Editing Sound film (section)

== 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 Pictures|Universal]], [[First National Pictures|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, and then waited to see what sort of results the front-runners came up with.<ref>Crafton (1997), pp. 129–30.</ref> 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. Fox and Warners pressed forward with sound cinema, moving in different directions both technologically and commercially:  Fox moved into newsreels and then scored dramas, while Warners concentrated on talking features.  Meanwhile, ERPI sought to corner the market by signing up the five allied studios.<ref>Gomery (1985), p. 60; Crafton (1997), p. 131.</ref>

[[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.]]
The big sound film sensations of the year all took advantage of preexisting celebrity. On May 20, 1927, at New York City's [[Roxy Theatre (New York City)|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 City and Washington, D.C., was shown. These were the two most acclaimed sound motion pictures to date.<ref>Gomery (2005), p. 51.</ref> 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]].<ref>Lasky (1989), pp. 21–22.</ref> After rereleasing a few silent feature hits, such as ''[[Seventh Heaven (1927 film)|Seventh Heaven]]'', with recorded music, Fox came out with its first original Movietone feature on September 23: ''[[Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans]]'', by acclaimed German director [[F. W. Murnau]]. As with ''Don Juan'', the film's soundtrack consisted of a musical score and sound effects (including, in a couple of crowd scenes, "wild", nonspecific vocals).<ref>Eyman (1997), pp. 149–50.</ref>

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 United States and abroad, almost a million dollars more than the previous record for a Warner Bros. film.<ref>Glancy (1995), p. 4 [online]. The previous highest-grossing Warner Bros. film was ''Don Juan'', which Glancy notes earned $1.693 million, foreign and domestic. Historian Douglas Crafton (1997) seeks to downplay the "total domestic gross income" of ''The Jazz Singer'', $1.97 million (p. 528), but that figure alone would have constituted a record for the studio. Crafton's claim that ''The Jazz Singer'' "was in a distinct second or third tier of attractions compared to the most popular films of the day and even other Vitaphone talkies" (p. 529) offers a skewed perspective. Although the movie was no match for the half-dozen biggest hits of the decade, the available evidence suggests that it was one of the three highest-earning films released in 1927 and that overall its performance was comparable to the other two, ''[[The King of Kings (1927 film)|The King of Kings]]'' and ''[[Wings (1927 film)|Wings]]''. It is undisputed that its total earnings were more than double those of the next four Vitaphone talkies; the first three of which, according to Glancy's analysis of in-house Warner Bros. figures, "earned just under $1,000,000 each", and the fourth, ''[[Lights of New York (1928 film)|Lights of New York]]'', a quarter-million more.</ref> 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. The "natural" sounds of the settings were also audible.<ref>{{cite web|author=Allen, Bob|url=http://www.amps.net/newsletters/issue23/23_jazz.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19991022042212/http://www.amps.net/newsletters/Issue23/23_jazz.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=1999-10-22|title=Why ''The Jazz Singer''?|work=AMPS Newsletter|publisher=Association of Motion Picture Sound|date=Autumn 1997|access-date=December 12, 2009}} Allen, like many, exaggerates ''The Jazz Singer''{{'}}s commercial success; it was a big hit, but not "one of the big box office hits of all time".</ref> Though the success of ''The Jazz Singer'' was due largely to Jolson, already established as one of U.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 profits were proof enough to the industry that the technology was worth investing in.<ref>Geduld (1975), p. 166.</ref>

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. Influential gossip columnist [[Louella Parsons]]' reaction to ''The Jazz Singer'' was badly off the mark: "I have no fear that the screeching sound film will ever disturb our theaters," while [[MGM]] head of production [[Irving Thalberg]] called the film "a good gimmick, but that's all it was."<ref name="Fleming, E.J. 2005, pg. 78">Fleming, E.J., The Fixers, McFarland & Co., 2005, pg. 78</ref> Not until 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. It was a daunting commitment; revamping a single theater cost as much as $15,000 (the equivalent of $220,000 in 2019), and there were more than 20,000 movie theaters in the United States. By 1930, only half of the theaters had been wired for sound.<ref name="Fleming, E.J. 2005, pg. 78"/>

