The Jolson Story
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Movie Reviews of The Jolson Story
Movie Review: old movies
Summary: 5 Stars
Exellent quality for this type of movie,and shipping and handeling also exellent.
Thanks
Mike
Movie Review: Superb film
Summary: 5 Stars
Buy this film, you'll be very pleased. I was. Also, this is very difficult to find, thankfully we have Amazon.Movie Review: We All Have Flaws - Embrace the Flaws
Summary: 4 Stars
As a music historian in general, and as a performer of many of the pieces that Jolson made famous (piano for my part), and also as the son of an actor from radio and film that worked in Hollywood during Jolson's reign there, and as a collector of ancient recordings from the pre-vinyl era plus sheet music, I have had a lot of exposure to Jolson and his personna outside of these films. The view from inside is a bit sanitized, but not horrid.
Larry Parks is more than adequate for the role. Unfortunately, due to the limitations of the film media from 1946 (lack of widescreen and loss of ambience without surround sound and fx), the true essence of how BIG Jolson was on stage is lost to a degree. Jolson was not the best singer. He was not the best of lyricists. He was not the most humble of people. He had flaws that were both visible and invisible. But... HE WAS A GREAT ENTERTAINER. My Sheet Music Collection, which currently numbers over 7000 pieces, will validate that. Jolson saw his face on more sheet music covers than the bulk of many smaller publishers total output. You don't get there through simple coercion - it was his magnitude as a STAGE (not film) entertainer that got him there and kept him on top for two decades.
To some degree, while there is whitewashing and Hollywood sanitizing (such as the odd omission of Ruby Keeler's name in conjunction with her character), some of the personal flaws of Jolson are most certainly presented on screen. A more personal look from this decade would show a very troubled man with blatant insecurities, yet still quite likable. At the very least, this biopic was certainly better than some of that time, including the nearly totally fictitious Cole Porter mishap (discussed in D'Lovely). Note also that only Jolson and Fanny Brice have had no less than two consecutive biopics made about them. The incidents are otherwise not totally contrived, but some are a bit out of sequence, as is the music. I would guess the use of Rainbow On My Shoulder as a piece from the Jazz Singer (it was actually in The Singing Fool) was to get around Warner copyright issues.
Going back to the Ruby Keeler thing, the character in this movie is called Julie Benson. This is not only historically inaccurate but downright confusing, since there is no Benson in 42nd Street or Dames, which are among her movies prominently mentioned in The Jolson Story. What is more confusing is that Keeler often referred to herself as Mrs. Jolson long after their marriage was over. Maybe it was another copyright issue with Warner, possibly since they may have owned her name at the time. If she objected, in spite of how obvious it was to the public that it was her character on screen, I don't know why.
Other omissions among this and the accompany film (Jolson Sings Again) include two missing wives, the mention that Jazz Singer was originally a vehicle for Georgie Jessel, then later stolen from Eddie Cantor, the making of the Vitaphone - A Plantation Act - a year before The Jazz Singer, the lawsuit over the plagiarism of Avalon, etc. I prefer to think of these as omissions more so than inaccuracies, but they do add a certain bias to the story when these things are known.
For all the good, there are a few flaws. Parks is NOT Jolson, but he manages to overcome that so much that he becomes Jolson part way into the film. They could have minimized his hair a bit more than was done to give a closer appearance, but his synchronization with Jolson's recorded tracks is exemplary. But... the switch between Parks' speaking voice and Jolson's singing voice is jarring at times. Further, the arrangements being played during the "ragtime era" are really the swing era arrangements used for his Decca recordings. Anybody who has heard Jolson's work on Columbia or Victor knows that he was in much better voice with a timbre closer to Parks back in the 1910s and 1920s. I suppose now that his voice could be extracted from those recordings and laid over new recorded orchestrations. Stylistically the newer arrangements for older songs don't work, but appealed to the audience of the time (my mother saw the thing four times when it came out!).
The DVD box is misleading. The film is in limited scope 2.0 stereo, not mono (is this an original or redone - knowing Sony it was contrived). There is good separation between the underscore and the center channel voices through most of it, except when Jolson's recorded tracks are used, and those are mostly mono. The color is quite beautiful and not oversaturated. Chroma correction for this restoration is fairly accurate.
