Sound film
The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid- to late 1920s. At first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as "talking pictures", or "talkies", were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects. The first feature film originally presented as a talkie was "The Jazz Singer", released in October 1927. A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-film, however, would soon become the standard for talking pictures.
Sound film
On August 23, the modest-sized Austrian film industry came out with a talkie: "G'schichten aus der Steiermark" ("Stories from Styria"), an Eagle Film–Ottoton Film production. On September 30, the first entirely German-made feature-length dramatic talkie, "Das Land ohne Frauen" ("Land Without Women"), premiered. A Tobis Filmkunst production, about one-quarter of the movie contained dialogue, which was strictly segregated from the special effects and music. The response was underwhelming. Sweden's first talkie, "Konstgjorda Svensson" ("Artificial Svensson"), premiered on October 14. Eight days later, Aubert Franco-Film came out with "Le Collier de la reine" ("The Queen's Necklace"), shot at the Épinay studio near Paris. Conceived as a silent film, it was given a Tobis-recorded score and a single talking sequence—the first dialogue scene in a French feature. On October 31, "Les Trois masques" debuted; a Pathé-Natan film, it is generally regarded as the initial French feature talkie, though it was shot, like "Blackmail", at the Elstree studio, just outside London. The production company had contracted with RCA Photophone and Britain then had the nearest facility with the system. The Braunberger-Richebé talkie "La Route est belle", also shot at Elstree, followed a few weeks later.