Initially, all ERPI-wired theaters were made Vitaphone-compatible; most were equipped to project Movietone reels as well.<ref>Crafton (1997), p. 148.</ref> However, even with access to both technologies, most of the Hollywood companies remained slow to produce talking features of their own. No studio besides Warner Bros. released even a [[part-talkie|part-talking]] feature until the low-budget-oriented [[Film Booking Offices of America]] (FBO) premiered ''[[The Perfect Crime (1928 film)|The Perfect Crime]]'' on June 17, 1928, eight months after ''The Jazz Singer''.<ref>Crafton (1997), p. 140.</ref> 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, [[RCA Photophone|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 standard. (In both sorts of systems, a specially-designed lamp, whose [[Exposure (photography)|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]].
[[File:BarkerMackaillSills.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.35|alt=A middle-aged man wearing a plaid jacket and boldly striped tie grabs a younger woman wearing a sweater vest by the arm. Her hand tugs at his as they gaze into each other's eyes, he fiercely, she with surprise or concern.|[[Dorothy Mackaill]] and [[Milton Sills]] in ''The Barker'', [[First National Pictures|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, all profitable, if not at the level of ''The Jazz Singer'': In March, ''[[Tenderloin (film)|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 (1928 film)|The Lion and the Mouse]]'' (31 minutes of dialogue) in May.<ref>Hirschhorn (1979), pp. 59, 60.</ref> On July 6, 1928, the first all-talking feature, ''[[Lights of New York (1928 film)|Lights of New York]]'', premiered. The film cost Warner Bros. only $23,000 to produce, but grossed $1,252,000, 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 Warner Bros. movie.<ref>Glancy (1995), pp. 4–5. Schatz (1998) says the production cost of ''Lights of New York'' totaled $75,000 (p. 64). Even if this number is accurate, the rate of return was still over 1,600%.</ref> This second Jolson screen smash demonstrated the movie musical's ability to turn a song into a national hit: inside of nine months, the Jolson number "[[Sonny Boy (song)|Sonny Boy]]" had racked up 2 million record and 1.25 million sheet music sales.<ref>Robertson (2001), p. 180.</ref> September 1928 also saw the release of [[Paul Terry (cartoonist)|Paul Terry]]'s ''[[Dinner Time (cartoon)|Dinner Time]]'', among the first [[animated cartoon]]s produced with synchronized sound. Soon after he saw it, [[Walt Disney]] released his first sound picture, the [[Mickey Mouse]] [[short subject|short]] ''[[Steamboat Willie]]''.<ref>Crafton (1997), p. 390.</ref>

Over the course of 1928, as Warner Bros. began to rake in huge profits due to the [[List of early Warner Bros. talking features|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 (film)|Interference]]'', Paramount's first all-talker, debuted in November.<ref>Eames (1985), p. 36.</ref> 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.<ref>Crafton (1997) describes the term's derivation: "The skeptical press disparagingly referred to these [retrofitted films] as 'goat glands'&nbsp;... from outrageous cures for impotency practiced in the 1920s, including restorative elixers, tonics, and surgical procedures. It implied that producers were trying to put some new life into their old films" (pp. 168–69).</ref> 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 "[[Major film studio#The majors during the Golden Age|majors]]" during Hollywood's Golden Age to release its first part-talking feature, ''[[The Lone Wolf's Daughter (1929 film)|The Lone Wolf's Daughter]]''.<ref>The first official releases from RKO, which produced only all-talking pictures, appeared still later in the year, but after the October 1928 merger that created it, the company put out a number of talkies produced by its FBO constituent.</ref> In late May, the first all-color, all-talking feature, Warner Bros.' ''[[On with the Show! (1929 film)|On with the Show!]]'', premiered.<ref>Robertson (2001), p. 63.</ref>

