6th October 1927: The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson, the first major “talkie” movie, premieres in New York City

Scott Allsop (0:00)

On the 6th of October 1927, The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, the first major talkie movie, premiered at the Warner Theatre in New York City. Welcome to HistoryPod.

The Jazz Singer was based on a 1925 play by Samson Raffelson who had been inspired by the career of the entertainer Al Jolson. The story followed Jakey Rabinovitz, the son of a Jewish cantor who wanted to become a performer rather than follow his father into the synagogue. The conflict between family expectations and a career in show business formed the central part of the story.

Warner Brothers had been experimenting with sound technology for several years. The Vitaphone system recorded sound onto large phonograph discs that were played in synchronisation with the film projector and provided musical accompaniment and sound effects. Don Juan, released in 1926, was the first film to demonstrate the possibilities of the system, but it contained no synchronised dialogue. While most dialogue in The Jazz Singer continued to be presented through intertitles, the star Al Jolson spoke several lines that were synchronised with the action. During one scene, after performing a song, he addressed his mother and said, Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothing yet. Wait a minute, I tell you, you ain't heard nothing. These spoken passages were relatively brief, but they demonstrated the possibility of combining recorded dialogue with moving images.

While the film's use of blackface makes it controversial today, it was commercially successful at the time and helped accelerate the transition to the talking picture era. While earlier short films had contained synchronised speech, The Jazz Singer demonstrated to a large audience that recorded dialogue could be incorporated successfully into a commercial feature film. As a result, it marked an important transition in the way that films were both produced and experienced.