1928 Article Regarding Introduction of Talkies to Film
From the New Yorker, Came The Movietone, by Robert Benchley, issued 1928 (via Kottke.org):
First-hand and reliable reports from the scene present a terrifying picture. Perceiving the advent of the Film Which Talks Like a Man, hundreds of movie stars who have attained their eminence because of a dimple in the chin or a bovine eye, but whose speaking voices could hardly be counted on to put across the sale of a pack of Fatimas in a night club, are now frantically trying to train their larynxes into some sort of gentility. Voice culture has become the order, even the command, of the day.