During the 1920's, engineers in Germany and the United States were working to develop technology that could add schynchronous recorded sound to the movies. A few systems were ready to be used by the mid-1920's.
"The Jazz Singer" (1927) was the first sound film to become a hit. Although this movie was silent for the most part, a few scenes had the popular American entertainer Al Jolson speaking and singing in synchronous sound. This system from which the sound from a mechanically recorded disc was synchronized with the film strip. This system was soon replaced by one that used electronic signlas to record the sound directly onto the film strip. The sound-on-film system was used widely by 1929.
The coming of sound marked a turning point in motion-picture history. There are some historians who believe that sound was actually a setback for the artistic developement of movies. The emphasis on sound, and the expenses of developing it, limited other technological advances that filmmakers were experimenting with in the 1920's. For example, a wide-screen process demonstrated by French director Abel Gance in "Napoleon" (1927) was not introduced until the 1950's. What was affected most, perhaps, was a kind of poetic cinema that was represented by certain silent films as "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928), directed by Carl Dreyer of Denmark. These type of films survived more as an experimental art form rather as part of main commercial movies.
With sound being introduced, movies went through a strange period of adjustment. Cameras had to be put in soundproof boxes, because the microphones would pick up motor noise. More importantly, however, directors had to learn how to take best advantage of sound, althoug this adjustment period was short lived. By 1931, one of Germany's major silent film directors, Fritz Lang, had made "M", a sound film that is still a masterpiece of cinema. In 1928, Walt Disney came out with "Steamboat Willie", which was the first animated short film to use schynchronized sound.
In Hollywood, sound made greater canges in personnel rather than film style. With sound, came many directors, dialogue writers, and, especially, perfomers from the Broadway theater. Many silent film stars, notably Greta Garbo and the comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, successfully made the transition to sound, however many did not. The reason that many did not make it in the new sound world of movies, was because of unsuitable voices or problems with what the stuidos thought excessive salaries.
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