. Archives merchandise, sold exclusively at this year’s festival, featured the door’s fabulous primary-colored logo. 

Other highlights from this year’s display include an Audrey Hepburn dress from My Fair Lady (1964), a costume worn by Paul Henreid in Of Human Bondage (1946), an original costume from Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936), designed by prolific Warner Bros. costume designer Orry-Kelly, and Kelly’s Academy Award for his costume design work in An American In Paris (1951). These pieces were selected to illustrate the festival’s focus on the importance of immigrants to the foundation of Hollywood and the entertainment industry from the very beginning. As TCM put it on the festival’s website, “A remarkable merging of immense creativity and shrewd business sense established the filmmaking capital of the world in Hollywood, USA. But from the beginning, homegrown studios, founded mostly by immigrants who came to America as children, embraced new measures of genius and influence from other lands. Men and women of disparate talents and distinct styles journeyed from around the globe to America, already fluent in the same language of cinema as industry veterans, to create and collaborate, and in many instances, just to live another day. This was not an intrusion, but an infusion of fresh ideas and startling visions of what movies could be, shared by those now emboldened by the adopted ideals of their new home: freedom and liberty.”

As always, the festival was as star-studded as it was a true celebration of cinema and our industry’s heritage. Our thanks to the TCM team and all involved in the festival’s success.

Photo credits to Turner Classic Movies. 

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