Yet most American movie theaters, especially outside of urban areas, were still not equipped for sound: while the number of sound cinemas grew from 100 to 800 between 1928 and 1929, they were still vastly outnumbered by silent theaters, which had actually grown in number as well, from 22,204 to 22,544.<ref>Block and Wilson (2010), p. 56.</ref> The studios, in parallel, were still not entirely convinced of the talkies' universal appeal—until mid-1930, the majority of Hollywood movies were produced in dual versions, silent as well as talking.<ref>Crafton (1997), pp. 169–71, 253–54.</ref> 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. ''[[Points West (film)|Points West]]'', a [[Hoot Gibson]] [[Western (genre)|Western]] released by Universal Pictures in August 1929, was the last purely silent mainstream feature put out by a major Hollywood studio.<ref>In 1931, two Hollywood studios would release special projects without spoken dialogue (now customarily classified as "silents"): [[Charles Chaplin]]'s ''[[City Lights]]'' (United Artists) and [[F. W. Murnau]] and [[Robert Flaherty]]'s ''[[Tabu (1931 film)|Tabu]]'' (Paramount). The last totally silent feature produced in the United States for general distribution was ''The Poor Millionaire'', released by Biltmore Pictures in April 1930. Four other silent features, all low-budget Westerns, were also released in early 1930 (Robertson [2001], p. 173).</ref>

=== Transition: Europe ===

''The Jazz Singer'' had its European sound premiere at the [[Piccadilly Theatre]] in London on September 27, 1928.<ref>As Thomas J. Saunders (1994) reports, it premiered the same month in Berlin, but as a silent. "Not until June 1929 did Berlin experience the sensation of sound as New York had in 1927—a premiere boasting dialogue and song": ''The Singing Fool'' (p. 224). In Paris, ''The Jazz Singer'' had its sound premiere in January 1929 (Crisp [1997], p. 101).</ref> According to film historian [[Rachael Low]], "Many in the industry realized at once that a change to sound production was inevitable."<ref>Low (1997a), p. 191.</ref> On January 16, 1929, the first European feature film with a synchronized vocal performance and recorded score premiered: the German production ''[[I Kiss Your Hand, Madame|Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame]]'' (''I Kiss Your Hand, Madame''). Dialogueless, it contains only a few songs performed by [[Richard Tauber]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.filmportal.de/df/93/Artikel,,,,,,,,EF9714737BF39C19E03053D50B373807,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.html|title=How the Pictures Learned to Talk: The Emergence of German Sound Film|work=Weimar Cinema|publisher=filmportal.de|access-date=December 7, 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100109101325/http://www.filmportal.de/df/93/Artikel%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2CEF9714737BF39C19E03053D50B373807%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C.html|archive-date=January 9, 2010|df=mdy-all}}</ref> The movie was made with the sound-on-film system controlled by the German-Dutch firm [[Tobis Film|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 joint subsidiary of Germany's two leading electrical manufacturers. Early in 1929, Tobis and Klangfilm 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.<ref>Gomery (1980), pp. 28–30.</ref> Just as RCA had entered the movie business to maximize its recording system's value, Tobis also established its own production operations.<ref>See, e.g., Crisp (1997), pp. 103–4.</ref>

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 accent became an issue when the film was reshot with sound. Without post-[[dubbing (filmmaking)|dubbing]] capacity, her dialogue was simultaneously recorded offscreen by actress Joan Barry. Ondra's British film career was over.<ref>Spoto (1984), pp. 131–32, 136.</ref>]]

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 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.<ref>Hall (1930).</ref>
[[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>

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.<ref>Crisp (1997), p. 101; Crafton (1997), p. 155.</ref> 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."<ref>Crisp (1997), pp. 101–2.</ref> The situation was particularly acute in the Soviet Union; as of May 1933, fewer than one out of every hundred film projectors in the country was as yet equipped for sound.<ref>Kenez (2001), p. 123.</ref>

