When Hungarian Cinema Found Its Voice

On 25 September 1931, something new happened in a Budapest cinema. People sitting in the Royal Apollo were not only watching Hungarian actors on the screen – they could hear them too. The film was A kék bálvány (The Blue Idol), and although few people watch it today, it became an important milestone in Hungarian cinema.

Ninety-five years later, the film may look rather strange to modern viewers. The acting sometimes feels theatrical, the camera rarely moves, and the story jumps between romance, comedy, crime and even elements of a western. But in 1931, filmmakers were still learning how to use sound. A kék bálvány was part of a completely new world.

Sound films were already changing cinema around the world by the end of the 1920s. Hungary had experimented with sound before A kék bálvány. For example, Csak egy kislány van a világon had originally been made as a silent film and was later partly given sound. Other Hungarian-language productions had also appeared, but they were made abroad or under unusual circumstances. For this reason, the National Film Institute describes A kék bálvány as the first “true” Hungarian sound film: a full-length Hungarian production created as a sound film from the beginning.

Its production began on 29 April 1931 at the newly modernised Hunnia Film Studio in Budapest. The studio had been equipped with the German Tobis-Klang sound system, which made it possible to record speech and other sounds during production. Filming lasted around five weeks, with additional outdoor scenes shot in Annavölgy and Pilisvörösvár.

For Hungarian filmmakers, this was new territory. A microphone could suddenly change everything. Actors could no longer rely only on facial expressions and large gestures, while directors had to think about dialogue, music, background noise and the position of recording equipment. Cinema was learning a new language.

Interestingly, the first major Hungarian sound film did not tell a typically Hungarian story. Based on a novel by Adorján Bónyi, A kék bálvány takes place mostly in the United States. Its hero is György Lóránt, an impoverished Hungarian baron played by Pál Jávor. After losing his fortune, he travels to America with his loyal servant Péter, played by Gyula Gózon, hoping to start a new life.

Things do not go according to plan. Lóránt loses his job as a waiter and eventually becomes connected to a strange farm through a lottery ticket. Several other people also receive shares in the same property, including Mary, the daughter of a wealthy American family. Lóránt and Mary soon become attracted to each other, but there are plenty of complications: a jealous fiancé, misunderstandings and, of course, the mysterious disappearance of the blue idol that gives the film its title.

The filmmakers clearly had Hollywood in mind. The story mixes several popular genres of the period. There is romance, comedy, crime, adventure and even a little western atmosphere. Perhaps that was also part of the problem.

When A kék bálvány had its gala premiere at Budapest’s Royal Apollo cinema on 25 September 1931, expectations were high. But the audience was not impressed.

The American setting and the unusual mixture of genres apparently felt distant to Hungarian viewers. What had been designed to look modern and international did not necessarily feel familiar or believable. The film was technically ambitious, but stylistically it still belonged partly to the silent era. Actors sometimes used exaggerated gestures, sets looked theatrical and the camera was often static.

Then, only two months later, another Hungarian sound film arrived: Hyppolit, a lakáj. The difference was dramatic. Hyppolit became an enormous success and eventually one of the most loved classics of Hungarian cinema. Its humour, characters and recognisably Hungarian world connected much more easily with audiences. As a result, A kék bálvány quickly disappeared into its shadow.

Even if the film itself did not become a classic with the general public, it played an important role in the career of Pál Jávor. Jávor had already appeared on screen before 1931, but A kék bálvány gave him the leading role in Hungary’s first full-length sound production. During the following decade he became the country’s first major male film star and one of the defining faces of Hungarian cinema in the 1930s and early 1940s.

His screen image became instantly recognisable: elegant, masculine and romantic, often playing honourable gentlemen who found themselves in complicated situations.

There is even a humorous story from the filming of A kék bálvány. According to a contemporary report in Színházi Élet, one scene required several actors to milk a cow. Jávor reportedly refused, joking that he was a sophisticated stage actor and had nothing to do with cows. Another actor eventually took his place. Whether carefully planned publicity or simply a funny moment from the set, the story already sounds like the behaviour of a movie star.

The film also produced something that lived on longer than the movie itself. In one scene, Péter, played by Gyula Gózon, begins singing “Van London, van Nápoly, van Konstantinápoly”, a cheerful song celebrating Budapest. Other characters gradually join him.

The film was not a major success, but the song became popular and remained connected with the early years of Hungarian sound cinema. Decades later, it was even released on record when the 50th anniversary of Hungarian sound film was celebrated. It is a small irony: the first Hungarian sound film struggled to find an audience, but one of its sounds survived.

Watching A kék bálvány today is almost like opening a time capsule. It is certainly not a perfect film. Even film historians describe its technical and stylistic weaknesses quite openly. But perfection is not what makes it important.

It represents experimentation.

The filmmakers were working with technology that was still new to Hungary. Actors were discovering how cinema acting changed when audiences could hear every word. Sound engineers were learning how to record dialogue. Directors were discovering that a talking film could not simply be a silent movie with voices added to it.

And perhaps its failure was useful too. Only a few months after A kék bálvány, Hungarian cinema began finding a style of its own. Films such as Hyppolit, a lakáj showed that Hungarian stories, Hungarian humour and Hungarian characters could work extremely well in the new sound era. What followed was one of the most productive periods in the country’s film history.

So A kék bálvány may not be the Hungarian film everyone remembers. But on 25 September 1931, audiences in Budapest heard Hungarian cinema taking one of its most important first steps.

And 95 years later, that is still something worth remembering.