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{{Short description|
{{Redirect|Talking pictures|the British television channel|Talking Pictures TV}}
{{Redirect2|Talkie|Talkies|the adventure games that feature voice-overs|Adventure game#Expansion (1990–2000)}}
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[[File: Gaumont1902.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.3|alt=Illustration of a theater from the rear of the stage. At the front of the stage, a screen hangs. In the foreground is a gramophone with two horns. In the background, a large audience is seated at orchestra level and on several balconies. The words "Chronomégaphone" and "Gaumont" appear at both the bottom of the illustration and, in reverse, at the top of the projection screen.|1908 poster advertising [[Gaumont Film Company|Gaumont]]'s sound films. The [[Chronomégaphone]], designed for large halls, employed compressed air to amplify the recorded sound.<ref>Wierzbicki (2009), p. 74; "Representative Kinematograph Shows" (1907).[http://www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm The Auxetophone and Other Compressed-Air Gramophones] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100918210354/http://www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm |date=September 18, 2010 }} explains pneumatic amplification and includes several detailed photographs of Gaumont's Elgéphone, which was apparently a slightly later and more elaborate version of the Chronomégaphone.</ref>]]
A '''sound film''' is a [[motion picture]] with [[synchronization|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 passed before sound motion pictures became commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early [[sound-on-disc]] systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in [[sound-on-film]] led to the first commercial screening of [[Short film|short motion pictures]] using the technology, which took place in 1923.
The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid-to-late 1920s. At first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as "'''talking pictures'''", or "'''talkies'''", were exclusively shorts. The earliest [[feature film|feature-length]] movies with recorded sound included only music and effects. The first feature film originally presented as a talkie (although it had only limited sound sequences) was ''[[The Jazz Singer]]'', which premiered on October 6, 1927.<ref>[https://jolsonville.net/2013/09/10/the-first-talkie/#more-1016 The first talkie - "The Jazz Singer"], Jolsonville, Oct. 9, 2013</ref> A major hit, it was made with [[Vitaphone]], which was at the time the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-film, however, would soon become the standard for talking pictures.
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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 centers of influence (see [[Cinema of the United States]]). 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 silent cinema. In [[Cinema of Japan|Japan]], where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance (''[[benshi]]''), talking pictures were slow to take root. Conversely, in India, sound was the transformative element that led to the rapid expansion of [[Cinema of India|the nation's film industry]].
==
{{Further|Kinetoscope}}
[[File:Dickson Film Still 2.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.35|alt=On the left is a large acoustical horn, suspended from a cord that rises out of the frame. A man plays a violin in front of it. To the right, two men dance together.|Image from [[The Dickson Experimental Sound Film]] (1894 or 1895), produced by [[William Kennedy Dickson|W.K.L. Dickson]] as a test of the early version of the [[Thomas Edison|Edison]] [[Kinetoscope#Kinetophone|Kinetophone]], combining the [[Kinetoscope]] and [[phonograph]].]]
[[File:Eric Magnus Tigerstedt.jpg|thumb|[[Eric M. C. Tigerstedt]] (1887–1925) was one of the pioneers of sound-on-film technology. Tigerstedt in 1915.]]
