The Jolson Story
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Movie Reviews of The Jolson Story
Movie Review: Blackface in context
Summary: 5 Stars
This comment is for those so offended by blackface that they would like to see it edited out of The Jolson Story. It will never happen, of course. Aside from rewriting history, it would sacrifice half the songs and make nonsense of the plot. Still, there's good reason to feel repelled. Jolson put on blackface and sang Dixie nostalgia at a time when lynching and the Ku Klux Klan were in revival and blacks were fleeing the South for their lives. Yet there is another side to it.
Imitation is still the sincerest form of flattery. Artists don't copy styles they despise, only those they admire. We can see how that works when it comes to more recent performers. We don't think of Eminem, or white gospel singers, as denigrating African-Americans. Elvis' first record, It's All Right, had such a black sound that many assumed he was black. Elvis was born and raised in the segregated Mississippi of the 1930's and 40's, yet his imitation of black sound was homage, not mockery.
But blackface was different, right? Or was it?
To understand Jolson, you have to go back to Stephen Foster. America's first great writer of popular songs, born in the 1830's, Foster was a northerner who visited the South, very briefly, only once in his life. Yet he was steeped in minstrel music and would black up as a child to perform it. In his day, black and white songs styles were perceived as different in kind. If you were trying to sound black, it made sense to try to look black. Foster wrote only two hits in white "parlor" style: Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair and Beautiful Dreamer. But he wrote dozens in black styles ranging from tragic laments to comic ditties.
Jolson's songs abound in allusions to Foster: Weep no more, my lady, Old Black Joe, Old Folks at home, Swannee River. But what could such songs have meant to an immigrant Jewish youth of the early 20th century?
Like blacks, immigrants were also uprooted. They also knew hard times and relied on humor to survive. Also, by then, Foster had become folk music. Black or white, everyone knew his songs from the cradle. Yet they were still seen as black-style songs, clearly different from white-style ones such as Banks of the Wabash and When You Were Sweet Sixteen. So white entertainers still blacked up to sing them, and anything at all like them.
Irrational? Absurd? Sure. But in a society so segregated by race, how else could whites hear black-style music? Look at the audiences in The Jolson Story. Entirely white. The entertainers too.
Fortunately, change was coming and a new black music would drive it. With the triumph of blues and jazz, black music became everyone's music. Blacks and whites were freed to sing the same songs. Backface vanished.
Jolson's career coincided with that transition. The Jolson Story captures his life-changing discovery of jazz and his attempt to marry it to the Foster tradition. Let us be grateful that his superb film biographies were made exactly when and how they were, preserving both his amazing voice and one of the weirdest moments in American cultural
Movie Review: Highly entertaining and almost completely fictional
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie started the wave of biopics that began after WWII. Larry Parks doesn't look the least bit like Al Jolson. For that matter, the script doesn't look much like Jolson's life either. However, the film is very entertaining with a few ironies for the classic film buff. When Parks is on stage, you really get a taste of Jolson in his prime. Al Jolson actually tutored Parks in how to move and interact with the audience using his own style, and it comes across well, even if it is obvious that you are hearing Jolson's voice during the performances and that this voice does not match Larry Parks' speaking voice at all.
Jolson's life story has been sanitized here to keep in line with the values of the post-war motion picture production code, right down to extending the life of Jolson's mother an extra forty years - she died when Al was ten. Also, the movie has Jolson playing the career-absorbed bachelor until he meets his wife Julie Benson (code for Ruby Keeler) when he is in his forties. Yes, Al was career-absorbed, but he still went through two marriages and two divorces before he ever got to Ruby Keeler.
Two very interesting points are the insertion of the fictional character Steve Martin that allegedly got Al into show business and also the choice of director. The first interesting point is that fictional character Steve Martin is played by William Demarest, who actually had a bit part in 1927's "The Jazz Singer". You'll see him sharing a plate of eggs with Al at Coffee Dan's just minutes before Al bursts into song in "Toot Toot Tootsie". Demarest was a bit player over at Warner's during the beginning of his career. He had no real association with Al Jolson that I know of. The second interesting point is the choice of director - Alfred E. Green. Mr. Green was among that group of directors that ground out the early talkies for Warner Bros during the time that Jolson was a star at that studio. However, he never directed any of the eight motion pictures that Al Jolson starred in for Warners. There were four directors that Jolson worked with over at Warner Brothers that were still alive when this film was made, but for some reason none of them got the job.