=== Transition: Asia ===
[[File:MadamuTonyobo.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.25|alt=A young girl, man, and woman standing outside of a house, all looking up in the sky. The girl, on the left, is smiling and pointing skyward. The man wears a bowler hat and holds a short broom over his shoulder; the woman wears a kerchief around her head. They are surrounded by domestic objects as if just moving into or out of the house.|Director [[Heinosuke Gosho]]'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.<ref>Nolletti (2005), p. 18; Richie (2005), pp. 48–49.</ref>]]
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.<ref>Burch (1979), pp. 145–46. Burch misdates ''Madamu to nyobo'' as 1932 (p. 146; see above for sources for correct 1931 date). He also incorrectly claims that [[Mikio Naruse]] made no sound films before 1936 (p. 146; see below for Naruse's 1935 sound films).</ref> 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 [[Kenji Mizoguchi]]. The rival [[Shochiku]] studio began the successful production of sound-on-film talkies in 1931 using a variable-density process called Tsuchibashi.<ref>Anderson and Richie (1982), p. 77.</ref> Two years later, however, more than 80 percent of movies made in the country were still silents.<ref name=F87>Freiberg (1987), p. 76.</ref> Two of the country's leading directors, [[Mikio Naruse]] and [[Yasujirō Ozu]], did not make their first sound films until 1935 and 1936, respectively.<ref>Naruse's first talking picture, ''Otome-gokoro sannin shimai'' (''Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts''), as well as his widely acclaimed ''Tsuma yo bara no yo ni'' (''Wife! Be Like a Rose!''), also a talkie, were both produced and released in 1935. ''Wife! Be Like a Rose!'' was the first Japanese feature film to receive American commercial distribution. See Russell (2008), pp. 4, 89, 91–94; Richie (2005), pp. 60–63; {{cite web|url=http://www.midnighteye.com/features/mikio-naruse-a-modern-classic.shtml|title=Mikio Naruse—A Modern Classic|publisher=Midnight Eye|date=February 11, 2007|access-date=December 12, 2009}} {{cite magazine|author=Jacoby, Alexander|url=http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/naruse.html|title=Mikio Naruse|magazine=Senses of Cinema|date=April 2003|access-date=December 12, 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100114235348/http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/naruse.html|archive-date=January 14, 2010|df=mdy-all}} Ozu's first talking picture, which came out the following year, was ''Hitori musuko'' (''The Only Son''). See Richie (1977), pp. 222–24; {{cite magazine|author=Leahy, James|url=http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/04/32/the_only_son.html|title=''The Only Son'' (''Hitori Musuko'')|magazine=Senses of Cinema|date=June 2004|access-date=December 12, 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091003212938/http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/04/32/the_only_son.html|archive-date=October 3, 2009|df=mdy-all}}</ref> As late as 1938, over a third of all movies produced in Japan were shot without dialogue.<ref name=F87 />

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 [[Akira Kurosawa]] 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."<ref>Quoted in Freiberg (1987), p. 76.</ref> Film historian Mariann Lewinsky argues,
<blockquote>
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.<ref>Quoted in {{cite web|author=Sharp, Jasper|url=http://www.midnighteye.com/features/silentfilm_pt1.shtml|title=''A Page of Madness'' (1927)|publisher=Midnight Eye|date=March 7, 2002|access-date=December 7, 2009}}</ref>
</blockquote>
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'' ({{Korean|hangul=춘향전|hanja=春香傳}}) is based on the seventeenth-century [[pansori]] folktale "[[Chunhyangga]]", of which as many as fifteen film versions have been made through 2009.<ref>Lee (2000), pp. 72–74; {{cite web|url=http://www.koreafilm.org/feature/ans_16.asp|title=What Is Korea's First Sound Film ("Talkie")?|work=The Truth of Korean Movies|publisher=Korean Film Archive|access-date=December 9, 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100113050958/http://www.koreafilm.org/feature/ans_16.asp|archive-date=January 13, 2010|df=mdy-all}}</ref>