1902 poster advertising Gaumont's sound films, depicting an optimistically vast auditorium

A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before reliable synchronization was made commercially practical. The first commercial screening of movies with fully synchronized sound took place in New York City in April 1923. In the early years after the introduction of sound, films incorporating synchronized dialogue were known as "talking pictures," or "talkies." The first feature-length movie originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927. Image File history File links Gaumont1902. ... Image File history File links Gaumont1902. ... Gaumont Pictures were founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont (1864-1946). ... This article is about motion pictures. ... Synchronization (or Sync) is a problem in timekeeping which requires the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. ... A silent film is a film which has no accompanying soundtrack. ... A reel of film, which predates digital cinematography. ... The Jazz Singer (1927) is a U.S. movie musical and the first feature-length motion picture with talking sequences. ...

By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon. In the United States, they helped secure Hollywood's position as one of the world's most powerful cultural/commercial systems. In Europe (and, to a lesser degree, elsewhere) the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, who worried that a focus on dialogue would subvert the unique aesthetic virtues of soundless cinema. In Japan, where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance, talking pictures were slow to take root. In India, sound was the transformative element that led to the rapid expansion of the nation's film industry—the most productive such industry in the world since the early 1960s. American cinema has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. ...

History

Early steps

For more details on this topic, see Kinetoscope.

Image from the Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1894 or 1895), produced by W.K.L. Dickson as a test of the early version of the Edison Kinetophone, combining the Kinetoscope and phonograph.

The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the concept of cinema itself. On February 27, 1888, a couple of days after photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge gave a lecture not far from the laboratory of Thomas Edison, the two inventors privately met. Muybridge later claimed that on this occasion, six years before the first commercial motion picture exhibition, he proposed a scheme for sound cinema that would combine his image-casting zoopraxiscope with Edison's recorded-sound technology.^[1] No agreement was reached, but within a year Edison commissioned the development of the Kinetoscope, essentially a "peep-show" system, as a visual complement to his cylinder phonograph. The two devices were brought together as the Kinetophone in 1895, but individual, cabinet viewing of motion pictures was soon to be outmoded by successes in film projection.^[2] In 1899, a projected sound-film system known as Cinemacrophonograph or Phonorama, based primarily on the work of Swiss-born inventor François Dussaud, was exhibited in Paris; similar to the Kinetophone, the system required individual use of earphones.^[3] An improved cylinder-based system, Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre, was developed by Clément-Maurice Gratioulet and Henri Lioret of France, allowing short films of theater, opera, and ballet excerpts to be presented at the Paris Exposition in 1900. These appear to be the first publicly exhibited films with projection of both image and recorded sound. Interior view of Kinetoscope with peephole viewer at top of cabinet. ... Image File history File links DicksonExpSoundFilm. ... Image File history File links DicksonExpSoundFilm. ... The Dickson Experimental Sound Film was a film made by William Kennedy Laurie Dickson in 1895. ... William Kennedy Laurie Dickson (August 3, 1860 - September 28, 1935) was a Scottish inventor who is credited with the invention of the motion picture camera under the employ of Thomas Edison. ... Edison redirects here. ... Interior view of Kinetoscope with peephole viewer at top of cabinet. ... Interior view of Kinetoscope with peephole viewer at top of cabinet. ... Tonearm redirects here. ... is the 58th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1888 (MDCCCLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Muybridges The Horse in Motion. ... Edison redirects here. ... Zoopraxiscope is a contraption that was important in the early technological development of motion pictures. ... Interior view of Kinetoscope with peephole viewer at top of cabinet. ... The earliest method of recording and reproducing sound was on phonograph cylinders. ... Tonearm redirects here. ... Interior view of Kinetoscope with peephole viewer at top of cabinet. ... The Exposition Universelle of 1900 was a worlds fair held in Paris, France, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next. ...

Three major problems persisted, leading to motion pictures and sound recording largely taking separate paths for a generation:

1. Synchronization – The pictures and sound were recorded and played back by separate devices, which were difficult to start and maintain in synchronization.^[4]
2. Playback volume – While motion picture projectors soon allowed film to be shown to large theater audiences, audio technology before the development of electric amplification could not project to satisfactorily fill large spaces.
3. Recording fidelity – The primitive systems of the era produced sound of very low quality unless the performers were stationed directly in front of the cumbersome recording devices (acoustical horns, for the most part), imposing severe limits on the sort of films that could be created with live-recorded sound.

Poster featuring Sarah Bernhardt and giving the names of eighteen other "famous artists" shown in "living visions" at the 1900 Paris Exposition using the Gratioulet-Lioret system.

Cinematic innovators attempted to cope with the fundamental synchronization problem in a variety of ways; an increasing number of motion picture systems relied on gramophone records—known as sound-on-disc technology; the records themselves were often referred to as "Berliner discs", not because of any direct geographical connection, but after one of the primary inventors in the field, German-American Emile Berliner. Léon Gaumont had demonstrated a system involving mechanical synchronization between a film projector and turntable at the 1900 Paris Exposition. In 1902, his Chronophone, involving an electrical connection Gaumont had recently patented, was demonstrated to the French Photographic Society. Four years later, he introduced the Elgéphone, a compressed-air amplification system based on the Auxetophone, developed by British inventors Horace Short and Charles Parsons.^[5] Despite high expectations, Gaumont's sound innovations had only limited commercial success—though improvements, they still did not satisfactorily address the three basic issues with sound film and were expensive as well. For some years, American inventor E. E. Norton's Cameraphone was the primary competitor to the Gaumont system (sources differ on whether the Cameraphone was disc- or cylinder-based); it ultimately failed for many of the same reasons that held back the Chronophone. By the end of 1910, the groundswell in sound motion pictures had subsided.^[6] Image File history File linksMetadata Expo1900SoundFilm. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Expo1900SoundFilm. ... Sarah Bernhardt (October 23, 1844 – March 26, 1923) was a French stage actress. ... The Exposition Universelle of 1900 was a worlds fair held in Paris, France, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next. ... Manufacturers put records inside protective and decorative cardboard jackets and an inner paper sleeve to protect the grooves from dust and scratches. ... The term Sound-on-disc refers to a class of sound film processes utilizing a phonograph or other disc to record or playback sound in sync with a motion picture. ... Léon Gaumont, born May 10, 1864 - died August 10, 1946, was a French inventor, engineer, and industrialist who was a pioneer of the motion picture industry. ...