At any rate, the movie is very entertaining and well-paced with great renditions of Jolson's acts and songs. For the unvarnished truth about Jolson's life, try to find a copy of the documentary "The Real Al Jolson Story" made in 1986 and originally telecast by Bravo, back when they really were dedicated to the performing arts and before they became so concerned with Top Chefs and Flipping Out - you know, the same kind of stuff you can find on 50 other channels.
Movie Review: I Saw The Original Movie in 1946
Summary: 5 Stars
What makes this movie so notable is the artful acting of Larry Parks, who made a decent living at portraying the great singers and musicians of the 20's and 30's. But it would have been just a notable movie without the actual voice of the great Al Jolson doing the singing to Park's masterful lip-movements. With that ingredient added, the movie is great! My personal favorite songs of the movie, and it's difficult to choose only two, were the "Anniversary Song" and "Sweet Sixteen". These had to be two of Jolson's greatest renditions of the romantic ballad form. Both songs were in the movie and became instant hit songs on radio stations around the country. In addition to his great singing, Jolson's whistling, an art form in itself, is introduced in the movie as a 'save the show' stop-gap when his teen-age tenor voice gives out in mid-tune and he quickly introduces the whistle as though it was part of the score. It became his signature and a few other singers of the 30's - 40's tried various forms of whistling, Der Bingle (Bing Crosby), for one but none, in my opinion, had the volume and range of Jolson.
There was, however, one drawback to the movie which would make it, at the least, a 'concern' today . The movie version shows scenes of Jolson performing in 'blackface', which was in fact a significant part of his stage repertoire, and, in 1946, was not considered "politically incorrect". It's unfortunate that Jolson's 'minstrel show' format was included in the movie but in 1946 we, America, still had a long way to go vis-a-vis sensitivity to such portrayals. I have heard that some of the re-releases via VHS tape edited those portions out but I have not viewed any of these.
If one simply concentrates on the story and the music, and if one really enjoys the vaudeville genre of the 20's and 30's, then this movie is for you. Oh, by the way, be prepared to see Al portrayed as less than sensitive to his wife's and their marriage's need for privacy and his withdrawal from the limelight.
Movie Review: You like old movies...you haven't lived till you see this one!
Summary: 5 Stars
Like anothers, I've also seen this movie many times in the early 60's as a kid growing up in Newark N.J. I used to run around the house singing the songs! I never forgot how much I enjoyed this movie! I bought a used tape of this movie (vhs) about 10 plus years back and have watch it another 30-50 times...I even work on my computer and listen to it! I just like it, it works for me ....I hope someone reads this and decides to watch it for the first time. But you have to watch it ten to twenty times till you can just the club! Maybe it reminds me of my own childhood. I hope to receive my dvd that I just ordered from [...] by my 55th birthday,just weeks away. This movie always entertains me, yet you may not even like it, I hope you do! I imagine if you haven't seen it you wouldn't buy it! If you watched this in the pass you can easily get hooked(addicted). You haven't seen nothing yet ! Have a good life!Movie Review: "Hard To Repeat On This One"
Summary: 5 Stars
Growing up in Canada this DVD, The Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again were always a favorite of mine. When I was young both these films played every New Year's Eve on television, but this stopped about 30 years ago. Film classics even in their own time, these DVD's do justice to the way they used to make them.
Even if you are not entertained by all the Hollywood make believe in these films, you will be introduced to one of the greatest voices of the last century. "Boy" could Al Jolson ever belt them out, considering he performed live most of the time without the support of a microphone. In our times the only other entertainer to reach such vocal highs would have been Roy Orbison.
So if you want an eveing of pure entertainment with out sex or violence, I recommend you purchase both The Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again and brace yourself for a splendid time.