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 met privately. 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.<ref>Robinson (1997), p. 23.</ref> 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 [[phonograph cylinder|cylinder]] [[phonograph]]. The two devices were brought together as the [[kinetoscope#Kinetophone|Kinetophone]] in 1895, but individual, cabinet viewing of motion pictures was soon to be outmoded by successes in film projection.<ref>Robertson (2001) claims that German inventor and filmmaker [[Oskar Messter]] began projecting sound motion pictures at 21 Unter den Linden in September 1896 (p. 168), but this seems to be an error. Koerber (1996) notes that after Messter acquired the Cinema Unter den Linden (located in the back room of a restaurant), it reopened under his management on September 21, 1896 (p. 53), but no source beside Robertson describes Messter as screening sound films before 1903.</ref>
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[[File:Expo1900SoundFilm.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.35|alt=Illustration of a red-haired woman wearing a large hat, an ankle-length yellow dress, and high heels. She is holding a long baton or swagger stick and leaning against a film projector. A gramophone sits at her feet. The top of the illustration reads "Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre". Text to the left of the woman reads "Visions Animées des Artistes Celèbres", followed by a list of performers.|Poster featuring [[Sarah Bernhardt]] and giving the names of eighteen other "famous artists" shown in "living visions" at the [[Exposition Universelle (1900)|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", after one of the primary inventors in the field, German-American [[Emile Berliner]]. In 1902, [[Léon Gaumont]] demonstrated his sound-on-disc Chronophone, involving an electrical connection he had recently patented, to the [[Société française de photographie|French Photographic Society]].<ref>Barnier (2002), p. 29.</ref> Four years later, Gaumont introduced the Elgéphone, a compressed-air amplification system based on the Auxetophone, developed by British inventors Horace Short and Charles Parsons.<ref>Altman (2005), p. 158. If there was a drawback to the Elgéphone, it was apparently not a lack of volume. Dan Gilmore describes its predecessor technology in his 2004 essay [
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. However, conditions were rarely ideal, and the new, improved Kinetophone was retired after little more than a year.<ref>Gomery (1985), pp. 54–55.</ref> By the mid-1910s, the groundswell in commercial sound motion picture exhibition had subsided.<ref name=Alt /> Beginning in 1914, ''[[The Photo-Drama of Creation]]'', promoting [[Jehovah's Witnesses]]' conception of humankind's genesis, was screened around the United States: eight hours worth of projected visuals involving both slides and live action, synchronized with separately recorded lectures and musical performances played back on phonograph.<ref>Lindvall (2007), pp. 118–25; Carey (1999), pp. 322–23.</ref>
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[[File:Phonofilm1.jpg|thumb|right|alt=All-text advertisement from the Strand Theater, giving dates, times, and performers' names. At the top, a tagline reads, "$10,000 reward paid to any person who finds a phonograph or similar device used in the phonofilms." The accompanying promotional text describes the slate of sound pictures as "the sensation of the century ... Amazing! Astounding! Unbelievable".|Newspaper ad for a 1925 presentation of Phonofilm shorts, touting their technological distinction: no phonograph.]]
On April 15, 1923, at the New York City's Rivoli Theater, the first commercial screening of motion pictures with sound-on-film took place. This would become the future standard. It consisted of a set of short films varying in length and featuring some of the most popular stars of the 1920s (including [[Eddie Cantor]], [[Harry Richman]], [[Sophie Tucker]], and [[George Jessel (actor)|George Jessel]] among others) doing stage performances such as [[vaudeville]]s, musical acts, and speeches which accompanied the screening of the silent feature film ''Bella Donna''.<ref>{{cite book|last=MacDonald|first=Laurence E.