Innovations continued on other fronts, as well. In 1907, French-born, London-based Eugene Lauste—who had worked at Edison's lab between 1886 and 1892—was awarded the first patent for sound-on-film technology, involving the transformation of sound into light waves that are photographically recorded direct onto celluloid. As described by historian Scott Eyman, Eugene Augustin Lauste (born 1857 in Montmartre, France; died June 27, 1935 in Montclair, New Jersey) The Father of Sound on Film, was an inventor instrumental in the technological development of the history of cinema. ... Sound-on-film refers to a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film, usually, but not always, the same film strip of film carrying the picture. ... Celluloid is the name of a class of compounds created from nitrocellulose and camphor, plus dyes and other agents, generally regarded to be the first thermoplastic. ...

[I]t was a double system, that is, the sound was on a different piece of film from the picture.... In essence, the sound was captured by a microphone and translated into light waves via a light valve, a thin ribbon of sensitive metal over a tiny slit. The sound reaching this ribbon would be converted into light by the shivering of the diaphragm, focusing the resulting light waves through the slit, where it would be photographed on the side of the film, on a strip about a tenth of an inch wide.^[7]

Though sound-on-film would eventually become the universal standard for synchronized sound cinema, Lauste never successfully exploited his innovations, which came to an effective dead end. In 1913, Edison introduced a new cylinder-based synch-sound apparatus known, just like his 1895 system, as the Kinetophone; instead of films being shown to individual viewers in the kinetoscope cabinet, they were now projected onto a screen. The phonograph was connected by an intricate arrangement of pulleys to the film projector, allowing—under ideal conditions—for synchronization. Conditions, however, were rarely ideal, and the new, improved Kinetophone was retired after little more than a year.^[8] In 1914, Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt was granted German patent 309,536 for his sound-on-film work; that same year, he apparently demonstrated a film made with the process to an audience of scientists in Berlin.^[9] Eric Magnus Campbell Tigerstedt (August 4, 1887 – April 20, 1925) was one of the most significant inventors in Finland at the beginning of the 20th century, and has been called the Thomas Edison of Finland. He was the first person to implement a working sound-on-film technology, and in...

Other sound films, based on a variety of systems, were made before the 1920s, mostly of performers lip-synching to previously made audio recordings. The technology was far from adequate to big-league commercial purposes, and for many years the heads of the major Hollywood film studios saw little benefit in producing sound motion pictures. Thus such films were relegated, along with color movies, to the status of novelty. Lip synchronization is the synchronization of audio signals (sometimes with corresponding video signals) so that there is no noticeable lack of simultaneity between them. ... A major film studio is a movie production and distribution company that releases a substantial number of films annually and consistently commands a significant share of box-office revenues in a given market. ... 35 mm film frames from color film print (positive) with optical sound track (no digital sound tracks present). ...

Crucial innovations

A number of technological developments contributed to making sound cinema commercially viable by the late 1920s. Two involved contrasting approaches to synchronized sound reproduction, or playback:

Title card from an unidentified De Forest Phonofilms talkie.

Advanced sound-on-film – In 1919, American inventor Lee De Forest was awarded several patents that would lead to the first sound-on-film technology with commercial application. In De Forest's system, the sound track was photographically recorded on to the side of the strip of motion picture film to create a composite, or "married," print. If proper synchronization of sound and picture was achieved in recording, it could be absolutely counted on in playback. Over the next four years, he improved his system with the help of equipment and patents licensed from another American inventor in the field, Theodore Case.^[10] Image File history File links DeForestScreenShot. ... Image File history File links DeForestScreenShot. ... In 1919, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patent on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. ... Lee De Forest, (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor with over 300 patents to his credit. ... Theodore Case (1888 Auburn, New York – 1944) began working on his sound-on-film process in 1916. ...

At the University of Illinois, Polish-born research engineer Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner was working independently on a similar process. On June 9, 1922, he gave the first reported U.S. demonstration of a sound-on-film motion picture to members of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.^[11] As with Lauste and Tigerstedt, Tykociner's system would never be taken advantage of commercially; De Forest's, however, soon would. A Corner of Main Quad The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, or simply Illinois), is the oldest, largest, and most prestigious campus in the University of Illinois system. ... Joseph TykociÅ„ski-Tykociner (October 5, 1877 – June 11, 1969) was a Polish engineer and a pioneer of sound-on-film technology. ... is the 160th day of the year (161st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The American Institute of Electrical Engineers was a United States based organization of electrical engineers that existed between 1884 and 1963 (when it merged with the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE)). The 1884 founders of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) included some of the most prominent inventors and...

On April 15, 1923, at New York City's Rivoli Theater, came the first commercial screening of motion pictures with sound-on-film, the future standard: a set of shorts under the banner of De Forest Phonofilms, accompanying a silent feature.^[12] That June, De Forest entered into an extended legal battle with an employee, Freeman Harrison Owens, for title to one of the crucial Phonofilm patents. Although De Forest ultimately won the case in the courts, Owens is today recognized as a central innovator in the field. The following year, De Forest's studio released the first commercial dramatic film shot as a talking picture—the two-reeler Love's Old Sweet Song, directed by J. Searle Dawley and featuring Una Merkel.^[13] Phonofilms' stock in trade, however, was not original dramas but celebrity documentaries, popular music acts, and comedy performances. President Calvin Coolidge, opera singer Abbie Mitchell, and vaudeville stars such as Phil Baker, Ben Bernie, Eddie Cantor, and Oscar Levant appeared in the firm's pictures. Hollywood remained suspicious, even fearful, of the new technology. As Photoplay editor James Quirk put it in March 1924, "Talking pictures are perfected, says Dr. Lee De Forest. So is castor oil."^[14] De Forest's process continued to be used through 1927 in the United States for dozens of short Phonofilms; in the UK it was employed a few years longer for both shorts and features by British Sound Film Productions, a subsidiary of British Talking Pictures, which purchased the primary Phonofilm assets. By the end of 1930, the Phonofilm business would be liquidated.^[15] is the 105th day of the year (106th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... In 1919, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patent on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. ... Freeman Harrison Owens (July 20, 1890 - December 9, 1979), born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the only child of Charles H. Owens and Christabel Harrison. ... Una Merkel (December 10, 1903, Covington, Kentucky – January 2, 1986, Los Angeles) was a Tony Award winning and Academy Award nominated American film actress. ... John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. ... Abbie Mitchell (1884—1960) was an opera singer who created the role of Clara in Gershwins Porgy and Bess Mitchell began her carreer in Musical comedy with William Marion Cooks Clorindy; or, the Origin of the Cakewalk in 1898. ... Phil Baker (born August 26, 1896; died November 30, 1963) is best known as a popular American comedian and emcee on radio. ... Ben Bernie (1891-1943) was an American jazz violinist and radio personality. ... One of 12 Eddie Cantor caricatures by Frederick J. Garner for a 1933 Brown & Bigelow advertising card set. ... Oscar Levant (December 27, 1906 - August 14, 1972) was an American pianist, composer, author, comedian, and an actor, better known for his mordant character and witticisms, on the radio and in movies and television, than his music. ... Edna Purviance on the cover of Photoplay magazine Photoplay was one of the first film fan magazines. ...

