1926 in film
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Events
- August - Warner Brothers debuts the first Vitaphone film, Don Juan. The Vitaphone system used multiple 33⅓ rpm disc records developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric to play back audio synchronized with film.
- Theodore W. Case and E. I. Sponable demonstrate their sound-on-film experiments to William Fox of the Fox Film Corporation. The Fox-Case Corp. was formed in an effort to exploit the system, which was given the name Movietone. Fox began to create Movietone News newsreels at this time. One of the first newsreels was Charles Lindbergh's takeoff for Paris.
- Al Jolson films A Plantation Act one of the first unreleased talkies and a test film for The Jazz Singer
- The oldest surviving animated feature film is released in the Weimar Republic, directed by Lotte Reiniger. It is called The Adventures of Prince Achmed.
Top grossing films
- Aloma of the South Seas
- What Price Glory
Films released
Films released in 1926 include:
- The Adventures of Prince Achmed, directed by Lotte Reiniger.
- Aloma of the South Seas, starring Gilda Gray.
- Battling Butler, a Buster Keaton film.
- The Black Pirate, starring Douglas Fairbanks.
- Faust, directed by F.W. Murnau.
- Flesh and the Devil, starring John Gilbert and Greta Garbo.
- For Heaven's Sake, a comedy starring Harold Lloyd.
- Hunting Tower, by George Pearson (John Buchan novel)
- Madame Mystery, starring Theda Bara.
- Mare Nostrum, directed by Rex Ingram
- The Scar of Shame, a race movie starring Harry Henderson and Lucia Lynn Moses
- Scarlet Letter, starring Lillian Gish.
- The Son of the Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino.
- Sparrows, starring Mary Pickford.
- The Temptress, starring Greta Garbo and Antonio Moreno.
- What Price Glory, starring Edmund Lowe, Victor McLaglen and Dolores del Rio.
Short film series
- Buster Keaton (1917-1941)
- Our Gang (1922-1944)
- Laurel and Hardy (1926-1940)
Births
- January 5 - Maria Schell, actress
- January 14 - Tom Tryon, actor, novelist (+ 1991)
- January 17 - Moira Shearer, actress, dancer
- January 19 - Fritz Weaver, actor
- January 20 - Patricia Neal, actress
- February 16 - John Schlesinger, director
- March 6 - Andrzej Wajda, director
- March 16 - Jerry Lewis, actor
- May 8 - Don Rickles, comedian and actor
- June 1 - Andy Griffith, actor
- June 1 - Marilyn Monroe, actress (+ 1962)
- June 28 - Mel Brooks, entertainer
- July 14 - Harry Dean Stanton, actor
- July 21 - Norman Jewison, director
- October 17 - Beverly Garland, actress
- October 18 - Klaus Kinski, actor
- November 30 - Richard Crenna, actor
Deaths
- January 30 - Barbara La Marr, actress
- August 23 - Rudolph Valentino, actor