Goat gland (filmmaking)

Goat gland is a modern term applied to part-talkies which were produced c. 1927–1929, during the period of transition from silent films to sound films. It refers to an already completed silent film to which one or more talkie sequences were added in an effort to make the otherwise outdated film more suitable for release in the radically altered market conditions. The name was derived by analogy from the treatment devised by John R. Brinkley as an alleged cure for impotence. The term is a completely modern invention and is not found in any literature from the early sound period.

References

• John Belton: 'Awkward Transitions: Hitchcock's "Blackmail" and the Dynamics of Early Film Sound' in The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 2 (Summer 1999), pp. 227–246