In Europe, others were also working on the development of sound-on-film. In 1919, the same year that DeForest received his first patents in the field, three German inventors patented the Tri-Ergon sound system. On September 17, 1922, the Tri-Ergon group gave a public screening of sound-on-film productions—including a dramatic talkie, Der Brandstifter (The Arsonist)—before an invited audience at the Alhambra Kino in Berlin. By the end of the decade, Tri-Ergon would be the dominant European sound system. In 1923, two Danish engineers, Axel Petersen and Arnold Poulsen, patented a system in which sound was recorded on a separate filmstrip running parallel with the image reel. Gaumont would license and briefly put the technology to commercial use under the name Cinéphone.^[16] It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with sound-on-film. ... is the 260th day of the year (261st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

It was domestic competition, however, that would lead to Phonofilms' eclipse. By September 1925, De Forest and Case's working arrangement had fallen through. The following July, Case joined with Fox Film, Hollywood's third largest studio, to found the Fox-Case Corporation. The system developed by Case and his assistant, Earl Sponable, given the name Movietone, thus became the first viable sound-on-film technology controlled by a Hollywood movie studio. The following year, Fox purchased the North American rights to the Tri-Ergon system, though the company found it inferior to Movietone and virtually impossible to integrate the two different systems to advantage.^[17] In 1927, as well, Fox retained the services of Freeman Owens, who had particular expertise in constructing cameras for synch-sound film.^[18] Twentieth (20th) Century Fox Film Corporation (known from 1935 to 1985 as Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation) is one of the six major American film studios. ... The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1950s. ... The Movietone sound system is method of recording sound for moving pictures which guarantees synchronisation between the sound and the picture. ...

Advanced sound-on-disc – Parallel with improvements in sound-on-film technology, a number of companies were making progress with systems in which movie sound was recorded onto phonograph discs. In sound-on-disc technology from the era, a phonograph turntable is connected by a mechanical interlock to a specially modified film projector, allowing for synchronization. In 1921, the Photokinema sound-on-disc system developed by Orlando Kellum was employed to add synchronized sound sequences to D. W. Griffith's failed silent film Dream Street. A love song, performed by star Ralph Graves, was recorded, as was a sequence of live vocal effects. Apparently, dialogue scenes were also recorded, but the results were unsatisfactory and the film was never publicly screened incorporating them. On May 1, 1921, Dream Street was rereleased, with love song added, at New York City's Town Hall theater, qualifying it—however haphazardly—as the first feature-length film with a live-recorded vocal sequence.^[19] There would be no others for more than six years. An interlock is a device used to help prevent a machine from harming its operator or damaging itself by stopping the machine when tripped. ... 35 mm Kinoton movie projector in operation. ... Phono-Kinema (some sources say Photo-Kinema) was a sound-on-disc system for motion pictures invented by Orlando Kellum. ... David Llewelyn Wark D.W. Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American film director. ... is the 121st day of the year (122nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ...

Poster for Warner Bros.' Don Juan (1926), the first major motion picture to premiere with a full-length synchronized soundtrack. Audio recording engineer George Groves, the first in Hollywood to hold the job, would supervise sound on Woodstock, 44 years later.

In 1925, Warner Bros., then a small Hollywood studio with big ambitions, began experimenting with sound-on-disc systems at New York's Vitagraph Studios, which it had recently purchased. The Warner Bros. technology, named Vitaphone, was publicly introduced on August 6, 1926, with the premiere of the nearly three-hour-long Don Juan; the first feature-length movie to employ a synchronized sound system of any type throughout, its soundtrack contained a musical score and sound effects, but no recorded dialogue—in other words, it had been staged and shot as a silent film. Accompanying Don Juan, however, were eight shorts of musical performances, mostly classical, as well as a four-minute filmed introduction by Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, all with live-recorded sound. These were the first true sound films exhibited by a Hollywood studio.^[20] Don Juan would not go into general release until February of the following year, making the technically similar The Better 'Ole, put out by Warner Bros. in October 1926, the first feature film with synchronized playback throughout to show to a broad audience. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (677x960, 135 KB) low-res image of poster for Warner Bros film Don Juan (1926); fair use in sound film article to support discusssion of the first major motion picture with synch-sound throughout This image is of a movie poster... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (677x960, 135 KB) low-res image of poster for Warner Bros film Don Juan (1926); fair use in sound film article to support discusssion of the first major motion picture with synch-sound throughout This image is of a movie poster... “WB” redirects here. ... Don Juan is a 1926s Warner Bros silent film, directed by Alan Crosland. ... // Who he was Sound pioneer George R. Groves (1901 - 1976) George Robert Groves (1901 - 1976) was a film sound pioneer who played a significant role in developing the technology that brought sound to the silent screen. ... Woodstock (subtitled 3 Days of Peace & Music) is a 1970 documentary on the Woodstock Festival in 1969. ... “WB” redirects here. ... American Vitagraph was a United States movie studio, founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 and bought by Warner Brothers in 1925. ... The Warner Brothers Vitaphone logo. ... is the 218th day of the year (219th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Don Juan is a 1926s Warner Bros silent film, directed by Alan Crosland. ... In film formats, the soundtrack is the physical area of the film which records the synchronized sound. ... A film score is a set of musical compositions written to accompany a film. ... Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of movies, video games, music, or other media. ... Cover of Time Magazine (September 13, 1926) William Harrison Hays (November 5, 1879–March 7, 1954) was the namesake of the Hays Code, chairman of Republican National Committee and U.S. Postmaster General. ... MPAA redirects here. ...

