The Jazz Singer (1927) | |
| Director(s) | Alan Crosland |
| Producer(s) | Jack L. Warner |
| Top Genres | Drama, Musical, Romance |
| Top Topics | Based on Play, Broadway, Fame, Father Son, Romance (Drama), Show Business |
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The Jazz Singer Overview:
The Jazz Singer (1927) was a Drama - Musical Film directed by Alan Crosland and produced by Jack L. Warner.
The film was based on the short story The Day of Atonement written by Samson Raphaelson published in Everybody's Magazine and as a Stage Play "The Jazz Singer" (Jan 1922 (magazine) and Sep 14, 1925 - Jun 1926 (play performed at Fulton Theatre, NY)).
SYNOPSIS
A cinema landmark, this is the film most identified with the coming of sound. Though sound schemes had been envisioned at the dawn of motion pictures (even sound-on-film techniques similar to modern methods), The Jazz Singer made the commercial potential of sound apparent. The major studios had resisted disrupting the profitable silent-film production engine that had only recently been standardized, and making the huge investment required retrofitting studios and theaters for sound. Sam Warner must be credited with taking a chance on a sound-on-disk system developed by their Vitaphone subsidiary; he died just before the thronged premiere that proved his prescience. The first Vitaphone feature film depicts the dilemma of a cantor's son who garners show business success over his father's objections. With the line, "You ain't heard nuthin' yet!," movie history changed forever. Note that The Jazz Singer is mostly silent, with just some Jolson ad-libbed asides in addition to the synch-sound (more or less) musical segments. The first all-talking feature was Lights of New York, a squalid little potboiler that featured dialogue in 22 scenes. Songs include "Mammy," "Toot, Toot, Tootsie," "Blue Skies," and more.
(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).
.The Jazz Singer was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1996.
Academy Awards 1952 --- Ceremony Number 25 (source: AMPAS)
| Award | Recipient | Result |
| Best Writing | Alfred Cohn | Nominated |
| Special Award | To Warner Bros., for producing The Jazz Singer, the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry. | Won |
| Best Music - Scoring | Ray Heindorf, Max Steiner | Nominated |
BlogHub Articles:
Musical Monday: The Jazz Singer (1952)
on Sep 14, 2015 From Comet Over HollywoodIt?s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals. In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 500. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals. This week?s musical: Jazz Singer (1952) ? Musical... Read full article
THE JAZZ SINGER ( 1927 )
By Crystal Kalyana on Apr 16, 2015 From In The Good Old Days Of Classic HollywoodMUSICAL MONTH THE JAZZ SINGER ( 1927 ) My parents have always been avid fans of Neil Diamond, and growing up I became accustomed to his music, later becoming an ardent supporter of his work myself. When I was younger they purchased the 1980 remake of “The Jazz Singer” which stars Neil Di... Read full article
Classic Films in Focus: THE JAZZ SINGER (1927)
By Jennifer Garlen on Feb 26, 2013 From Virtual ViragoIf people think of Al Jolson at all today, they think of him in blackface, belting out his plaintive "Mammy" song at the end of The Jazz Singer (1927) or in countless cartoon parodies of it. It may well discourage viewers from giving the original movie a chance, which is a shame because, as problema... Read full article
Classic Films in Focus: THE JAZZ SINGER (1927)
By Jennifer Garlen on Feb 26, 2013 From Virtual ViragoIf people think of Al Jolson at all today, they think of him in blackface, belting out his plaintive "Mammy" song at the end of The Jazz Singer (1927) or in countless cartoon parodies of it. It may well discourage viewers from giving the original movie a chance, which is a shame because, as problema... Read full article
Classic Films in Focus: THE JAZZ SINGER (1927)
By Jennifer Garlen on Feb 26, 2013 From Virtual ViragoIf people think of Al Jolson at all today, they think of him in blackface, belting out his plaintive "Mammy" song at the end of The Jazz Singer (1927) or in countless cartoon parodies of it. It may well discourage viewers from giving the original movie a chance, which is a shame because, as problema... Read full article
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Facts about
Al Jolson's famous line "you ain't heard nothin' yet" was an ad-lib. The intention was that the film should only have synchronized music, not speech, but Jolson dropped in the line (which he used in his stage act) after the song "Dirty Hands, Dirty Face". The director wisely left it in.
Many documentaries and historians state that immediately after the release and success of The Jazz Singer that all of Hollywood switched to sound. This is not true for several reasons. First, there were two competing and incompatible sound systems. The Vitaphone process was cumbersome, relying on an electro-mechanical interface between the projector and the turntable. Fox's Fotofilm was a superior sound-on-film process that allowed for easier editing but required a costlier projector (the Vitaphone system would be quietly killed off by 1932). Secondly, either sound process nearly doubled the budget of a film. Thirdly, theater chains faced enormous conversion costs (MGM-parent company Loew's Inc. owned over 1,000 outlets, and took a deliberately slow wait-and-see attitude toward sound). The first feature film with all synchronous dialog was Lights of New York. Also, in the midst of the talkie-craze of 1928-30, studio bosses were faced with a limited amount of sound equipment and qualified sound technicians, causing them innumerable headaches over which productions to produce as talkies vs. silents. Also, silents were internationally marketable via cheap title card translations while talkies, prior to the advent of subtitles, usually required completeread more facts about The Jazz Singer...