|date=1998|title=The Invisible Art of Film Music: A Comprehensive History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e0NYYHWtz6sC&q=lee+de+forest+bella+donna&pg=PA5|location=Lanham, MD|publisher=Ardsley House|page=5|isbn=978-1-880157-56-5}}</ref> All of them were presented under the banner of [[Phonofilm|De Forest Phonofilms]].<ref>Gomery (2005), p. 30; Eyman (1997), p. 49.</ref> The set included the 11-minute short film ''From far Seville'' starring [[Concha Piquer]]. In 2010, a copy of the tape was found in the [[Library of Congress|U.S. Library of Congress]], where it is currently preserved.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.msn.com/es-es/noticias/virales/12-mentiras-de-la-historia-que-nos-tragamos-sin-rechistar-4/ar-BBTeaLx?li=BBpmbhJ&ocid=DELLDHP#page=8|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190207015725/https://www.msn.com/es-es/noticias/virales/12-mentiras-de-la-historia-que-nos-tragamos-sin-rechistar-4/ar-BBTeaLx?li=BBpmbhJ&ocid=DELLDHP#page=8|url-status=dead|archive-date=2019-02-07|title=12 mentiras de la historia que nos tragamos sin rechistar (4)|website=MSN|language=es-ES|access-date=2019-02-06}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://elpais.com/cultura/2010/11/03/actualidad/1288738815_850215.html|title=La primera película sonora era española|last=EFE|date=2010-11-03|work=[[El País]]|access-date=2019-02-06|language=es-ES|issn=1134-6582}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=López|first=Alfred|url=https://blogs.20minutos.es/yaestaellistoquetodolosabe/sabias-que-el-cantor-de-jazz-no-fue-realmente-la-primera-pelicula-sonora-de-la-historia-del-cine/|title=¿Sabías que 'El cantor de jazz' no fue realmente la primera película sonora de la historia del cine?|date=2016-04-15|work=[[20 minutos]]|access-date=2020-02-06|language=es-ES}}</ref> Critics attending the event praised
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, [[Josef Engl]] (1893–1942), [[Hans Vogt (engineer)|Hans Vogt]] (1890–1979), and [[Joseph Massolle]] (1889–1957), 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.<ref>Robertson (2001), p. 168.</ref> 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 that recorded sound on a separate filmstrip running parallel with the image reel. Gaumont licensed the technology and briefly put it to commercial use under the name Cinéphone.<ref>Crisp (1997), pp. 97–98; Crafton (1997), pp. 419–20.</ref>
=== Advanced sound-on-disc ===
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[[File:Don Juan (1926).webm|220px|thumb|right|''[[Don Juan (1926 film)|Don Juan]]'']]
[[File:DonJuanPoster2.jpg|thumb|alt=Illustration of a man dressed in an orange-and-purple Elizabethan costume with puffy shoulders and sheer leggings. Accompanying text provides film credits, dominated by the name of star John Barrymore.|Poster for [[Warner Bros.]]' ''[[Don Juan (1926 film)|Don Juan]]'' (1926), the first major motion picture to premiere with a full-length synchronized [[soundtrack]]. Audio recording engineer [[George Groves (sound engineer)|George Groves]], the first in Hollywood to hold the job, would supervise sound on ''[[Woodstock (film)|Woodstock]]'', 44 years later.]]
In 1925, [[Sam Warner]] of [[Warner Bros.]], then a small Hollywood studio with big ambitions, saw a demonstration of the Western Electric sound-on-disc system and was sufficiently impressed to persuade his brothers to agree to experiment with using this system at New York City's [[Vitagraph Studios]], which they had recently purchased. The tests were convincing to the Warner Brothers, if not to the executives of some other picture companies who witnessed them. Consequently, in April 1926 the Western Electric Company entered into a contract with Warner Brothers and W. J. Rich, a financier, giving them an exclusive license for recording and reproducing sound pictures under the Western Electric system. To exploit this license the Vitaphone Corporation was organized with Samuel L. Warner as its president.<ref name="Crafton 1997, pp. 71–72">Crafton (1997), pp. 71–72.</ref><ref>Historical Development of Sound Films, E.I.Sponable, Journal of the SMPTE Vol. 48 April 1947</ref> [[Vitaphone]], as this system was now called, was publicly introduced on August 6, 1926, with the premiere of ''[[Don Juan (1926 film)|Don Juan]]''; the first feature-length movie to employ a synchronized sound system of any type throughout, its [[soundtrack]] contained a musical [[film score|score]] and added [[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.<ref>The eight musical shorts were ''Caro Nome'', ''An Evening on the Don'', ''La Fiesta'', ''His Pastimes'', ''The Kreutzer Sonata'', ''Mischa Elman'', ''Overture "Tannhäuser"'' and ''Vesti La Giubba''.</ref> Warner Bros.' ''[[The Better 'Ole (1926 film)|The Better 'Ole]]'', technically similar to ''Don Juan'', followed in October.<ref>Crafton (1997), pp. 76–87; Gomery (2005), pp. 38–40.</ref>
