Tide of Empire


Tide of Empire is a 1929 American synchronized sound Western film directed by Allan Dwan and starring Renée Adorée and Tom Keene. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film process.
On January 12, 2010, Tide of Empire was released on home video for the first time on DVD on Warner Archive Collection.

Plot

Cast

The film features a theme song entitled “Josephita” which was composed by Ray Klages and Jesse Greer.

Production

The film was originally slated to star Joan Crawford in the female lead, but the final filming had Renée Adorée instead of Crawford. It was one of the last MGM films without dialogue and performed badly at the box office. Buster Keaton, who was visiting the set, got cast in a cameo as a drunk getting thrown out of a saloon.
It was actually a prank and a matter of self-casting, since director Allan Dwan was as surprised as everyone else to suddenly see Keaton “come flying out the saloon doors. It wasn’t part of the scene at all—-I didn’t expect it.” Dwan decided to keep this unscripted scene in the film.

Censorship

When Tide of Empire was released, many states and cities in the United States had Film censorship in [the United States|censor boards] that could require cuts or other eliminations before the film could be shown. The Chicago Board of Censors required the elimination of all execution scenes, which required the addition of film to maintain the synchronized sound track and maintain the continuity of the dialog sequences.