Rio Rita (1929)

What a lot of movie buffs may not be aware of is the surprise and delight that the movie audiences of 1929 felt when they first heard Bebe Daniels's singing voice on the silver screen. By the time sound pictures began to appear, Daniels had already been a major silent film star for years, most notably headlining in romantic comedies for Paramount. She was quite popular with audiences, and she was considered a real beauty, too. Yet before the advent of sound, screen audiences (for the most part) didn't know what her voice sounded like... They could only imagine. So at a time when the arrival of sound sometimes killed the careers of heretofore popular movie stars, many so-called "hot" personalities found their personas diminished on the talking screen. Not so with Daniels. No matter what people might have been expecting before the lights went down and the sound came on, as it turned out, in "Rio Rita", her singing voice was nothing short of a sensation. Teaming her with the incredibly handsome John Boles was a nice bit of casting, too, because he too was blessed with a wonderful singing voice. Their "duet in counterpoint" at the beginning of the film (he sings the title tune while she sings "River of My Dreams") must have been a revelation, and one can almost imagine the theatre audiences swooning when it was first heard in 1929. So no matter what others may tell you about this "Rita", the thing to keep in mind is that with almost all of these early talkies, the viewers today who will appreciate them the most are those who can project themselves back in time when they watch them.