Part-talkie

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A part-talkie is a sound film that includes at least some "talking sequences" or sections with audible dialogue. The remainder of the film is provided with a synchronized musical score with sound effects. These films more often than not contain a main theme song that is played during key scenes in the film and is often sung offscreen on the musical soundtrack. During the portion without audible dialogue, speaking parts are presented as intertitles—printed text briefly filling the screen—and the soundtrack is used only to supply musical accompaniment and sound effects.

In the case of feature films made in the United States, nearly all such hybrid films date to the 1927–1929 period of transition from "silents" to full-fledged "talkies" with audible dialog throughout. It took about a year and a half for a transition period for American movie houses to move from almost all silent to almost all equipped for sound.^[1] In the interim, studios reacted by improvising four solutions: fast remakes of recent productions, the addition of one or two sound segments spliced into already finished productions, dual sound and silent versions produced simultaneously, and part-talkies.

The famous so-called "first talking picture", The Jazz Singer (1927), starring Al Jolson, is actually a part-talkie. It features only about fifteen minutes of singing and talking, interspersed throughout the film, while the rest is a synchronized film with intertitles and only a recorded orchestral accompaniment with sound effects.