ABSTRACT
Although motion pictures with synchronized sound first screened in Egypt in 1906, Gaumont's chronophone exhibition was short-lived and took place in a single Alexandrian venue; the device could not synchronize dependably and sustainably. More than two decades later, The Jazz Singer screened in Alexandria, thereby reintroducing synchronized sound cinema into Egyptian cinemas, a sound cinema that would all but replace the silent within several years. In addition to singing sequences, The Jazz Singer contained scenes of speech and dialogue. The author begins with an historical analysis of critical reception of the singing cinema, particularly as an inheritor of the masrah al-gina'i (singing theater). He then turns to a practice largely concurrent with critical reception, namely audience response to singing films, first foreign then domestically produced. Having reviewed the singing film's emergence and subsequent success in the early years of synchronized sound, the author offers explanations for its dominance in exhibition.
