'THE JAZZ SINGER', THE FIRST PROMINENT TALKIE MOVIE

Today, The Grandma has been watching some old movies. She has chosen The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length motion picture with both synchronized recorded music score as well as lip-synchronous singing and speech in several isolated sequences, that was premiered on a day like today in 1927.

The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical drama film directed by Alan Crosland. 

Its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound films and effectively marked the end of the silent film era. It was produced by Warner Bros. with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system and features six songs performed by Al Jolson. Based on the 1925 play of the same title by Samson Raphaelson, the plot was adapted from his short story The Day of Atonement.

The film depicts the fictional story of Jakie Rabinowitz, a young man who defies the traditions of his devout Jewish family. After singing popular tunes in a beer garden, he is punished by his father, a hazzan (cantor), prompting Jakie to run away from home. Some years later, now calling himself Jack Robin, he has become a talented jazz singer, performing in blackface. He attempts to build a career as an entertainer, but his professional ambitions ultimately come into conflict with the demands of his home and heritage.

Darryl F. Zanuck won an Academy Honorary Award for producing the film; Alfred A. Cohn was nominated for Best Writing (Adaptation) at the 1st Academy Awards.

In 1996, The Jazz Singer was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of culturally, historically or aesthetically significant motion pictures.

In 1998, the film was chosen in voting conducted by the American Film Institute as one of the best American films of all time, ranking at number ninety.

More information: Time

While many earlier sound films had dialogue, all were short subjects. D. W. Griffith's feature Dream Street (1921) was shown in New York with a single singing sequence and crowd noises, using the sound-on-disc system Photokinema. The film was preceded by a program of sound shorts, including a sequence with Griffith speaking directly to the audience, but the feature itself had no talking scenes.

On April 15, 1923, Lee De Forest introduced the sound-on-film system Phonofilm, which had synchronized sound and dialogue, but the sound quality was poor, and the films produced in this process were short films only.

The premiere occurred on October 6, 1927, at Warner Bros.' flagship theater in New York City. In keeping with the film's theme of a conflict within a Jewish family, the film premiered after sunset on the eve of the Yom Kippur holiday. The buildup to the premiere was tense.

The film developed into a major hit, demonstrating the profit potential of feature-length talkies, but Donald Crafton has shown that the reputation the film later acquired for being one of Hollywood's most enormous successes to date was inflated.

The movie did well, but not astonishingly so, in the major cities where it was first released, garnering much of its impressive profits with long, steady runs in population centers large and small all around the country.

As conversion of movie theaters to sound was still in its early stages, the film actually arrived at many of those secondary venues in a silent version. On the other hand, Crafton's statement that The Jazz Singer was in a distinct second or third tier of attractions compared to the most popular films of the day and even other Vitaphone talkies is also incorrect. In fact, the film was easily the biggest earner in Warner Bros. history, and would remain so until it was surpassed a year later by The Singing Fool, another Jolson feature.

More information: Variety

Cinema is not only about making people dream.
It's about changing things and making people think.

Nadine Labaki