Warner Bros. introduced The Jazz Singer in 1927, the first commercially successful feature-length talking picture.
Directed by Alan Crosland and starring Al Jolson, the film used Warner Bros.’ Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. Most scenes remained silent and relied on intertitles, but Jolson’s songs and several brief spoken exchanges were recorded and synchronized with the picture.
The film premiered on October 6, 1927, at Warner Bros.’ flagship theater in New York. Its success demonstrated that audiences would pay to hear performers speak and sing on screen, accelerating Hollywood’s costly conversion from silent films to sound. Warner Bros. had already released Don Juan in 1926 with synchronized music and effects, so The Jazz Singer was not literally the first sound film; it was the breakthrough commercial talkie.
A common mix-up is crediting Fox, which developed the competing Movietone sound-on-film system. Warner Bros., however, produced and distributed The Jazz Singer and supplied the Vitaphone technology that made its synchronized performances possible.