Sound-on-film would ultimately win out over sound-on-disc because of a number of fundamental technical advantages:

• Synchronization: no interlock system was completely reliable, and sound could fall out of synch due to disc skipping or minute changes in film speed, requiring constant supervision and frequent manual adjustment
• Editing: discs could not be directly edited, severely limiting the ability to make alterations in their accompanying films after the original release cut
• Distribution: phonograph discs added extra expense and complication to film distribution
• Wear and tear: the physical process of playing the discs degraded them, requiring their replacement after approximately twenty screenings

Nonetheless, in the early years, sound-on-disc had the edge over sound-on-film in two substantial ways:

• Production and capital cost: it was generally less expensive to record sound onto disc than onto film and the central exhibition systems—turntable/interlock/projector—were cheaper to manufacture than the complex image-and-audio-pattern-reading projectors required by sound-on-film
• Audio quality: phonograph discs, Vitaphone's in particular, had superior dynamic range to most sound-on-film processes of the day, at least during the first few playings—while sound-on-film tended to have better frequency response, this was outweighed by greater distortion and noise

As sound-on-film technology improved, both of these disadvantages were overcome. For other uses, see Dynamic range (disambiguation). ... Frequency response is the measure of any systems response to frequency, but is usually used in connection with electronic amplifiers and similar systems, particularly in relation to audio signals. ... For other uses, see Distortion (disambiguation). ... In science, and especially in physics and telecommunication, noise is fluctuations in and the addition of external factors to the stream of target information (signal) being received at a detector. ...

The third crucial set of innovations marked a major step forward in both the live recording of sound and its effective playback:

Western Electric engineer E. B. Craft, at left, demonstrating the Vitaphone projection system. A Vitaphone disc had a running time of about 11 minutes, enough to match that of a 1,000-foot reel of 35mm film.

Fidelity electronic recording and amplification – Beginning in 1922, the research branch of AT&T's Western Electric manufacturing division began working intensively on recording technology for both sound-on-disc and sound-on film. In 1925, the company publicly introduced a greatly improved system of electronic audio, including sensitive condenser microphones and rubber-line recorders. That May, the company licensed entrepreneur Walter J. Rich to exploit the system for commercial motion pictures; he founded Vitagraph, which Warner Bros. acquired a half interest in just one month later. In April 1926, Warners signed a contract with AT&T for exclusive use of its film sound technology for the redubbed Vitaphone operation, leading to the production of Don Juan and its accompanying shorts over the following months. During the period when Vitaphone had exclusive access to the patents, the fidelity of recordings made for Warners films was markedly superior to those made for the company's sound-on-film competitors. Meanwhile, Bell Labs—the new name for the AT&T research operation—was working at a furious pace on sophisticated sound amplification technology that would allow recordings to be played back over loudspeakers at theater-filling volume. The new moving-coil speaker system was installed in New York's Warners Theatre at the end of July and its patent submission, for what Western Electric called the No. 555 Receiver, was filed on August 4, just two days before the premiere of Don Juan.^[21] Image File history File links VitaphoneDemo. ... Image File history File links VitaphoneDemo. ... Company Masthead Logo Logo until circa 1969, also current logo on company web site Logo 1969–1983 Hi Dan! Western Electric (sometimes abbreviated WE and WECo) was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. ... The Warner Brothers Vitaphone logo. ... This article is about the current AT&T. For the 1885-2005 company, see American Telephone & Telegraph. ... Company Masthead Logo Logo until circa 1969, also current logo on company web site Logo 1969–1983 Hi Dan! Western Electric (sometimes abbreviated WE and WECo) was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. ... Microphones redirects here. ... Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) was the main research and development arm of the United States Bell System. ... For the Marty Friedman album, see Loudspeaker (album) An inexpensive low fidelity 3. ... is the 216th day of the year (217th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

Late in the year, AT&T/Western Electric created a licensing division, Electrical Research Products Inc. (ERPI), to handle rights to the company's film-related audio technology. Vitaphone still had legal exclusivity, but having lapsed in its royalty payments, effective control of the rights was in ERPI's hands. On December 31, 1926, Warners granted Fox-Case a sublicense for the use of the Western Electric system in exchange for a share of revenues that would go directly to ERPI.^[22] The patents of all three concerns were cross-licensed. Superior recording and amplification technology was now available to two Hollywood studios, pursuing two very different methods of sound reproduction. The new year would finally see the emergence of sound cinema as a significant commercial medium. is the 365th day of the year (366th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Triumph of the "talkies"

In February 1927, an agreement was signed by five leading Hollywood movie companies: the so-called Big Two—Paramount and MGM—a pair of studios in the next rank—Universal and the fading First National—and Cecil B. DeMille's small but prestigious Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC). The five studios agreed to collectively select just one provider for sound conversion. The alliance then sat back and waited to see what sort of results the forerunners came up with. In May, Warner Bros. sold back its exclusivity rights to ERPI (along with the Fox-Case sublicense) and signed a new royalty contract similar to Fox's for use of Western Electric technology. As Fox and Warners pressed forward with sound cinema in different directions, both technologically and commercially—Fox with newsreels and then scored dramas, Warners with talking features—so did ERPI, which sought to corner the market by signing up the five allied studios. Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production and distribution company, based in Hollywood, California. ... MGM logo Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or MGM, is a large media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of cinema and television programs. ... This article is about the American media conglomerate. ... The First National Exhibitors Circuit was founded 1917 by the merger of 26 of the biggest First Run cinema chains in the United States of America, controlling more than 600 cinemas, more than 200 of them were First Run cinemas. ... Cecil Blount DeMille (August 12, 1881 – January 21, 1959) was one of the most successful filmmakers during the first half of the 20th century. ...

