Video: 'The Jazz Singer (1927) - Trailer' (Oct. 6, 1927, at 1:43)

(Thursday, October 6, 1927, 8:45 p.m. EST) — The era of talking pictures arrived tonight at Warner Theatre in Times Square in New York City with the opening of The Jazz Singer, an American musical film about a cantor’s son who breaks with family tradition to go into show business.

Featuring both silent and sound-synchronized sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound films and the decline of the silent film era.

Directed by Alan Crosland, the film starred Al Jolson, May McAvoy, Warner Oland and Yossele Rosenblatt.