You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet The story of the first Talkie

The entire movie industry now faced a major revamp as massive reinvestment was required to keep up with the public’s insatiable demand for ‘talkies’. Many so called experts within the movie industry, however, were of the firm opinion that the new craze for talkies would soon die out. Silent comedy veteran Charlie Chaplin was one who did not give the new breakthrough medium any credence. History, however, was about to prove how wrong he was.

Warner Bros.and director Alan Crosland's The Jazz Singer (1927) is an historic milestone film and cinematic landmark. [Most people associate this film with the advent of sound pictures, although Don Juan (1926), a John Barrymore silent film, also had a synchronized musical score performed by the New York Philharmonic and sound effects using Vita phone’s system.] It should be made clear that this film was not the first sound film, nor the first 'talkie' film or the first movie musical.

The wildly successful "photo-dramatic production" was based upon Samson Raphaelson's 1921 short story "The Day of Atonement" (also the basis for Raphaelson's popular 1926 Broadway play of the same name), and adapted for the screen by Alfred A. Cohn.

In 1926, Warners' risky investment of a half million dollars with Western Electric in the Vitaphone sound system brought profits of $3.5 million at the box-office with this landmark talkie. It was a huge success, responsible for transforming Warners into Hollywood's hottest film factory. The commercialization of sound-on-film and the transformation of the industry from silent films to talkies became a reality with the success of this film.

In 1926, Warners' risky investment of a half million dollars with Western Electric in the Vitaphone sound system brought profits of $3.5 million at the box-office with this landmark talkie. It was a huge success, responsible for transforming Warners into Hollywood's hottest film factory. The commercialization of sound-on-film and the transformation of the industry from silent films to talkies became a reality with the success of this film.

Although it was not the first Vitaphone (sound-on-disk) feature, it was the first feature-length Hollywood "talkie" film in which spoken dialogue was used as part of the dramatic action. It is, however, only part-talkie (25%) with sound-synchronized, vocal musical numbers and accompaniment. [The first "all-talking" (or all-dialogue) feature-length picture was Warners' experimental entry - the gangster film Lights of New York (1928).] There are only a few scenes, besides the songs, where dialogue is spoken synchronously. A musical score (composed of a potpourri of melodies including sources such as Tchaikovsky, traditional Hebrew music and popular ballads) and musical sound effects accompany the action and title/subtitle cards throughout the entire film. The characters are given individual musical themes.

Sam Warner, co-founder of the studio, died at the premature age of 40 - one day before the film's New York City world premiere on October 6, 1927. Jolson was given the lead after Eddie Cantor and George Jessel denied Warners' offer to play the title role. Audiences were wildly enthusiastic when America's favourite jazz singer and superstar Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson in 1886, not the first choice for the role, and played onstage by George Jessel) broke into song, ad-libbed extemporaneously with his mother at the piano, and proclaimed the famous line to introduce a musical number:

[Jolson was actually promoting the title of one of his songs, You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet (written by Gus Kahn and Buddy de Sylva), that he had recorded in 1919.] In fact                                                  Jolson's next part-talkie follow-up film, Warners' and director Lloyd Bacon's The Singing Fool (1928), was an even greater hit and a superior film. This next film contained the first hit song from a talking movie, Jolson's Sonny Boy. A Jolson biopic from director Alfred E. Green was titled The Jolson Story (1946), starring Oscar-nominated Larry Parks as the wildly-popular entertainer (rather than Jolson, who also auditioned to play himself). Star Parks received the nomination, although Jolson did the actual singing for the part. And then there was a sequel, Jolson Sings Again (1949).

Although the film was ruled ineligible in the Best Picture category (it was thought unfair for a sound film to compete with silent’s), Warner Bros.' production head Darryl F. Zanuck was presented with a special Oscar at the very first Academy Awards ceremony in May of 1929, "for producing The Jazz Singer, the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry." The film had two nominations in two other categories: Best Writing Adaptation (Alfred Cohn), and Best Engineering Effects (Nugent Slaughter), but didn't win.