Poster from a fully equipped theater in Tacoma, Washington, showing The Jazz Singer, on Vitaphone, and a Fox newsreel, on Movietone, together on the same bill.

The big sound film sensations of the year all took advantage of pre-existing celebrity. On May 20, 1927, at New York's Roxy Theater, Fox Movietone presented a sound film of the takeoff of Charles Lindbergh's celebrated flight to Paris, recorded earlier that day. In June, a Fox sound newsreel depicting his return welcomes in New York and Washington, D.C., was shown. These were the two most acclaimed sound motion pictures to date.^[23] In May, as well, Fox had released the first Hollywood fiction film with synchronized dialogue: the short They're Coming to Get Me, starring comedian Chic Sale.^[24] After rereleasing a few silent feature hits, such as Seventh Heaven, with recorded music, Fox came out with its first original Movietone feature on September 23: Sunrise, by acclaimed German director F. W. Murnau. As with Don Juan, the film's soundtrack was comprised of a musical score and sound effects (including, in a couple of crowd scenes, "wild", nonspecific vocals). Then, on October 6, 1927, Warner Bros.' The Jazz Singer premiered. It was a smash box office success for the mid-level studio, earning a total of $2.625 million in the U.S. and abroad, almost a million dollars more than the previous record for a Warners film.^[25] Produced with the Vitaphone system, most of the film does not contain live-recorded audio, relying, like Sunrise and Don Juan, on a score and effects. When the movie's star, Al Jolson, sings, however, the film shifts to sound recorded on the set, including both his musical performances and two scenes with ad-libbed speech—one of Jolson's character, Jakie Rabinowitz (Jack Robin), addressing a cabaret audience; the other an exchange between him and his mother. Though the success of The Jazz Singer was due largely to Jolson, already established as one of America's biggest music stars, and its limited use of synchronized sound hardly qualified it as an innovative sound film (let alone the "first"), the movie's handsome profits were proof enough to the industry that the technology was worth investing in. Image File history File links JazzSingerAndFox. ... Image File history File links JazzSingerAndFox. ... The Jazz Singer (1927) is a U.S. movie musical and the first feature-length motion picture with talking sequences. ... The Movietone sound system is method of recording sound for moving pictures which guarantees synchronisation between the sound and the picture. ... is the 140th day of the year (141st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Roxy Theater in New York City was a 6,214 seat movie theater at 153 West 50th Street at 7th Avenue, opened on March 11, 1927 by Samuel Roxy Rothafel. ... Movietone News produced cinema newsreels from 1929-1979. ... Charles Augustus Lindbergh (4 February 1902 – 26 August 1974) (aka Lucky Lindy; The Lone Eagle) was an American aviator who was made world famous by being the pilot of the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic made solo from Roosevelt Field, Long Island to Paris on 20 May-21... Charles Chic Sale (b. ... For other uses, see Seventh Heaven (disambiguation) Seventh Heaven is a 1927 silent film that was one of the first films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (then called Best Picture, Production). The film was written by H.H. Caldwell (titles), Benjamin Glazer, Katherine Hilliker (titles... is the 266th day of the year (267th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (aka Sunrise) is a 1927 American film directed by F.W. Murnau. ... F W Murnau Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (December 28, 1888 - March 11, 1931) was one of the most influential directors of the silent film era. ... is the 279th day of the year (280th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Jazz Singer (1927) is a U.S. movie musical and the first feature-length motion picture with talking sequences. ... Al Jolson (May 26, 1886–October 23, 1950) was a highly acclaimed American singer, comedian and actor of Jewish heritage whose career lasted from 1911 until his death in 1950. ...

The development of commercial sound cinema had proceeded in fits and starts before The Jazz Singer, and the film's success did not change things overnight. Not till May 1928 did the group of four big studios (PDC had dropped out of the alliance), along with United Artists and others, sign with ERPI for conversion of production facilities and theaters for sound film. Initially, all ERPI-wired theaters were made Vitaphone-compatible; most were equipped to project Movietone reels as well.^[26] Even with access to both technologies, however, most of the Hollywood companies remained slow to produce talking features of their own. No studio beside Warner Bros. released even a part-talking feature until the low-budget-oriented Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) premiered The Perfect Crime on June 17, 1928, eight months after The Jazz Singer.^[27] FBO had come under the effective control of a Western Electric competitor, General Electric's RCA division, which was looking to market its new sound-on-film system, Photophone. Unlike Fox-Case's Movietone and De Forest's Phonofilm, which were variable-density systems, Photophone was a variable-area system—a refinement in the way the audio signal was inscribed on film that would ultimately become the rule. (In both sorts of system, a specially designed lamp, whose exposure to the film is determined by the audio input, is used to record sound photographically as a series of minuscule lines. In a variable-density process, the lines are of varying darkness; in a variable-area process, the lines are of varying width.) By October, the FBO-RCA alliance would lead to the creation of Hollywood's newest major studio, RKO Pictures. This article is about the film studio. ... Poster for The Cowboy Cop (1926), starring Tom Tyler, one of the best known of FBOs many Western stars. ... is the 168th day of the year (169th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... GE redirects here. ... RCA, formerly an acronym for the Radio Corporation of America, is now a trademark owned by Thomson SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Thomson. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... A photograph with an exposure time of 25 seconds A photograph of a night-time sky with an exposure time of 8 seconds In photography, exposure is the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium (photographic film or image sensor) during the process of taking a... RKO redirects here. ...