Even though the film can't fully capture Jolson (you need some CDs of his early work to even approach that), it helps to explain why the "mammy factor" worked so well for him and why he is still discussed a full century after he got his start on the stage. Since the second film, Jolson Sings Again, literally starts within an hour of when the first film ends, you really need the set. It also displays Parks as a talent of his own, albeit one that was sadly taken down during the McCarthy hearings, and whose career never recovered from the association.
In any case, walk a million miles and get some smiles. Buy the films!
Movie Review: give that man a spotlight !!!
Summary: 4 Stars
The Jolson Story is the first in what is essentially a two part biopic of the life and times of Al Jolson. Unfortunately, the story has been changed quite a bit from what the reality was for Jolson. However, the convincing acting is incredible and the plot moves along at a very good pace.
We see the movie begin with young Asa Yoelson (who changed his name to Al Jolson) coming very late for his father's synagogue service because he was singing in a burlesque theater. Of course, Asa Yoelson gets quite a punishment from his parents, Cantor Yoelson and Mrs. Yoelson (Ludwig Donath and Tamara Shayne, respectively). Eventually Asa runs away from home to join up with a vaudevillian named Steve Martin (William Demarest) and Asa gets his start in show business and a name change along the way. We also see Jolson constantly moving up the ladder and getting more and more of the spotlight especially after he leaves Steve Martin and joins Lew Dockstader's show. We then see Al move to the Winter Garden Theater where he loves his audience and they love him for living them.
Al eventually hires Steve Martin to be his manager and proceeds to tackle show business with a manic fit that never seems to stop. After every triumph, Al wants more. He falls in love and marries Julie Benson (Evelyn Keyes) although in real life Jolson was never married to anyone named Julie Benson. He was in fact married to four women including Ruby Keeler; and for some reason I can't figure out there is no mention of Ruby Keeler in this movie. There's also some doubt that Al Jolson's father was actually a Cantor in a synagogue.
What will happen after Al marries Julie Benson--a woman who wants to live life at a slower pace in the country? How will Al and his wife reconcile their differences? He wants to entertain and tour in big cities; she wants to the simple, quiet life. No spoilers here--watch the movie to find out the answers to these questions and more!
The DVD offers few extras; but with a film this good, you can overlook the lack of extras and even, to some extent, the discrepancies between Al Jolson's real life and the biopic. I guess Hollywood in 1946 wanted to "sanitize" Al Jolson's story especially since he was still living at the time this film was released. However, I'm disappointed in the discrepancies between Jolson's real life and the life story told in this movie. I will give four stars to The Jolson Story on DVD.
Even with its flaws, I still highly recommend this for people who want to know about one of America's greatest entertainers ever. It has been said time and again that Al Jolson was one of the first to be able to reach out to his adoring audiences and make every last person feel that he was truly singing to them and them alone. Al Jolson deserves to be remembered much, much more than he is; and this movie is a great way for us to remember the remarkable talents of this man.
Movie Review: Jolie's Voice Sparkles
Summary: 4 Stars
The Jolson Story is a surprisingly good example of a decent bio-pic. It covers the life of the incomparable Al Jolson, a wonderful performer best known today for his performance in the first talkie "The Jazz Singer." It seems that the film goes nowhere that the ordinary bio-pic about a show-biz star doesn't, but it is somehow better. Perhaps that is because the subject was such an amazing performer.
Larry Parks plays Jolson, a seemingly strange choice since the two do not look alike. However, Parks looks quite a bit like an older version of Scotty Beckett who plays the younger Jolson, so the casting works well. Parks does a good job impersonating Jolson's style as a singer even though he is lipsyncing to Jolson's own voice. At first, he seems a bit stiff, but later, the movements become his own and he seems very natural in the part. Jolson was a very complex figure, but he makes the man relatable and enjoyable. It almost doesn't matter if all he does is sing (and over 20 songs too); that is what he did best after all.
Evelyn Keyes plays Julie, a thinly disguised substitute for Ruby Keeler. She does not capture Keeler's natural innocence, but she does make a good match for Jolson. Her part in the story adds more emotional connection to the film. In fact, her role at the end of the film makes it all the better since it ends with a sob instead of a soft sigh.
There are some inaccuracies in this movie. For example, Jolson did not sing "There's a Rainbow Round My Shoulder" in The Jazz Singer. Still, these small issues do not ruin the film at all.