1929 was a watershed year: William Wellman with "Chinatown Nights" and "The Man I Love", Rouben Mamoulian with "Applause", Alfred Hitchcock with "Blackmail" (Britain's first sound feature), were among the directors to bring greater fluidity to talkies and experiment with the expressive use of sound (Eyman, 1997).
Do konca leta 1929 je bil ozvočen skoraj ves Hollywood, z mnogimi konkurenčnimi zvočnimi sistemi.