On the night of October 6, 1927, audiences crowded into the Warner Theatre in New York City for the premiere of a film called The Jazz Singer. The lights dimmed, the picture flickered onto the screen - and then something amazing happened. The star, a singer named Al Jolson, opened his mouth and the audience heard his voice. 'Wait a minute, wait a minute,' he said. 'You ain't heard nothin' yet!' The crowd went wild. Movies could talk.
Until that evening, every film had been silent. Actors mimed their lines while a live pianist or organist played along, and big white cards popped up between scenes to show the dialogue. Sound and picture had never been able to stay locked together. The Jazz Singer used a brand-new system called Vitaphone, which played a giant phonograph record perfectly synced to the projector. Most of the film was still silent, but a handful of singing and speaking scenes broke the silence - and broke the rules of cinema forever.
Within three years, almost every Hollywood studio had switched to making 'talkies.' Some silent-film stars couldn't make the jump - their voices didn't match the characters audiences had imagined. New stars rose with great voices and quick comic timing. Today every blockbuster, every animated film, every superhero shouting from a rooftop traces back to one October night in 1927, when a singer leaned into a microphone and let the movies find their voice.