Dorothy Mackaill and Milton Sills in The Barker, First National's inaugural talkie. The film was released in December 1928, two months after Warner Bros. acquired a controlling interest in the studio.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. had released three more talkies in the spring, all profitable, if not at the level of the The Jazz Singer: In March, The Tenderloin appeared; it was billed by Warners as the first feature in which characters spoke their parts, though only 15 of its 88 minutes had dialogue. Glorious Betsy followed in April, and The Lion and the Mouse (31 minutes of dialogue) in May.^[28] On July 6, 1928, the first all-talking feature, Lights of New York, premiered. The film cost Warner Bros. only $23,000 to produce, but grossed $1.252 million, a record rate of return surpassing 5,000%. In September, the studio released another Al Jolson part-talking picture, The Singing Fool, which more than doubled The Jazz Singer's earnings record for a Warners movie.^[29] This second Jolson screen smash demonstrated the movie musical's ability to turn a song into a national hit: by the following summer, the Jolson number "Sonny Boy" had racked up 2 million record and 1.25 million sheet music sales.^[30] September 1928 also saw the release of Paul Terry's Dinner Time, among the first animated cartoons produced with synchronized sound. After seeing it, Walt Disney decided to make one of his Mickey Mouse shorts, Steamboat Willie, with sound as well. Image File history File links BarkerMackaillSills. ... Image File history File links BarkerMackaillSills. ... Dorothy Mackaill Dorothy Mackaill (March 4, 1903 - August 12, 1990) was an British-born American actress, most notably of the silent film era and into the early 1930s. ... Milton Sills Milton Sills (January 12, 1882 - September 15, 1930) was a highly successful American stage and film actor of the early twentieth century. ... The First National Exhibitors Circuit was founded 1917 by the merger of 26 of the biggest First Run cinema chains in the United States of America, controlling more than 600 cinemas, more than 200 of them were First Run cinemas. ... is the 187th day of the year (188th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Lights of New York (1928) was the first ever feature film that had complete sound sychronization. ... The Singing Fool, a movie, with the lead role of Al Jolson, appeared in 1928, as a follow up movie to his earlier talkies, The Jazz Singer. ... Paul H. Terry (Born February 19, 1887 in San Mateo, California, USA-Died October 25, 1971 in New York, New York, USA) is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, film director and the most prolific film producer in history. ... Dinner Time is a 1928 animated short subject produced and directed by Paul Terry and co-directed by John Foster. ... An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn (or made with computers to look similar to something hand-drawn) film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot (even if it is a very short one). ... For the company founded by Disney, see The Walt Disney Company. ... Mickey Mouse is an Academy Award-winning comic animal cartoon character who has become an icon for The Walt Disney Company. ... Early American actor William Garwood starred in numerous short films, many of which were only 20 minutes in length Short subject is a format description originally coined in the North American film industry in the early period of cinema. ... Steamboat Willie (1928) is an animated cartoon featuring Mickey Mouse released on November 18, 1928. ...

Over the course of 1928, as Warner Bros. began to rake in huge profits due to the popularity of its sound films, the other studios quickened the pace of their conversion to the new technology. Paramount, the industry leader, put out its first talkie in late September, Beggars of Life; though it had just a few lines of dialogue, it demonstrated the studio's recognition of the new medium's power. Interference, Paramount's first all-talker, debuted in November. The process known as "goat glanding" briefly became widespread: soundtracks, sometimes including a smatter of post-dubbed dialogue or song, were added to movies that had been shot, and in some cases released, as silents.^[31] A few minutes of singing could qualify such a newly endowed film as a "musical." (Griffith's Dream Street had essentially been a "goat gland.") Expectations swiftly changed, and the sound "fad" of 1927 became standard procedure by 1929. In February 1929, sixteen months after The Jazz Singer's debut, Columbia Pictures became the last of the eight studios that would be known as "majors" during Hollywood's Golden Age to release its first part-talking feature, Lone Wolf's Daughter.^[32] Most American movie theaters, especially outside of urban areas, were still not equipped for sound and the studios were not entirely convinced of the talkies' universal appeal—through mid-1930, the majority of Hollywood movies were produced in dual versions, silent as well as talking.^[33] Though few in the industry predicted it, silent film as a viable commercial medium in the United States would soon be little more than a memory. The final mainstream purely silent feature put out by a major Hollywood studio was the Hoot Gibson oater Points West, released by Universal Pictures in August 1929.^[34] One month earlier, the first all-color, all-talking feature had gone into general release: Warner Bros.' On with the Show! The Columbia Pictures logo from 1993 to the present Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. ... A major film studio is a movie production and distribution company that releases a substantial number of films annually and consistently commands a significant share of box-office revenues in a given market. ... Hoot Gibson (August 6, 1892 - August 23, 1962) was a rodeo champion and a pioneer cowboy film actor, director and producer. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Color Fragment from Film. ...

The transition: Europe

Perhaps Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame (1929) would be better remembered today if costar Marlene Dietrich, instead of kissing their hands, had been invited to sing.

The Jazz Singer had its European sound premiere at the Piccadilly Theatre in London on September 27, 1928.^[35] According to film historian Rachael Low, "Many in the industry realized at once that a change to sound production was inevitable."^[36] On January 16, 1929, the first European feature film with a synchronized vocal performance and recorded score premiered: the German production Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame (I Kiss Your Hand, Madame).^[37] A dialogueless film that contains only a few minutes of singing by star Richard Tauber, it may be thought of as the Old World's combination Dream Street and Don Juan. The movie was made with the sound-on-film system controlled by the German-Dutch firm Tobis, corporate heirs to the Tri-Ergon concern. With an eye toward commanding the emerging European market for sound film, Tobis entered into a compact with its chief competitor, Klangfilm, a subsidiary of Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft (AEG). Early in 1929, the two businesses began comarketing their recording and playback technologies. As ERPI began to wire theaters around Europe, Tobis-Klangfilm claimed that the Western Electric system infringed on the Tri-Ergon patents, stalling the introduction of American technology in many places. Just as RCA had entered the movie business to maximize the value of its recording system, Tobis also established its own production houses, led by Germany's Tobis Filmkunst. Image File history File links DietrichIKIHM.jpg‎ Marlene Dietrich in Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame (I Kiss Your Hand, Madame) (1929); fair use in sound film article supporting discussion of movie as the first German (and European) feature-length sound film with recorded vocals This image is a screenshot... Image File history File links DietrichIKIHM.jpg‎ Marlene Dietrich in Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame (I Kiss Your Hand, Madame) (1929); fair use in sound film article supporting discussion of movie as the first German (and European) feature-length sound film with recorded vocals This image is a screenshot... Marlene Dietrich IPA: ; (December 27, 1901 – May 6, 1992) was a German-born American actress, singer and entertainer. ... is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 16th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Richard Tauber (16 May 1891 – 8 January 1948) was an Austrian tenor acclaimed as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. ... AEG volt-metre designed by Peter Behrens AEG (Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft) (English Translation: General Electricity Company) was a German producer of electronics and electrical equipment. ...

