In many countries 1976–77 will doubtless be celebrated as the fiftieth anniversary of the talkies. Two Warner Bros, feature films, Don Juan (1926) and The Jazz Singer (1927), led Hollywood and the rest of the world into the sound era, but they were not—as is widely assumed—the first sound movies.

Curiously, although few if any events have had greater impact on the history of film than the coming of the talkies, film historians have paid relatively little attention to how and why the transition from silent to sound cinema came about. It is hoped that the present work will provide the factual groundwork for repairing that neglect. Its emphasis is on the history of American contributions to the evolution of the sound film, but significant foreign achievements have not been overlooked. The book surveys the events that led from the invention of the phonograph in 1877 to that momentous evening in 1927 when an audience at the Warner’s Theatre in New York City saw and heard Al Jolson speak from the screen. It also considers the effects of the sound revolution on Hollywood and Hollywood film production during the transitional years 1928–29.

The published sources on which this study was based have all been indicated in the notes, and the reader is advised to consult that original material whenever he requires additional technical or factual information.

It must be emphasized that the present book is not and was not intended to be an analytic study of the films of the transitional period. But, hopefully, it will inspire the preparation of such a work–a project that is both necessary and long overdue.

H. M. G.

Bloomington, Indiana
June 1974