The Jolson Story
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Movie Reviews of The Jolson Story
Movie Review: One of a Kind
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a very entertaining movie, things were very different in Jolsen's era, but the performances and the music still get the toes tapping! Larry Parks really does a very creditable job of portraying the Great Al Jolsen, whose whole raaison d'etre was to please an audience. He really seemed to be alive only when on stage and the movie conveys this message very clearly. Well worth adding to your collection!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: Parks Nails it
Summary: 4 Stars
A musical biopic of Al Jolson which stars Larry Parks. Parks got an Oscar nomination as did William Demarest who plays Jolson's mentor. Parks is excellent as Jolson. He has a real sense of enthusiasm and his eyes are expressive. You can see why he became a legendary entertainer. Jolson was the star of The Jazz Singer, the first "talkie." The black face is disturbing, but it was a popular form of entertainment. You hear Jolson's singing of hits like Mammy.
One of the main selling points of the movie is not only Parks performance but the all of the scenes that led to Jolson becoming an entertainer. You see scenes from his youth and his family life. The actor who portrays the young Jolson is very good.
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: "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.