The Jazz Singer
The first "talkie" told the story of a Jewish man seeking his
future on Broadway.
By Joel Stamberg
Excerpted with permission from Reel Jewish (Jonathan David Publishers, Inc.).
By the time The Jazz Singer was
remade for the second time in 1980, the Hollywood musical, with very few
exceptions, was all but dead. If it
had any life left in it at all, Neil Diamond and company seemed only too pleased to say
"Toot, toot, tootsie goodbye."
Once upon a time,
the Hollywood musical was as common as the nickel matinee. Between The Jazz
Singer of 1927 and The Jazz Singer of 1980 more than 250 musicals
were produced for the American cinema, both imports from Broadway and originals
written directly for the screen. Very few of them concerned the Jewish
experience or celebrated its inimitable joys and daily challenges--and many of
those that did have a certain Jewish flavor almost never made it to the screen.
The first Jazz
Singer, for example, ran into trouble right away when George Jessel, who
played the role on Broadway and was signed to reprise it on film, had a major disagreement with the studio, Warner Brothers. Yentl,
Barbra Streisand's personal film crusade about a young yeshiva student, was
turned down so many times that the actress-director could almost have
made a movie about Yentl as a grandmother instead.
That's why a bomb (by most critical accounts) like the Neil
Diamond version of The Jazz Singer is especially troublesome. With that
Jewish-flavored failure forever looming in the marketing minds of American filmmakers,
we can almost be assured that there is unlikely to be a major movie musical in
the future from which Jewish audiences might shep a little nachas, that
is, to derive some special pride from the story.
A Love Letter to Judaism
Still, it's nice to know that in 1927, the original Jazz
Singer, which featured Jewish characters with Jewish hearts and conflicts
(and even a few Hebrew prayers) not only made a lot of money for its studio but
made history as well. As the first motion picture to use several sequences of
synchronized dialogue and music (it was
otherwise a silent film), The Jazz Singer isgenerally considered
both the first talkie and the first movie musical. That a movie of such
importance is also in some respects a love letter to Judaism is certainly
reason enough for Jewish audiences to shep a little nachas of
their own.
A strong central love story has been the unifying force in
movie musicals for generations. The Jazz Singer didn't settle for just
one. It actually had four of them--almost as if Warner Brothers was trying to
break the rules of the movie musical game before the game even started. The
Jazz Singer was a love story to a young man's mother, sweetheart, chosen
profession, and religion.
The story, of course, didn't originate with the studio; it was based on a play by Samson
Raphaelson, which in turn was based on his
own short story, "The Day of Atonement." George
Jessel starred in the Broadway version, but it was Al Jolson who ultimately won the role in Warner's movie,
starring as Jakie Rabinowitz, a young singer and cantor's son who changes his
name to Jack Robin when the footlights start to call out to him.
Not only does Jack love his Jewish heritage, he also loves
show business (which in his father's eyes is an evil interloper), his devoted
mother (who is troubled by the division in their family), and a pretty girl
named Mary Dale (who is not Jewish). Maybe that's what Jolson meant when he
said, "You ain't seen nothing yet."
Spotlight on a Jewish Family
The movie, adapted by Jack Jarmuth and directed by Alan
Crosland, introduced to wider audiences than ever before such Jolson classics
as "Mammy," "Blue Skies," "My Gal Sal," and
"Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" through the new Vitaphone
sound-on-disc process that Warner Brothers had purchased from Western Electric.
In addition, The Jazz Singer is noted for introducing one of the
earliest quintessential Jewish mothers on screen, played by Eugenie Besserer, a
leading character actress of the day who had appeared in more than 30 films
by the time she played Mama Rabinowitz.
Mama knows how much her Jakie loves her, but little by
little she and Papa Rabinowitz (Warner Oland) discover that there are many
other influences in their boy's life, a fact that sits about as well with both
of them as a large stuffed cabbage. Maybe our boy doesn't want to be a cantor,
Papa," Mama laments.
"Whathas
he got to say?" Papa rebuffs. "For five generations a
Rabinowitz has been a cantor. He must be one."
Still, Jakie hits the road, as Jewish boys do from time to
time, and almost at once finds
enthusiastic audiences for his special brand of music. Meanwhile, Mary, the
young ingenue (May McAvoy), hangs on fast to her rising star with the boyish
grin (even in blackface) and man-size ego. It isn't long before Jakie feels the
need to write to his beloved mother about all that's happening to him on the
road.
"Read me what
he says about the girl," a family friend says to Mama after she receives a
letter from Jakie.
"Maybe he's
fallen in love with a shikse,," she realizes, painfully rereading
the words on the page, using that [derogatory and] sometimes wicked-sounding
Yiddish word for a non-Jewish woman.
"Maybe
not," the friend says, trying desperately to alleviate her concern.
"You know Rose Levy on the theayter is Rosemarie Lee!"
But Mary Dale ain't
no Rose Levy, and between the showbiz and the shikse, Cantor Rabinowitz
has little to be proud of.
"I told you
never to open his letters," he warns his sullen wife. "we nave no
son."
Later, however,
Jakie scores a point for conciliation when he says to Papa, "You taught me
that music is the voice of God! It is as honorable to sing in the theater as in
the synagogue." If only it were as easy in real life to come up with the
right things to say so quickly.
A Historic Film
Not surprisingly,
some of The Jazz Singer's primitive technical values and flat dialogue
make it difficult for modern audiences to take seriously.
But there is no denying its importance to movie history, and to the history of
popular music. At the first Academy Awards presentation in May 1929, Warner
Brothers was given a statuette (not yet called an Oscar) "for producing The
Jazz Singer, the pioneer talking picture, which has revolutionized the
industry."
Even today, The
Jazz Singer gives audiences the chance to hear the biggest musical
superstar of his day sing in the biggest movie blockbuster of that decade. Not
only to hear him sing, but to hear him talk, too! It was Sam Warner himself,
one of the founders of the studio that made the film, who suggested adding a
few lines of dialogue between choruses of "Blue Skies." So in the
middle of the song, performed in his parent's apartment, Jakie tells Mama to
shut her eyes, and when she does, he kisses her on the cheek and tells her that
if his new Broadway show is a hit, he is going to buy her a better place in
which to live. By the expression on Eugenie Besserer's face, audiences know she
was as surprised as they were to hear him speak.
Thanks in part to
Sam Warner's suggestion, the studio, after several years of struggle, regained
its hold on tremendous profits. And one of the first Jewish mothers on
screen renewed her faith in the love of a successful son.
Joel Samberg, a humor and opinion columnist, also is the
author of The Jewish Book of Lists.
