Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Tetrady not as good as all the hype

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

JohnHowardReid Assistant director: Gordon Hollingshead. Sound recording: George R. Groves. Vitaphone Sound System. Sound technician: William A. Mueller. Sound supervisor: Nathan Levinson.Copyright 6 October 1927 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Warners' Theatre, 6 October 1927. U.S. release: 4 February 1928. 9 reels. 8,117 feet. 90 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Young man wants to be a jazz singer, but dad wants him to follow in his footsteps as cantor in the local synagogue.NOTES: Special Academy Award, Warner Bros.: "for producing The Jazz Singer, the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry." Also nominated for Writing Adaptation (Seventh Heaven) and Special Engineering Effects (Wings).Domestic rental gross: $3½ million. Re-made as The Jolson Story (1946), The Jazz Singer (1953), The Jazz Singer (1980).Although this was the first feature film in which spoken dialogue was heard from the screen, that dialogue was limited. The Jazz Singer is primarily a silent movie with a synchronized music score, plus songs.The original Broadway play opened at the Fulton on 14 September 1925 and ran a highly successful 315 performances. Albert Lewis directed Howard Lane, Sam Jaffe and star, George Jessel, who was contracted to do the movie but balked when the studio decided to add sound to four songs. He demanded more money. The studio refused and Jolson was engaged instead.COMMENT: The story set the pattern for talkies — sentimental, synthetic, a bit of manufactured drama carelessly tossed away to cater for box office demand — and nowhere is this more evident than at the conclusion where a title card glibly explains that time heals all wounds and allows Jolson to go into his concluding number Mammy.Jolson's last two numbers in blackface are infinitely more acceptable than his others owing to his exaggerated mannerisms which even by silent standards (and in contrast to most of the other players — Besserer and Lederer even are not this bad) are exceedingly hammy. Jolson and Besserer are the only players that have any dialogue and then only in one stretch. Jolson has a few other lines between numbers and Oland has one word, "Stop!" The other players are completely speechless, though Cantor Josef Rosenblatt has a song and young Bobbie Gordon has a couple of numbers (though we suspect his are dubbed). There is very little use of sound effects — applause only — even obvious effects like knocking on doors being underscored only by music — and that too is kitsch. Still, May McAvoy makes a charming heroine, Myrna Loy is effective in a bit as a sneaky-eyed gossiping chorus girl. And even without his voice Roscoe Karns' personality comes across in his single scene at the railroad station. Demarest has a tiny part as a ravenous diner. The film is rather slow and the direction (aside from a rapid tracking shot through the street on Jolson's return home) is undistinguished — although I like the way he solves the problem of keeping the story going at the climax during the songs, by intercutting them with sub-titles!

evening1 Beautifully depicted drama about the struggle to be an individual amidst the conflicting influences of one's culture and society.Al Jolson is stellar as Jaky Rabinowitz, who has been called from a young age to sing the jazz songs of his time. But his father, a fourth-generation cantor, would rather disown Jaky than watch him assimilate."Would you be the first Rabinowitz in five generations to fail his God?" "I'd love to sing for my people but I belong here," Jaky says of the theater. His mother, who loves her husband as deeply as her only child, believes God wishes Jaky to follow his heart.One feels deeply for the struggle of the protagonist, even as we see him apply black-face makeup, a convention of the time, and warble songs like "Mammy" that seem dated and campy now.The film affectionately depicts Jewish domestic life, employing Yiddish intonation through the card titles. The traditional Jewish liturgy finds sensitive portrayal in the movie's climactic Kol Nidre scene.The performances here are uniformly strong. Jolson is believable in his classic struggle to find his true self. Eugenie Besserer and Warner Oland, neither of whom was Jewish, are convincing as Jaky's pious parents. Otto Lederer is warmly endearing as the "kibitzer" Yudelson. And beautiful May McAvoy is a joy as Jaky's inspiring love interest.Everything about this movie rings true for me."Remember, a son's a son no matter if his papa throws him out a hundred times."

Jgirl2688 Finally after all these years of hearing about this movie, and seeing clips from it in historical film documentaries, I finally watched it! And I really liked it too! The story is universal and still applies today, Jolson was great as the Jewish cantor's son who wanted to be a jazz singer instead of a cantor like his father. Of course this movie is famous for having bits of dialogue spoken, and they are spoken during the song sequences. This device is both really cool, and makes you wish the whole movie were a talky, but it also is kinda annoying at times too, as the transitions are a bit awkward. Overall, I really liked this movie, though, it's got heart.

Tad Pole . . . my local library had the three-disc Warner Brothers DVD set that includes about every possible clue to the development of "talkies," or flicks with synchronized soundtracks, nearly a hundred years ago. Of the scores of separate items included on these discs, SHOCKINGLY, this film--THE JAZZ SINGER--was the top-rated item. I expected some cringe-worthy antiquated doo-doo nearly impossible to suffer through with THE JAZZ SINGER, based on the few snippets of Al Jolson in Blackface to which I'd previously been exposed. What I got was an adept father-son tear jerker which has an internal self-awareness in terms of playing with the fact that this collaborative effort was knowingly changing EVERY facet of American popular entertainment up to that time through its use of synchronized sound. The soundtrack and song selection are amazingly good, but the score by Louis Silvers ranks right up there on the pathos scale with anything John Williams or Max Steiner have composed. Jolson's acting is a revelation, and it's a more than eerie coincidence that as a character named Jakie "Jack Robin" he's breaking the sound barrier IN BLACKFACE in BROOKLYN just 20 years before a man actually named Jackie Robinson breaks America's COLOR BARRIER in popular culture IN BROOKLYN!