Not the first film with sound

Indeed "The Jazz Singer" was by no means the first "sound film".

Sound films had existed from the very beginning of movies. Edison's Kinetoscope was designed with sound on cylinders as part of the system.

There had been numerous attempts to combine sound and film throughout the silent era most notably in Griffith's "Orphans in the Storm".

All had failed, primarily until the 1920s and the development electronic amplification systems the sound could not fill a auditorium.

Before "The Jazz Singer" both Fox and Warner were making sound shorts.

Fox Movietone News even recorded the sound Lindbergh taking off from New York.

Warner's had been producing large numbers of Vitaphone shorts of vaudeville acts (historically important now as the only primary resource for many of the performers of the period).

The need for sound to be installed for the Vitaphone shorts meant many Warner's cinemas were already ready for "The Jazz Singer" when it burst onto the screen in 1927.

But even before "The Jazz Singer" Warner's had released the full length movie "Don Juan" starring Douglas Fairbanks, a huge star of the time, with musical and sound effects recorded using Vitaphone sound on disc.

"Wings", which won the first Academy Award for Best Picture was also released with sound effects and musical score.

The industry was moving, slowly, to introduce sound in an orderly fashion because radio was eating into movie going, just as television would in the 1950s (which lead to CinemaScope and increased use of color).

It also saved money for their cinema chains, dispensing with the need for large and expensive orchestras (silent film was never silent ... it was always accompanied by music and in the big cinemas, with full symphonic orchestras).

But "The Jazz Singer" changed the whole ball game. Overnight silent movies were dead.

As for sound on disc ... whilst the sychronisation issues could never be resolved it should be remembered that sound quality far outstripped what was available with early sound on film which tended to sound like it had been recorded in a tin shed during a hail storm!

<sigh> WE KNOW!!! .... it may not have been the first film with sound elements but it was the first major sound film of note that was a game changer, now run off and be smug elsewhere.