The Movies Learn to Speak

If the general population was fascinated with silent movies, they were mesmerized with "talkies." "The Jazz Singer" was the first full-length film. It was released in October 1927. There had been earlier attempts, but "The Jazz Singer" was the first full-length film that was originally released with sound.

The idea of movies with sound wasn't new, however. Eadweard Muybridge, who was a pioneer in photography, met with Thomas Edison in February 1888, and the two discussed the possibility of combining Maybridge's image-casting zoopraxiscope with Edison's recorded-sound technology to produce sound cinema. No agreement was reached, however.

It took a long time to overcome all of the problems associated with combining moving pictures with sound.

The first major problem was synchronization. There were a lot of trials and errors. In the early years the pictures and the sounds were recorded on two separate devices. When they were played back, getting the picture and the sound to "match up" was a real problem.

Another problem that had to be overcome was a distinct problem with volume. Actually, the development of film technology that allowed film to be shown in larger theaters was far ahead of sound technology. Until sound amplification was developed, the sound wasn't loud enough for large theaters.

The third major problem was sound fidelity. Sound recordings were very low quality at best. Performers had to stand directly in front of recording devices in order to get any kind of sound recorded at all.

Fortunately, all of these difficulties were overcome, and in 1927 "The Jazz Singer" was released. Today we take the amazing technology of moving pictures and surround sound for granted. We never even notice the technology — which is the way that all good technology is supposed to work.


A Film Classic - The Jazz Singer (Three-Disc Deluxe Edition)