The Prague-raised star of Blackmail (1929), Anny Ondra, was an industry favorite, but her thick accent became an issue when the film was reshot with sound. Without post-dubbing capacity, her dialogue was simultaneously uttered and recorded offscreen by actress Joan Barry. Ondra's British film career was over.

Over the course of 1929, most of the major European filmmaking countries began joining Hollywood in the changeover to sound. Many of the trend-setting European talkies were shot abroad as production companies leased studios while their own were being converted or as they deliberately targeted markets speaking different languages. One of Europe's first two feature-length dramatic talkies was created in still a different sort of twist on multinational moviemaking: The Crimson Circle was a coproduction between director Friedrich Zelnik's Efzet-Film company and British Sound Film Productions (BSFP). In 1928, the film had been released as the silent Der Rote Kreis in Germany, where it was shot; English dialogue was apparently dubbed in much later using the De Forest Phonofilm process controlled by BSFP's corporate parent. It was given a British trade screening in March 1929, as was a part-talking film made entirely in the UK: The Clue of the New Pin, a British Lion production using the sound-on-disc British Photophone system. In May, Black Waters, a British and Dominions Film Corporation promoted as the first UK all-talker, received its initial trade screening; it had been shot completely in Hollywood with a Western Electric sound-on-film system. None of these pictures made much impact.^[38] The first successful European dramatic talkie was the all-British Blackmail. Directed by twenty-nine-year-old Alfred Hitchcock, the movie had its London debut June 21, 1929. Originally shot as a silent, Blackmail was restaged to include dialogue sequences, along with a score and sound effects, before its premiere. A British International Pictures (BIP) production, it was recorded on RCA Photophone, General Electric having bought a share of AEG in order to gain access to the Tobis-Klangfilm markets. Blackmail was a substantial hit; critical response was also positive—notorious curmudgeon Hugh Castle, for example, called it "perhaps the most intelligent mixture of sound and silence we have yet seen."^[39] Image File history File links BlackmailStill. ... Image File history File links BlackmailStill. ... Blackmail (1929) was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and stars Anny Ondra, John Longden, and Cyril Ritchard, and based on the play Blackmail by Charles Bennett. ... Anna Sophie Ondráková, known as Anny Ondra (May 15, 1903, Tarnów - February 28, 1987, Hollenstedt near Hamburg) was a Czech/German actress. ... In filmmaking, dubbing or looping is the process of recording or replacing voices for a motion picture. ... World War I recruiting poster John Bull is a national personification of Britain created by Dr. John Arbuthnot in 1712 and popularized first by British print makers and then overseas by illustrators such as American cartoonist Thomas Nast. ... Blackmail (1929) was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and stars Anny Ondra, John Longden, and Cyril Ritchard, and based on the play Blackmail by Charles Bennett. ... Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE (August 13, 1899 â€“ April 29, 1980) was an iconic and highly influential British-born film director and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and thriller genres. ... is the 172nd day of the year (173rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC), originally British International Pictures (BIP), was a British film production company active from 1927 until 1970. ...

On August 23, the modest-sized Austrian film industry came out with a talkie: G’schichten aus der Steiermark (Stories from Styria), an Eagle Film–Ottoton Film production.^[40] On September 30, the first entirely German-made feature-length dramatic talkie, Das Land ohne Frauen (Land Without Women), premiered. A Tobis Filmkunst production, about one-quarter of the movie contained dialogue, which was strictly segregated from the special effects and music. The response was underwhelming.^[41] Sweden's first talkie, Konstgjorda Svensson (Artificial Svensson), premiered on October 14. Eight days later, Aubert Franco-Film came out with Le Collier de la reine (The Queen's Necklace), shot at the Epinay studio near Paris. Conceived as a silent film, it was given a Tobis-recorded score and a single talking sequence—the first dialogue scene in a French feature. On October 31, Les Trois masques debuted; a Pathé-Natan film, it is generally regarded as the initial French feature talkie, though it was shot, like Blackmail, at the Elstree studio, just outside of London. The production company had contracted with RCA Photophone and Britain then had the nearest facility with the system. The Braunberger-Richebé talkie La Route est belle, also shot at Elstree, followed a few weeks later.^[42] Before the Paris studios were fully sound-equipped—a process that stretched well into 1930—a number of other early French talkies were shot in Germany.^[43] The first all-talking German feature, Atlantik, had premiered in Berlin on October 28. Yet another Elstree-made movie, it was rather less German at heart than Les Trois masques and La Route est belle were French; a BIP production with a British scenarist and German director, it was also shot in English as Atlantic.^[44] The entirely German Aafa-Film production Dich hab ich geliebt (Because I Loved You) opened three-and-a-half weeks later. It was not "Germany's First Talking Film", as the marketing had it, but it was the first to be released in the United States.^[45] {| style=float:right; |- | |- | |} is the 235th day of the year (236th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 273rd day of the year (274th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 287th day of the year (288th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Épinay-sur-Seine is a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, France. ... is the 304th day of the year (305th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France. ... Historically, the name Elstree Studios refers to any of several film studios that were based in the town of Elstree and Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, England. ... is the 301st day of the year (302nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

The first Soviet talkie, Putyovka v zhizn (The Road to Life; 1931), concerns the issue of homeless youth. As Marcel Carné put it, "in the unforgettable images of this spare and pure story we can discern the effort of an entire nation."^[46]

In 1930, the first Polish talkies premiered, using sound-on-disc systems: Moralność pani Dulskiej (The Morality of Mrs. Dulska) in March and the all-talking Niebezpieczny romans (Dangerous Love Affair) in October.^[47] In Italy, whose once vibrant film industry had become moribund by the late 1920s, the first talkie, La Canzone dell'amore (The Song of Love), also came out in October; within two years, Italian cinema would be enjoying a revival.^[48] The first movie spoken in Czech debuted in 1930 as well, Tonka Šibenice (Gallows Toni).^[49] Several European nations with minor positions in the field also produced their first talking pictures—Belgium (in French), Denmark, Greece, and Romania.^[50] The Soviet Union's robust film industry came out with its first sound features in 1931: Dziga Vertov's nonfiction Entuziazm, with an experimental, dialogueless soundtrack, was released in the spring.^[51] In the fall, the Nikolai Ekk drama Putyovka v zhizn (The Road to Life), premiered as the state's first talking picture. Image File history File links Putevka_v_zhisn_poster. ... Image File history File links Putevka_v_zhisn_poster. ... Marcel Carné (August 18, 1906 - October 31, 1996) was an important French film director. ... Dziga Vertov Dziga (Dzyga) Vertov (Russian: , Ukrainian: ) January 2, 1896–February 12, 1954) was a Russian pioneer documentary film and newsreel director. ...