Sound-on-film would ultimately win out over sound-on-disc because of a number of fundamental technical advantages:
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== Triumph of the "talkies" ==
[[File:The Jazz Singer (1927).webm|thumb|300px|thumbtime=16|left|''The Jazz Singer'' (1927)]]
In February 1927, an agreement was signed by five leading Hollywood movie companies: [[Famous Players–Lasky]] (soon to be part of [[Paramount Pictures|Paramount]]), [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]], [[Universal
[[File:JazzSingerAndFox.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.15|alt=Advertisement from the Blue Mouse Theater announcing the Pacific Coast premiere of ''The Jazz Singer'', billed as "The greatest story ever told". A photo of stars [[Al Jolson]] and [[May McAvoy]] accompanies extensive promotional text, including the catchphrase "You'll see and hear him on Vitaphone as you've never seen or heard before". At the bottom is an announcement of an accompanying newsreel.|Newspaper ad from a fully equipped theater in Tacoma, Washington, showing ''[[The Jazz Singer]]'', on Vitaphone, and a Fox newsreel, on [[Movietone sound system|Movietone]], together on the same bill.]]
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During 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 (1929 film)|The Crimson Circle]]'' was a coproduction between director [[Frederic Zelnik|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 (1929 film)|The Clue of the New Pin]]'', a [[British Lion Film Corporation|British Lion]] production using the sound-on-disc British Photophone system. In May, ''[[Black Waters]]'', which [[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.<ref>Low (1997a), pp. 178, 203–5; Low (1997b), p. 183; Crafton (1997), pp. 432; {{cite web|url=http://www.deutsches-filminstitut.de/f_films/film/f018529.htm|title=''Der Rote Kreis''|publisher=Deutsches Filminstitut|access-date=December 8, 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110624004618/http://www.deutsches-filminstitut.de/f_films/film/f018529.htm|archive-date=June 24, 2011|df=mdy-all}} [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020345/ IMDb.com] incorrectly refers to ''Der Rote Kreis/The Crimson Circle'' as a [[Associated British Picture Corporation|British International Pictures]] (BIP) coproduction (it also spells Zelnik's first name "Frederic"). The authentic BIP production ''Kitty'' is sometimes included among the candidates for "first British talkie." In fact, the film was produced and premiered as a silent for its original 1928 release. The stars later came to New York to record dialogue, with which the film was rereleased in June 1929, after much better credentialed candidates. See sources cited above.</ref>
[[File:BlackmailUSWindowCardOndra.jpg|thumb|left|alt=An advertisement for the movie ''Blackmail'' featuring a young woman in lingerie holding a garment over one arm looks toward camera. Surrounding text describes the film as "A Romance of Scotland Yard" and "The Powerful Talking Picture" |The Prague-raised star of ''[[Blackmail (1929 film)|Blackmail]]'' (1929), [[Anny Ondra]], was an industry favorite, but her
The first successful European dramatic talkie was the all-British ''[[Blackmail (1929 film)|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 [[Associated British Picture Corporation|British International Pictures]] (BIP) production, it was recorded on RCA Photophone, General Electric having bought a share of AEG so they could access 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."<ref>Quoted in Spoto (1984), p. 136.</ref>
