Gaumont Sound Mirror

Dates

1927 - 1932

Category

Cinemagazine - Entertainment

History

The British Acoustic sound version of Gaumont Mirror, Gaumont Sound Mirror was released on 29 September 1930 at the Capitol, Haymarket. This ‘De Luxe Sound Magazine’ was run alongside its silent original to cater for those cinemas that were reluctant to adopt the new technology. It is unclear whether these issues, released simultaneously, were made up of the same stories and footage. As an incentive to patrons to take the risk of adapting to sound, the Gaumont Sound Periodicals offered free insurance policies to subscribers against loss of takings due to technological faults in the sound equipment. In April 1932, this was extended to cover all equipment in the cinemas. Due to the interest in the Gaumont Sound Mirror, its silent sibling lost much coverage after the beginning of 1931. However, it does seem likely that the silent Gaumont Mirror continued to be produced into the middle of 1931. Gaumont Sound Mirror continued to grow in popularity as more cinemas became wired for sound, and the final issue that we have recorded was issue number 78, released in late March 1932.

Full history

http://media.bufvc.ac.uk/newsonscreen2/newsreel/histories/gaumontmirrorhistory.pdf

Provenance

This database is an attempt to reconstruct the output of Gaumont Mirror from details published in contemporary trade journals, particularly the Kinematograph Weekly and the Bioscope. Several issue records were also compiled from viewing notes.

Other Information

See also Gaumont Mirror

Films in this series can be obtained from:

Film Archive

Name

British Film Institute (BFI)

Email

For BFI National Archive enquiries: nonfictioncurators@bfi.org.uk For commercial/footage reuse enquiries: footage.films@bfi.org.uk

Web

http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web

Phone

020 7255 1444

Fax

020 7580 7503

Address

21 Stephen Street
London W1T 1LN

Notes

The BFI National Archive also preserves the original nitrate film copies of British Movietone News, British Paramount News, Empire News Bulletin, Gaumont British News, Gaumont Graphic, Gaumont Sound News and Universal News (the World War II years are covered by the Imperial War Museum).

Series held

View all series held by British Film Institute (BFI)