The Complicated History of “The Jazz Singer”

Today is the anniversary of the release date of the landmark Warner Brothers motion picture The Jazz Singer (1927) starring Al Jolson. 

The fame of this film is perhaps greater than ever, but I’ll wager many more millions have heard about the movie than have ever seen it. Like many other great American works (Huckleberry Finn, The Birth of a Nation) The Jazz Singer’s legacy is complicated.

Its biggest renown is for being the “first talkie”, which is actually far from the case. Countless (or at least numerous) talking films had been made and shown prior to The Jazz Singer, just as many Europeans had traveled to the Americas prior to Columbus. What made The Jazz Singer (and Columbus’s voyage) significant was that this was the one that GOT NOTICED, and that brought about major, sweeping change. A major feature length film starring one of the top theatre stars of the day singing many popular tunes, it was an ATTRACTION. People went to see it, and so the studios sought immediately to replicate its success.

Another complicating factor? The Jazz Singer isn’t really a talkie. It’s more like a silent film with a musical soundtrack, punctuated with a half dozen short sequences containing sync sound musical numbers and brief chatter. Then back to the silence. The recording process, called Vitaphone, allowed Warner Brothers to take the industry lead in talking films. The first all-talking feature Lights of New York wasn’t released by Vitaphone until almost a year later.

The other complicating factor is of course that the film makes use of blackface** performance. In time — mostly because of widespread public ignorance of early show business history — The Jazz Singer and Jolson have been unfairly scapegoated as some sort of particular standard bearers for this practice, which has since become universally discredited and acknowledged to be racist. The truth is blackface had been popular to the point of near universality on the American stage for nearly a century by the time The Jazz Singer came out. Nearly every performer of the time put on burnt cork from time to time. Jolson was just the most famous of them, and The Jazz Singer is simply the most famous movie that uses it. But in no sense did Jolson or The Jazz Singer pioneer or particularly popularize or spearhead blackface minstrelsy. In 1927, it was just another show. This isn’t to defend blackface, which is heinous; it’s to put The Jazz Singer in its proper context.

Finally, the most complicating aspect of The Jazz Singer is, even as it dehumanized African Americans, it was landmark in constructing a sympathetic narrative for the American Immigrant Story. Amazingly, the play on which The Jazz Singer was based The Day of Atonement by Samson Raphaelson, was based on Jolson’s own life story.  It tells of one Jake Rabinowitz, the son of a Jewish cantor who is trained to take such a role in life himself. But he breaks with tradition and embraces American culture, becoming the titular Jazz Singer in night clubs and theatres. Astute listeners will hear music they recognize as “Tin Pan Alley” — popular compositions with an element of syncopation — but no actual jazz instrumentation. Jazz had a broader definition back then. Everything is relative. At any rate, George Jessel had starred in the hit Broadway play, but when the film became a talkie, through various machinations Jessel was displaced and Jolson was brought in to replace him — as himself. Anyway, to further complicate the racial ripples and overtones and undertows in this crazy musical, Jolson’s cantor father is played in the movie by Warner Oland, the Swede best known for playing Charlie Chan).

Most of us today find Jolson overbearing and obnoxious. As with many performers, I have an affection for him, with some reservations. But in his day his brash personality was considered winning — it’s one of the factors that made such a hit of this movie. It’s entirely possible that a more boring performance might have delayed the final triumph of sound (after decades of quiet development) by months or even years.

Anyway, like that other “complicated classic” Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Jazz Singer went on to many additional incarnations.

I Love to Singa (1936)

The beloved Warner Brothers animated parody version starring “Owl Jolson”

Danny Thomas version (1952) Directed by Michael Curtiz, this is the first one to be a total talkie (the original was largely silent). The casting of Danny Thomas , a Lebanese Christian, in the quintessential Jewish role is a bit odd. but I’ve always found the film interesting, and I saw it long before I ever saw the original. While Thomas would later be delightful own his own sitcom, this film is among the handful of exhibits that make the case that Thomas was not a movie star. Indeed, it was the last attempt to make him one. Thomas’s co-star in the film is Peggy Lee. This one is updated, set in present day, with contemporary big band type music.

Jerry Lewis version (1959) This departure for Jerry Lewis set several precedents for the comedian. It was his first attempt at the pathos he would later try to inject into things like The Nutty Professor, and an early appearance of the “sad clown” thing that would find its ultimate apotheosis in The Day the Clown Cried. He wanted to be Jolson and Chaplin all in one. He was more like Jolson, more than a tad insensitive and vain. And in the Thomas vein, he strives to be a Vegas-worthy crooner. It would be stretch though to call this show bad,  certainly not nearly as bad as it sounds when you first heard that it exists. Over all, it is a quality, prestige television production. Molly Picon played his ma!

Neil Diamond version (1980)Oh yes, I saw this one when it came to theatres on its initial release. It ranks with Paul Simon’sOne Trick Pony among the legendary stinko vanity projects. Neil Diamond is not an actor, let alone one who should appear opposite Laurence Olivier. Instead of the titular jazz we get three cheesy easy-listening songs: “Love on the Rocks” (1980, #2), “Hello Again” (1981, #6), and “America” (1981, #8), making us wonder how much of a pop star he is either! (I’m sorry, that’s mean, for the record, I like EARLY Neil Diamond before he went Vegas).

NOW. We are four decades since the last remake, but that doesn’t mean The Jazz Singer can never be revived. I actually no fewer than TWO ideas about how it can be done:

1. It’s never been remade in the modern era as a period piece. You could set it a century ago with historical accuracy. It’s never been told that way as a complete script; the 1927 one was mostly silent. This approach would still leave you with the problematic aspect of blackface though. One would have to think long and hard about that aspect, and whether to do it al all. Because it is historical, theoretically it’s solvable — we show heinous historical events on screen all the time. At present, though, the STORY doesn’t think blackface is objectionable, just a fact of life. You’d have a very tough needle to thread to tell it in a way that doesn’t offend contemporary sensibilities.
2. This way: much easier. Make the hero black. His family immigrated from Africa or the Caribbean. It could be a period piece or a contemporary story. The music could be jazz or hip-hop, for that matter. Still have the arc with the traditional, conservative father who doesn’t want assimilation. If you set it in the past, you could even deal with blackface and make Jack Robin more like Bert Williams. Have black writers write it, and a black director, and flip the whole Jazz Singer thing on its head. Just an idea!

For more on show biz history, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.

**Obligatory Disclaimer: It is the official position of this blog that Caucasians-in-Blackface is NEVER okay. It was bad then, and it’s bad now. We occasionally show images depicting the practice, or refer to it in our writing, because it is necessary to tell the story of American show business, which like the history of humanity, is a mix of good and bad.