As the Greenfield Garden Cinemas was completed in the late 1920s, Hollywood was introducing a novel idea into more and more movies: sound. 

In 2024, cinema co-owner Isaac Mass and local movie historian Jonathan Boschen are offering an opportunity to take a step back in time and see some of the most popular “talkies,” or sound movies, from the 1930s with the introduction of Talking Talkies, a monthly series offering a brief historical lesson presented prior to showing the films to place the productions in historical context.

Talking Talkies will be held on the third Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. beginning Sept. 16 and running through December. The program will start with Boschen offering a brief five- to 10-minute talk discussing the film of the evening, its historical relevance to today and tidbits on movie history here in Greenfield. Tickets are $10.50 for adults and $8.50 for seniors, students and veterans.

“This is a classic theater. We’ve been talking about doing a film series for a while and it’s a fun way to get new audiences exposed to this material,” Boschen, who is also Frontier Community Access Television’s general manager, said. “Old movies are sort of a different type of style, they’re from a different era … if you’re a history buff or just curious, check them out because they’re a lot of fun.”

The series kicks off on Sept. 16 with the 1931 gangster film “The Public Enemy.” Oct. 21’s film will be the 1935 swashbuckling pirate film “Captain Blood.” Nov. 18 will feature the 1938 Bette Davis classic, “Jezebel.” Finally, the series will close with the 1933 Busby Berkeley choreographed musical “42nd Street.”

“These are all great movies too, like ‘The Public Enemy...’ it’s inspired a lot of directors we’re familiar with, like Martin Scorsese,” Boschen said. “Even though they’re products of their time, it just goes to show that they’re still just as relevant to some degree and still influential.”

Mass said the creation of Talking Talkies comes off the success of the Greenfield Garden Cinemas’ successful silent film series, which runs on the first Monday of each month, and features live musical performances by Jeff Rapsis.

“Our thought was, ‘Hey, most people don’t really know these old films, they may recognize the title, they may recognize the star, but they don’t know them,’” Mass said, adding they have a wide variety of movies for this run of Talkies. “We run the whole gamut for the first set and we’re hoping it’s been as successful as the silent film series. If it is, we expect that we’ll continue it in the spring.”

Boschen added the Talking Talkies series is a chance to emulate the “social occasion” these movies used to be when they came out nearly 100 years ago.

“This whole culture really intrigued me,” Boschen said. “You didn’t have TV or iPhones in the ’30s, so you went out to see these and it was quite the social occasion.”

For more information about the Greenfield Garden Cinemas, visit its website at gardencinemas.net or its Facebook page at Facebook.com/GreenfieldGarden7.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.