New Jersey already has impressive claims in the realm of cinematic history. Fort Lee was America's film capital before Hollywood. Thomas Edison built what is considered the first movie studio, in West Orange in 1893. And the 1903 Western "The Great Train Robbery" -- influential for its crosscut parallel narratives -- was filmed in Milltown.

But, as Al Jolson famously remarked in 1927's "The Jazz Singer," you ain't heard nothin' yet.

Fourteen years before the Jolson film, which irreversibly ushered in the sound era of movies, Edison made and exhibited sound films with a system he developed in West Orange: the kinetophone.

A scene from "Nursery Favorites" (1913), a surviving kinetophone film.

At least eight of the 200 kinetophone films survive and, thanks to a partnership between the Library of Congress and the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, have been restored with sound -- all but one for the first time since they were originally screened. All are from 1913.

The films are available in a DVD collection released this week: "The Kinetophone: A Fact! A Reality!" (Undercrank Productions, 76 minutes, $19.95).

The first film on the DVD, titled "The Edison Kinetophone," presents a sole narrator, believed to be Canadian actor Allan Ramsey (who directed most of the films), extolling Edison's invention. The actor's words, delivered with exaggerated theatrical flourish, seem prophetic at one point: "The world's great singers and actors of today can be seen and heard 100 years from now!"

A scene from "Jack's Joke" (1913), a surviving kinetophone film.

The shorts are generally six minutes each, filmed in one long take -- a restriction imposed by the cumbersome recording and filming system. Though the kinetophone was developed in West Orange and some experimental filming was done there, the films were shot at Edison's Bronx studio.

More than a century after the fact, the sound and pictures were remarried digitally by George Willeman of the Library of Congress in Culpeper, Virginia. Did Willeman feel as if this was a sacred mission?

"A little bit," he said by telephone on Wednesday. "It's something that had stuck in the back of my mind for 25 years, when I first saw the films at our nitrate vaults in Ohio. I would find these cans that had musical titles and think, 'These are silent films, aren't they?' Then one day I saw the word kinetophone on one. 'Oh, we have some of these. I wonder if the sound survives?' "

Turns out, the sound was in New Jersey.

A scene from "The Edison Minstrels" (1913), a surviving kinetophone film.

"The (sound) cylinders were not a surprise discovery," said Gerald Fabris, museum curator at Thomas Edison National Historical Park, via email. Fabris explained that the National Park Service cataloged the kinetophone cylinders at West Orange in the 1970s. In 1998, the possibility of restoring sound to the kinetophone films was discussed.

"However, at that time, the work would have been done by outside contract, and it was prohibitively expensive," Fabris said.

Beginning in 2015, with technology more accessible and affordable, the park struck an arrangement with the Library of Congress to finally get the ball rolling.

"It was a serendipity of things coming together," Willeman said.

A scene from "The Old Guard" (1913), a surviving kinetophone film.

But Willeman had to perform much digital wizardry, especially with video editing software called Final Cut Pro, to synch the sound to the actors' lips. This was partly due to shortcomings in the kinetophone system.

Said Willeman: "The system was far from perfect right from the beginning. It would slip out of synch at the time they were filming it."

Another snag: In some cases, sound and images were from different takes. To match them up, Willeman said, "I never altered the speed of the sound; I always worked with the pictures. I felt that to alter the sound would be more disruptive to the viewer."

A scene from "The Five Bachelors" (1913), a surviving kinetophone film.

The surprisingly entertaining films run the gamut from musical comedy to period drama to kiddie fare: "The Edison Kinetophone," "Musical Blacksmiths," "Nursery Favorites" "The Deaf Mute," "The Edison Minstrels" (which is preceded by a disclosure due to its use of blackface), "The Five Bachelors," "The Old Guard" and "Jack's Joke."

"The Kinetophone: A Fact! A Reality!" can be ordered at Amazon.com, among other online outlets. Included is a documentary about the history of the kinetophone and the bonus comedy "The Politician" (1913), a kinetophone film for which the sound is presently lost, with a piano score by Ben Model of Undercrank Productions.

An advertisement for Edison's kinetophone.

VIDEO: Below is a version of "Nursery Favorites," though not the one recently restored by the Library of Congress. Nonetheless, it will give the viewer an idea of what the kinetophone films are like.