Scottish film could steal The Jazz Singer’s crown as ‘world’s first talkie’

A Scottish film made in Glasgow could claim the title of world's first feature-length talkie, potentially displacing Hollywood's The Jazz Singer from nearly a century of film history.

Till the Bells Ring, written in Scots, premiered a year before The Jazz Singer, which featured spoken dialogue by Al Jolson and has long been credited as cinema's first synchronised dialogue feature.

Historian Marc David Jacobs discovered the film while researching British sound cinema for a book. Jacobs describes himself as a "film nerd" and made the breakthrough after coming across Till the Bells Ring's story during his research.

The discovery challenges the established narrative that The Jazz Singer introduced spoken words to feature-length cinema and established English as film's primary language.