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.
The Sound Barrier
Contrary to what is depicted in the film, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier was the rocket-powered Bell X-1 flown by Chuck Yeager of the United States Air Force in 1947. As Yeager, who was present at the US premiere, described in his first biography, "The Sound Barrier" was entertaining, but not that realistic – and any pilot who attempted to break the sound barrier in the manner portrayed in the film (forcing the centre stick forward to pull out of a dive) would have been killed. Because the 1947 Bell X-1 flight had not been widely publicised, many who saw "The Sound Barrier" thought it was a true story, and that the first supersonic flight was made by a British pilot.