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.
Stereophonic sound
In April 1953, while "This is Cinerama" was still playing only in New York City, most moviegoing audiences heard stereophonic sound for the first time with "House of Wax", an early 3-D film starring Vincent Price and produced by Warner Bros. Unlike the 4-track mag release-print stereo films of the period which featured four thin strips of magnetic material running down the length of the film, inside and outside the sprocket holes, the sound system developed for "House of Wax", dubbed WarnerPhonic, was a combination of a 35 mm fully coated magnetic film that contained the audio tracks for Left-Center-Right, interlocked with the two dual-strip Polaroid system projectors, one of which carried a mono optical surround track and one that carried a mono backup track, should anything go wrong.