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.<ref>Wagenleitner (1994), p. 253; Robertson (2001), p. 10.</ref> On September 30, the first entirely German-made feature-length dramatic talkie, ''[[Land Without Women|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.<ref>Jelavich (2006), pp. 215–16; Crafton (1997), p. 595, n. 59.</ref> Sweden's first talkie, ''Konstgjorda Svensson'' (''Artificial Svensson''), premiered on October 14. Eight days later, Aubert Franco-Film came out with ''[[The Queen's Necklace (1929 film)|Le Collier de la reine]]'' (''The Queen's Necklace''), shot at the [[Épinay-sur-Seine|Épinay]] 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, ''[[The Three Masks (1929 film)|Les Trois masques]]'' (''The Three Masks'') debuted; a [[Pathé]]-Natan film, it is generally regarded as the initial French feature talkie, though it was shot, like ''Blackmail'', at the [[Elstree Studios (Shenley Road)|Elstree studio]], just outside London. The production company had contracted with RCA Photophone and Britain then had the nearest facility with the system. The Braunberger-Richebé talkie ''[[The Road Is Fine|La Route est belle]]'' (''The Road Is Fine''), also shot at Elstree, followed a few weeks later.<ref>Crisp (1997), p. 103; {{cite web|url=http://www.epinay-sur-seine.fr/epinay/rb010102.asp|title=Epinay ville du cinéma|publisher=Epinay-sur-Seine.fr|access-date=December 8, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100612132000/http://www.epinay-sur-seine.fr/epinay/rb010102.asp|archive-date=June 12, 2010|url-status=dead}} {{cite web|author=Erickson, Hal|url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/164397/Le-Collier-De-La-Reine/overview|department=Movies & TV Dept.|work=[[The New York Times]]|title=''Le Collier de la reine'' (1929)|author-link=Hal Erickson (author)|access-date=December 8, 2009}} {{cite web|author=Chiffaut-Moliard, Philippe|url=http://www.cine-studies.net/r5a0_1930.html|title=Le cinéma français en 1930|work=Chronologie du cinéma français (1930–1939)|publisher=Cine-studies|year=2005|access-date=December 8, 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090316092417/http://cine-studies.net/r5a0_1930.html|archive-date=March 16, 2009|df=mdy-all}} In his 2002 book ''Genre, Myth, and Convention in the French Cinema, 1929–1939'' (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), Crisp says that ''Le Collier de la reine'' was "'merely' sonorized, not dialogued" (p. 381), but all other available detailed descriptions (including his own from 1997) mention a dialogue sequence. Crisp gives October 31 as the debut date of ''Les Trois masques'' and ''Cine-studies'' gives its release ("sortie") date as November 2. Note finally, where Crisp defines in ''Genre, Myth, and Convention'' a "feature" as being a minimum of sixty minutes long, this article follows the equally common, and Wikipedia-prevalent, standard of forty minutes or longer.</ref>
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.<ref>Crisp (1997), p. 103.</ref> The first all-talking German feature, ''[[Atlantik (film)|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 (film)|Atlantic]]''.<ref>Chapman (2003), p. 82; {{cite web|author=Fisher, David|url=http://www.terramedia.co.uk/Chronomedia/years/1929.htm|title=Chronomedia: 1929|work=Chronomedia|publisher=Terra Media|date=July 22, 2009|access-date=December 8, 2009}}</ref> The entirely German [[Aafa-Film]] production ''[[It's You I Have Loved]]'' (''Dich hab ich geliebt'') opened three
[[File:Putevka v zhisn poster.jpg|thumb|alt=A movie poster with text in Cyrillic. A red band spirals through the center of the image, over a green background. Around the spiral are arrayed five black-and-white photographs of male faces at various angles. Three, in a cluster at the top left, are smiling; two, at the top left and at bottom right (a young boy) look pensive.|The first Soviet talkie, ''Putevka 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."<ref>Carné (1932), p. 105.</ref>]]
