But for it's reputation as cinema's first talking film, I didn't find "The Jazz Singer" to be particularly appealing, be it story wise or in entertainment value. Going only by it's reputation for my first viewing, I was puzzled by the actual lack of speech at the start of the picture, along with the generous use of dialog cards complementing a good number of the scenes. The rare times Jolson's (or anyone's) voice is heard is in connection with the song offerings throughout the picture, with very limited use elsewhere. In all, the film breaks out to about eighty/twenty in terms of it's silent to talk ratio, but it was enough to capture the public's imagination creating a clamorous desire for more talkies. Interestingly, Jolson's very next picture, "The Singing Fool" a year later was about sixty/forty, and was so successfully received that it remained the movie box office champion until 1939's "Gone With the Wind". Now there's a statistic that bears noting.
My summary line belongs to Jack Robin's (Jolson) mother (Eugenie Besserer) as she agonizes over her son's choice of profession. I found it particularly fitting to describe Jolson's own career, already booming at the time the movie came out. With his appearance in the film, he became an even greater sensation. However in one of those odd consequences due to the passage of time and tastes, the 'World's Greatest Entertainer' for over forty years is relatively unknown today except to cinema fans who point to this film as one of his crowning achievements.
But as I remarked earlier, the story in "The Jazz Singer" is not particularly compelling, and approaches a rather odd creakiness in the present day. Some of the acting is confined to over-emoting, not unusual for early talkies, and the players come across somewhat as caricatures. The most natural seemed to be May McAvoy as Jack Robin's girlfriend, an unusually resilient character who took it in stride when Jack admitted that his career came even before her. In fact, she even applauded him for it, which to my mind made her one in a million.
My summary line belongs to Jack Robin's (Jolson) mother (Eugenie Besserer) as she agonizes over her son's choice of profession. I found it particularly fitting to describe Jolson's own career, already booming at the time the movie came out. With his appearance in the film, he became an even greater sensation. However in one of those odd consequences due to the passage of time and tastes, the 'World's Greatest Entertainer' for over forty years is relatively unknown today except to cinema fans who point to this film as one of his crowning achievements.
But as I remarked earlier, the story in "The Jazz Singer" is not particularly compelling, and approaches a rather odd creakiness in the present day. Some of the acting is confined to over-emoting, not unusual for early talkies, and the players come across somewhat as caricatures. The most natural seemed to be May McAvoy as Jack Robin's girlfriend, an unusually resilient character who took it in stride when Jack admitted that his career came even before her. In fact, she even applauded him for it, which to my mind made her one in a million.