Sam Warner halted his own salary, moved his family into a smaller apartment, and pawned his wife's jewelry to keep an unproven sound technology alive. This episode tells the high-stakes story behind The Jazz Singer, the 1927 Warner Bros. film starring Al Jolson that effectively ended the silent era. It begins in 1917 with college student Samson Raphaelson watching Jolson perform and recognizing the fervor of a synagogue cantor, an observation that became a short story, a hit play, and finally a film.

The conversation covers George Jessel walking away from the lead over money and a changed ending, the fragile Vitaphone sound-on-disc system that paired 15 film reels with 15 records, the production cost of over 400,000 dollars, and Sam Warner's death from pneumonia at age 40 the day before the premiere. It also examines the roughly two minutes ...