Throughout much of Europe, conversion of exhibition venues lagged well behind production capacity, requiring talkies to be produced in parallel silent versions or simply shown without sound in many places. While the pace of conversion was relatively swift in Britain—with over 60 percent of theaters equipped for sound by the end of 1930, similar to the U.S. figure—in France, by contrast, more than half of theaters nationwide were still projecting in silence by late 1932.^[52] According to scholar Colin G. Crisp, "Anxiety about resuscitating the flow of silent films was frequently expressed in the [French] industrial press, and a large section of the industry still saw the silent as a viable artistic and commercial prospect till about 1935."^[53] The situation was particularly acute in the Soviet Union; as of spring 1933, fewer than one out of every hundred film projectors in the country was as yet equipped for sound.^[54]

The transition: Asia

Director Gosho Heinosuke's Madamu to nyobo (The Neighbor's Wife and Mine; 1931), a production of the Shochiku studio, was the first major commercial and critical success of Japanese sound cinema.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Japan was one of the world's two largest producers of motion pictures, along with the United States. Though the country's film industry was among the first to produce both sound and talking features, the full changeover to sound proceeded much more slowly than in the West. It appears that the first Japanese sound film, Reimai (Dawn), was made in 1926 with the De Forest Phonofilm system.^[55] Using the sound-on-disc Minatoki system, the leading Nikkatsu studio produced a pair of talkies in 1929: Taii no musume (The Captain's Daughter) and Furusato (Hometown), the latter directed by Mizoguchi Kenji. The rival Shochiku studio began the successful production of sound-on-film talkies in 1931 using a variable-density process called Tsuchibashi.^[56] Two years later, however, more than 80 percent of movies made in the country were still silents. Two of the country's leading directors, Ozu Yasujiro and Naruse Mikio, did not make their first sound films until 1935. As late as 1938, over a third of all movies produced in Japan were shot without dialogue.^[57] Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (3193x2140, 856 KB) image from Madamu to nyobo (1931), directed by Heinosuke Gosho, a Shochiku production; fair use in sound film article representing the first critically and commercially successful Japanese all-talking sound film This image is a screenshot from a... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (3193x2140, 856 KB) image from Madamu to nyobo (1931), directed by Heinosuke Gosho, a Shochiku production; fair use in sound film article representing the first critically and commercially successful Japanese all-talking sound film This image is a screenshot from a... Heinosuke Gosho is a Japanese film director. ... Shochiku Co. ... The Nikkatsu Company ) is Japanese entertainment company well known for its film and television productions. ... Kenji Mizoguchi Kenji Mizoguchi (溝口 健二 Mizoguchi Kenji; May 16, 1898 – August 24, 1956) was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. ... Shochiku Co. ... Yasujiro Ozu (小津 安二郎 Ozu Yasujirō) (December 12, 1903 - December 12, 1963) was an influential Japanese film director. ... Mikio Naruse Mikio Naruse (成瀬巳喜男 Naruse Mikio) (August 20, 1905 – July 2, 1969) was a Japanese film director, writer and producer who directed some 89 films spanning from the end of the silent era (1930) through the sixties (1967). ...

The enduring popularity of the silent medium in Japanese cinema owed in great part to the tradition of the benshi, a live narrator who performed as accompaniment to a film screening. As director Kurosawa Akira later described, the benshi "not only recounted the plot of the films, they enhanced the emotional content by performing the voices and sound effects and providing evocative descriptions of events and images on the screen.... The most popular narrators were stars in their own right, solely responsible for the patronage of a particular theatre."^[58] Film historian Mariann Lewinsky argues, Benshi (弁士 in Japanese) were performers who provided live narration for silent Japanese films. ... Kurosawa redirects here. ...

The end of silent film in the West and in Japan was imposed by the industry and the market, not by any inner need or natural evolution.... Silent cinema was a highly pleasurable and fully mature form. It didn't lack anything, least in Japan, where there was always the human voice doing the dialogues and the commentary. Sound films were not better, just more economical. As a cinema owner you didn't have to pay the wages of musicians and benshi any more. And a good benshi was a star demanding star payment.^[59]

By the same token, the viability of the benshi system facilitated a gradual transition to sound—allowing the studios to spread out the capital costs of conversion and their directors and technical crews time to become familiar with the new technology.^[60]

Alam Ara premiered March 14, 1931, in Bombay. The first Indian talkie was so popular that "police aid had to be summoned to control the crowds."^[61] It was shot with the Tanar single-system camera, which recorded sound directly onto the film.

The Mandarin-language Gēnǚ hóng mǔdān (歌女紅牡丹, Singsong Girl Red Peony), starring Butterfly Wu, premiered as China's first feature talkie in 1930. By February of that year, production was apparently completed on a sound version of The Devil's Playground, arguably qualifying it as the first Australian talking motion picture; however, the May press screening of Commonwealth Film Contest prizewinner Fellers is the first verifiable public exhibition of an Australian talkie.^[62] In September 1930, a song performed by Indian star Sulochana, excerpted from the silent feature Madhuri (1928), was released as a synchronized-sound short, making it that nation's mini–Dream Street.^[63] The following year, Ardeshir Irani directed the first Indian talking feature, the Hindi-Urdu Alam Ara, and produced Kalidas, primarily in Tamil with some Telugu. Nineteen-thirty-one also saw the first Bengali-language film, Jamai Sasthi, and the first movie fully spoken in Telugu, Bhakta Prahlada.^[64] In 1932, Ayodhyecha Raja became the