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.<ref>Haltof (2002), p. 24.</ref> In Italy, whose once vibrant film industry had become moribund by the late 1920s, the first talkie, ''[[The Song of Love (1930 film)|La Canzone dell'amore]]'' (''The Song of Love''), also came out in October; within two years, Italian cinema would be enjoying a revival.<ref>See Nichols and Bazzoni (1995), p. 98, for a description of ''La Canzone dell'amore'' and its premiere.</ref> The first movie spoken in Czech debuted in 1930 as well, ''[[Tonka of the Gallows|Tonka Šibenice]]'' (''Tonka of the Gallows'').<ref>Stojanova (2006), p. 97. According to [[Il Cinema Ritrovato]], the [https://web.archive.org/web/20061013044431/http://www.cinetecadibologna.it/programmi/05cinema/archivio/fcr1992.pdf program for XXI Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero] (Bologna; November 22–29, 1992), the film was shot in Paris. According to the [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021484/ IMDb entry on the film], it was a Czech-German coproduction. The two claims are not necessarily contradictory. According to the [http://www.csfd.cz/film/209-tonka-sibenice/ Czech-Slovak Film Database], it was shot as a silent film in Germany; soundtracks for Czech, German, and French versions were then recorded at the Gaumont studio in the Paris suburb of [[Joinville-le-Pont|Joinville]].</ref> Several European nations with minor positions in the field also produced their first talking pictures—Belgium (in French), Denmark, Greece, and Romania.<ref>See Robertson (2001), pp. 10–14. Robertson claims Switzerland produced its first talkie in 1930, but it has not been possible to independently confirm this. The first talkies from Finland, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, and Turkey appeared in 1931, the first talkies from Ireland (English-language) and Spain and the first in Slovak in 1932, the first Dutch talkie in 1933, and the first Bulgarian talkie in 1934. In the Americas, the first Canadian talkie came out in 1929—''North of '49'' was a remake of the previous year's silent ''His Destiny''. The first Brazilian talkie, ''Acabaram-se os otários'' (''The End of the Simpletons''), also appeared in 1929. That year, as well, the first Yiddish talkies were produced in New York: ''East Side Sadie'' (originally a silent), followed by ''Ad Mosay'' (''The Eternal Prayer'') (Crafton [1997], p. 414). Sources differ on whether ''Más fuerte que el deber'', the first Mexican (and Spanish-language) talkie, came out in 1930 or 1931. The first Argentine talkie appeared in 1931 and the first Chilean talkie in 1934. Robertson asserts that the first Cuban feature talkie was a 1930 production called ''El Caballero de Max''; every other published source surveyed cites ''La Serpiente roja'' (1937). Nineteen-thirty-one saw the first talkie produced on the African continent: South Africa's ''Mocdetjie'', in Afrikaans. Egypt's Arabic ''Onchoudet el Fouad'' (1932) and Morocco's French-language ''Itto'' (1934) followed.</ref> The Soviet Union's robust film industry came out with its first sound features in December 1930: [[Dziga Vertov]]'s nonfiction ''[[Enthusiasm (film)|Enthusiasm]]'' had an experimental, dialogueless soundtrack; [[Abram Room]]'s documentary ''Plan velikikh rabot'' (''The Plan of the Great Works'') had music and spoken voiceovers.<ref>Rollberg (2008), pp. xxvii, 9, 174, 585, 669–70, 679, 733. Several sources name ''Zemlya zhazhdet'' (''The Earth Is Thirsty''), directed by Yuli Raizman, as the first Soviet sound feature. Originally produced and premiered as a silent in 1930, it was rereleased with a non-talking, music-and-effects soundtrack the following year (Rollberg [2008], p. 562).</ref> Both were made with locally developed sound-on-film systems, two of the two hundred or so movie sound systems then available somewhere in the world.<ref>Morton (2006), p. 76.</ref> In June 1931, the [[Nikolai Ekk]] drama ''[[Road to Life (1931 film)|Putevka v zhizn]]'' (''The Road to Life'' or ''A Start in Life''), premiered as the Soviet Union's first true talking picture.<ref>Rollberg (2008), pp. xxvii, 210–11, 450, 665–66.</ref>
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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.<ref>See Freiberg (2000), "The Film Industry."</ref>
[[File:AlamAra.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.15|alt=A young woman with long dark hair walks outside of a tent, looking down at one of two men asleep on the ground. She wears only a shawl and a knee length dress, leaving her arms, lower legs, and feet exposed.|''[[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."<ref>Quoted in Chatterji (1999), "The History of Sound."</ref> It was shot with the Tanar single-system camera, which recorded sound directly onto the film.]]
