This Day in History: 1927-10-06

First movie with sound —  The Jazz Singer,  an American musical film, is released on this day in 1927, transforming cinema.   Originally called a “talkie,” the film was an enormous success for the time. At the premier,  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. The racist blackface routines, meant to be clownish, were unfortunately typical of stage performances at the time, and contributed to the climate of  hatred in the post WWI era.