At first the movies had no sound. A pianist in the theater played the music throughout the movie, but there were no spoken words in those early movies. The actors' words were subtitled on the screen between scenes.Then, in 1926, a movie called Don Juan appeared with a soundtrack. But the soundtrack was independent of the movie, and was simply played in the theater along with the movie. In addition, there was no dialogue about the soundtrack, only the music.
The Jazz Singer, which first appeared in 1927, is often called the first movie to be "talking" because it contains a few dialogue words apart from the music. But this film is not all-talking. The first film that was actually a talking picture, with all the dialogue on the soundtrack, as we know it today, appeared in 1928, and was called Lights of New York.
The first full-length color film to be shown to the public, Toll of the Sea, appeared in 1922, five years before the first sound film!
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