The Jazz Singer cinema poster (1928)
Sydney audiences broke all box office records in late December 1928 when The Jazz Singer opened at the Lyceum, and The Red Dance opened at the Regent. In a week these two cinemas took £8,500!
In November 1928, Western Electric engineers had installed Fox Movietone sound-on-film equipment at the Regent, and Vitaphone sound-on-disc machines at the Lyceum, and those famous words of Al Jolson were heard and imitated all through that summer. By November 1929, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that The Jazz Singer had screened 487 times at the Lyceum, breaking the record for the number of screenings of any film at a single cinema, previously held by The Ten Commandments.
Suburban cinemas could not immediately compete, since the equipment cost £6,000 to install, plus a compulsory ten year service contract costing £4,000 in weekly installments. Many competing systems were designed and built by local electricians, but Western Electric ruthlessly defended its technology against interlopers.