The First Film with Sound!


The first feature film was The Jazz Singer, directed by Alan Crosland in 1927. It is known as a 'talkie,' a sound film which includes synchronised dialogue. Its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound films and the decline of the silent film era as it demonstrated the profit potential of a 'talkie' film.

It was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology.



A Vitaphone projection setup at a 1926 demonstration.

Like The Birth of a Nation, The Jazz Singer was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" motion pictures.

However, unlike The Birth of a Nation, the use of blackface in this film is not racist. The scholar Corin Willis says "blackface imagery in The Jazz Singer is at the core of the film's central theme, an expressive and artistic exploration of the notion of duplicity and ethnic hybridity within American identity...  it is the only film (in the period of 1927-53) where blackface is central to the narrative development and thematic expression."

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