The Mandarin-language ''Gēnǚ hóng mǔdān'' ({{linktext|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.<ref>Reade (1981), pp. 79–80.</ref> In September 1930, a song performed by Indian star [[Ruby Myers|Sulochana]], excerpted from the silent feature ''Madhuri'' (1928), was released as a synchronized-sound short, the country's first.<ref>Ranade (2006), p. 106.</ref> The following year, [[Ardeshir Irani]] directed the first Indian talking feature, the Hindi-Urdu ''[[Alam Ara]]'', and produced ''[[Kalidas (1931 Film)|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''.<ref>Pradeep (2006); Narasimham (2006); Rajadhyaksha and Willemen (2002), p. 254.</ref><ref name=Tamil>{{cite web|author=Anandan, "Kalaimaamani"|url=http://www.indolink.com/tamil/cinema/Memories/98/fna/fna1.htm|title=Tamil Cinema History—The Early Days: 1916–1936|publisher=INDOlink Tamil Cinema|access-date=December 8, 2009|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000711043247/http://www.indolink.com/tamil/cinema/Memories/98/fna/fna1.htm|archive-date=July 11, 2000|df=mdy-all}}</ref> In 1932, ''[[Ayodhyecha Raja]]'' became the first movie in which Marathi was spoken to be released (though ''Sant Tukaram'' was the first to go through the official censorship process); the first Gujarati-language film, ''Narsimha Mehta'', and all-Tamil talkie, ''Kalava'', debuted as well. The next year, Ardeshir Irani produced the first Persian-language talkie, ''Dukhtar-e-loor''.<ref>Chapman (2003), p. 328; Rajadhyaksha and Willemen (2002), p. 255; Chatterji (1999), "The First Sound Films"; Bhuyan (2006), "''Alam Ara'': Platinum Jubilee of Sound in Indian Cinema." In March 1934 came the release of the first Kannada talking picture, ''Sathi Sulochana'' (Guy [2004]); ''Bhakta Dhruva'' (aka ''Dhruva Kumar'') was released soon after, though it was actually completed first (Rajadhyaksha and Willemen [2002], pp. 258, 260). A few websites refer to the 1932 version of ''[[Heer Ranjha]]'' as the first Punjabi talkie; the most reliable sources all agree, however, that it is performed in Hindustani. The first Punjabi-language film is ''Pind di Kuri'' (aka ''Sheila''; 1935). The first Assamese-language film, ''Joymati'', also came out in 1935. Many websites echo each other in dating the first Oriya talkie, ''Sita Bibaha'', as 1934, but the most authoritative source to definitively date it—Chapman (2003)—gives 1936 (p. 328). The Rajadhyaksha and Willemen (2002) entry gives "1934?" (p. 260).</ref> Also in 1933, the first Cantonese-language films were produced in Hong Kong—''Sha zai dongfang'' (''The Idiot's Wedding Night'') and ''Liang xing'' (''Conscience''); within two years, the local film industry had fully converted to sound.<ref>Lai (2000), "The Cantonese Arena."</ref> Korea, where ''pyonsa'' (or ''byun-sa'') held a role and status similar to that of the Japanese benshi,<ref>Ris (2004), pp. 35–36; {{cite web|author=Maliangkay, Roald H|url=http://www.imageandnarrative.be/worldmusica/roaldhmaliangkay.htm|title=Classifying Performances: The Art of Korean Film Narrators|work=Image & Narrative|date=March 2005|access-date=December 9, 2009|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080528231603/http://www.imageandnarrative.be/worldmusica/roaldhmaliangkay.htm |archive-date = May 28, 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref> in 1935 became the last country with a significant film industry to produce its first talking picture: ''Chunhyangjeon'' ({{
== Consequences ==
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*Lastra, James (2000). ''Sound Technology and the American Cinema''. New York: Columbia University Press. {{ISBN|0231115164}}
*Walker, Alexander (1979). ''The Shattered Silents: How the Talkies Came to Stay''. New York: William Morrow and Company. {{ISBN|0-688-03544-2}}
== See also ==
{{Portal|Film|1920s|1930s|1940s|1950s|1960s}}
* [[:Category:Film sound production]] for articles concerning the development of cinematic sound recording
* [[Dubbing (filmmaking)]]
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* Freiberg, Freda (1987). "The Transition to Sound in Japan", in ''History on/and/in Film'', ed. Tom O'Regan and Brian Shoesmith, pp. 76–80. Perth: History & Film Association of Australia (available [http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/hfilm/FREDA.html online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060821124505/http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/hfilm/FREDA.html |date=August 21, 2006 }}).
