This Day in History: 1926-08-06

Don Juan, the first film with a Vitaphone instrumental soundtrack, premiers on this day in 1926.  Only a year later, the first film with a full recorded dialogue and singing soundtrack, the Jazz Singer, will be released.  Both Don Juan and the Jazz Singer are produced at Warner Brothers Studios using  elaborate and complex sound technology.  At the premier of Jazz Singer Oct 6, 1927,  fifteen reels of film and fifteen separate disks had to be managed and cued very quickly.  But audience reaction was strongly positive, and it was clear by 1927 that the end of silent cinema was in sight.