Landmark Film - Don Juan (1926)

The film was first vitaphone production. While it is not regarded as a landmark film in the context of D.W. Griffith, the replacement of the orchestra with a sound recording was the beginnings of the recorded sound evolution and a strange achievement in the failure of the vitaphone system. However, the popularity of the Don Juan probably had very little to do with the shift of technology. Donald Crafton in The Talkies:American Cinema Transition to Sound 1926 - 1931 states the film grossed $790,000 in 36 week run at Warners (Crafton, 1999:102). While this film was successful, it was not long after that the vitaphone system was being removed some theatre owners.