* Freiberg, Freda (2000). "Comprehensive Connections: The Film Industry, the Theatre and the State in the Early Japanese Cinema", ''Screening the Past'', no. 11, November 1 (available [http://www.screeningthepast.com/2014/12/comprehensive-connections-the-film-industry-the-theatre-and-the-state-in-the-early-japanese-cinema/ online]).
* [[Harry M. Geduld|Geduld, Harry M.]] (1975). ''The Birth of the Talkies: From Edison to Jolson''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. {{ISBN|0-253-10743-1}}
* Glancy, H. Mark (1995). "Warner Bros. Film Grosses, 1921–51: The William Schaefer Ledger", ''Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television'', March.
* Gomery, Douglas (1980). "Economic Struggle and Hollywood Imperialism: Europe Converts to Sound", in ''Film Sound: Theory and Practice'' (1985), ed. Elisabeth Weis and John Belton, pp. 25–36. New York: Columbia University Press. {{ISBN|0-231-05637-0}}
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* Ruhmer, Ernst (1901). "The Photographophone", ''Scientific American'', July 20, 1901, vol. 85, no. 3, p. 36. ([https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951001389779w;view=1up;seq=42 available online]).
* Ruhmer, Ernst (1908). ''Wireless Telephony In Theory and Practice'' (translated from the German by James Erskine-Murray), New York: C. Van Nostrand Company. ([https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b33006;view=1up;seq=7 available online]).
* Russell, Catherine (2008). ''[[The Cinema of Naruse Mikio: Women and Japanese Modernity]]''. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. {{ISBN|0-8223-4312-6}}
* Saunders, Thomas J. (1994). ''Hollywood in Berlin: American Cinema and Weimar Germany''. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press. {{ISBN|0-520-08354-7}}
* Schatz, Thomas (1998). ''The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era''. London: Faber and Faber. {{ISBN|0-571-19596-2}}
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* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061104160706/http://lavender.fortunecity.com/hawkslane/575/dialogue-and-sound.htm "Dialogue and Sound"] essay by film historian and critic [[Siegfried Kracauer]]; first published in his book ''Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality'' (1960)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100103075638/http://www.filmportal.de/df/37/Artikel,,,,,,,,EF98757B0E65695AE03053D50B37602C,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.html "The Film to Come"] essay by producer and composer Guido Bagier; first published in ''Film-Kurier'', January 7, 1928
* [http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/sound/rca01-cover.htm ''Handbook for Projectionists''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090921144743/http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/sound/rca01-cover.htm |date=September 21, 2009 }} technical manual covering all major U.S. systems; issued by RCA Photophone, 1930
* [http://members.optushome.com.au/picturepalace/FilmHistory.html "Historical Development of Sound Films"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091222075347/http://members.optushome.com.au/picturepalace/FilmHistory.html |date=December 22, 2009 }} chronology by sound-film pioneer E. I. Sponable; first published in ''Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers'', April/May 1947
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060905024521/http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/ar169.html "Madam, Will You Talk?"] article on the history of Bell Laboratories' early research into sound film, by Stanley Watkins, Western Electric engineer; first published in ''Bell Laboratories Record'', August 1946
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