Technology makes a talkie out of 1930 Dutch film

In 1930, Dutch director Henk Kleinman envisioned his drama “Zeemansvrouwen” (“Seamen’s Wives”) as the country’s first sound film. But it didn’t work out. More than seven decades later, the director’s original intent has been realized.

The experimental restoration of the film kicks off the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s new series, “The Human Dutch: Films From the Netherlands,” presented in association with the Netherlands Consulate General in Los Angeles and the Nederlands Filmmuseum.

Set in Amsterdam, “Zeemansvrouwen” revolves around a woman who is torn between the love of a sailor and the clutches of a criminal from whom she can not break free. It will screen Thursday at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The series moves to UCLA’s James Bridges Theater on Friday where it continues through April 28.

Though Kleinman cast two professional lead singers in the main roles in “Zeemansvrouwen,” he underestimated the complications of the new sound technology. He ended up releasing it as a silent film.

But in 2003, Dutch composer Henry Vrienten gave the film sound by re-creating the soundtrack as the director had envisioned it 73 years before. The new soundtrack features music, sound effects and partly synchronized dialogue that was reconstructed by lip-reading the words the actors spoke on camera. The film is subtitled in English.

The film was first restored to its original version by the Nederlands Filmmuseum from the last existing nitrate print. The new sound version used a high-resolution scan of the film by which each frame was duplicated. The sound version is presented as a “screening experiment” -- not as a traditional restoration.

Other films in the festival include “The Fourth Man” and “The Vanishing” on Friday, “Metal and Melancholy” and “One People” on Saturday, and “A Question of Silence” and “Character” on Sunday.

Admission is $5 for “Zeemansvrouwen.” For information call (310) 247-3000 or go to www.oscars.org.

For information and tickets for the UCLA screenings call (310) 206-FILM or go to www.cinema.ucla.edu.

-- Susan King