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Culture · The Jazz Age
The Pictures Find Their Voice: Jolson Sings on the Screen
Warner Brothers' 'The Jazz Singer' with Vitaphone song sequences thrills the Broadway audience; theatre men ponder what it means for the silent drama.
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NEW YORK, October 6, 1927. — An audience of first-nighters at the Warners' Theatre rose to its feet tonight when Al Jolson, from the screen, broke into song and then spoke the words 'Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet!'
The picture is for the most part silent with printed titles, but the Vitaphone sequences synchronized upon disc brought the star's celebrated voice to the screen with an immediacy that left many hardened observers astonished.
Theatre owners are counting the cost of wiring their houses, and orchestra musicians in the picture palaces have reason to wonder about their engagements. Stars of the silent screen whose voices are untried may find the new art less kind to them.
Whether the talking picture is a novelty or a revolution, the trade will know soon enough. Tonight Broadway decided that it rather liked being sung to by a shadow.
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