THE JAZZ SINGER (1927) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Alan Crosland
Al Jolson, May McAvoy, Warner Oland,
Eugenie Besserer, William Demarest, Roscoe Karns
Though he appeared in other pictures over the years, Al Jolson made a singular mark on movies with just one film - this one. He plays a cantor's son torn between his inflexible father's demand that he sing in the synagogue and his own unquenchable passion for jazz. (To what extent Jolson's music could be considered jazz is a matter for musicologists.) It's an odd thing to watch, shifting between silent melodrama and primitive sound, showcasing Jolson's arm-waving exuberance, and closing with the star singing "Mammy" in blackface. But it marks the pivotal moment in the transition from silents to sound, and its impact was immediate and irreversible. Within two or three years, every studio in Hollywood had converted to sound, and movies would never be the same.
