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Released by: Warner Brothers
Released on: January 8, 2012.
Director: Alan Crosland
Cast: Al Jolson, May McAvoy, Warner Oland
Year: 1927
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The Movie:
Directed by Alan Crosland in 1927, The Jazz Singer stars Al Jolson as Jakie Rabinowitz. We first meet Jakie as a young man (Robert Gordon) where he earns the ire of his Cantor father (Warner Oland) when he's caught singing jazz in a New York City club. Given his father's position in the Jewish community, he can't have his son up to something as unseemly as that and he makes his disapproval clear as day. Jakie runs away, and his father basically disowns him.
When we next catch up with Jakie, he's a grown man (Jolson) and going under the alias of Jack Robin in an attempt to hide his Jewish heritage. He gets involved with Mary Dale (May McAvoy) and the two eventually wind up starring in a Broadway show together thanks to the more established Mary dropping Jakie's name to a few important people. When Jakie returns to his home in New York, his star on the rise, he reunites with his mother (Eugenie Besserer) and his close friend, Moisha Yudelson (Otto Lederer) but fails to make amends with his father until, on his opening night, tragedy strikes.
Revolutionary in that it was the first feature length 'talkie' to go into wide circulation, The Jazz Singer remains a historically important film in the history of cinema and while the majority of the movie is done in the style of your typical silent film, complete with intertitles, when Jolson's vocal numbers kick in the movie still manages to impress. The vast majority of the movie's entertainment value rests on Jolson's more than capable shoulders - the man was a born entertainer and he really gives it his all in this picture, though his blackface performance by modern standards comes across as unfortunately ignorant and racist, the product of a bygone era in which such behavior was puzzlingly considered acceptable. Regardless, Jolson's performance 'is what it is' and despite its political incorrectness, the man certainly rises to the occasion here even if he is obviously a bit too old for the part.
The movie also features some impressive set pieces outside of the song and dance numbers for which the picture is rightly best remembered. Some of the pageantry of the Cantor scenes are impressive for the attention to detail evident in the costumes and the sets are well put together and nicely decorated. The plot is predictable and at times even trite, frequently overly sentimental and obvious in its message, but the film is well paced and any time it starts to slow down the filmmakers are smart enough to let Jolson take the reins and that is, outside of the use of audio technology, ultimately what makes this one work.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Jazz Singer looks very good in AVC encoded 1.37.1 fullframe presented here in full 1080p high definition. While an expected amount of age related debris and softness is inherent in the picture, it's pretty hard to imagine this movie looking a whole lot better than it does on this Blu-ray disc from Warner Brothers. For a film of its vintage, The Jazz Singers offers very good detail and the transfer offers it all up in a pleasantly film like transfer. Some contrast issues that appear to be related to how the movie was originally shot are unavoidable but overall the picture quality is very good. There are no obvious issues with noise reduction or heavy edge enhancement nor are there any apparent compression artifacts to note. There's a little bit of flicker here and there and a couple of frame jumps that you might notice but again, for a movie fast approaching a century in age, the picture quality is impressive.
The only lossless audio option for the feature is an English language DTS-HD Mono track, though optional subtitles are included in English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean and Polish. There's a little bit of warble to the speech in the film but the levels are generally well balanced. Hiss and distortion is kept to a minimum and the music sounds good, if occasionally just a little too sharp in spots. There are a couple of spots where there are some minor synch issues but it seems perfectly fair to assume these are to do with the elements available more than anything else. Dolby Digital Mono and 2.0 Mono tracks are also provided in English.
Extras, all of which are carried over from the 2007 DVD release, are spread across the three discs in the set. The extras on the first disc start off with an audio commentary courtesy of film historians Ron Hutchinson (founder of The Vitaphone Project) and Vince Giordano. This is an informative track that gives us a scene specific rundown of how the movie made the transition from stage to screen and its importance in the annals of cinema. The picture's racial issues are discussed as is the impact that it would go on to have. The two participants are well prepared and well versed in the subject matter and do a very good job of just drilling down on pretty much everything that is important about this film.
Also found on the first disc is a collection of vintage cartoons and shorts: Al Jolson in 'A Plantation Act' - a 1926 Vitaphone short/ An Intimate Dinner In Celebration Of Warner Brothers' Silver Jubilee - a 1930 short / I Love To Singa - a 1936 Tex Avery cartoon / Hollywood Handicap - a 1938 MGM short featuring Al Jolson and directed by Buster Keaton / A Day At Santa Anita - a Technicolor Warner Brothers short from 1939 starring Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler.
The first disc also includes a June 2, 1947 Lux Radio Theater Broadcast of The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson which runs just over fifty-eight minutes, and the film's original theatrical trailer
The second disc includes what will likely be the most important extra in this set to some is the ninety-five minute feature length documentary, The Dawn Of Sound: How Movies Learned To Talk. This is basically a history of the early days of sound in motion pictures, starting with a look at the pioneering work of Thomas Edison and then moving on to cover the different recording technologies that were toyed with until Vitaphone and Fox Movietone took sound in the movies to the mainstream. This is made up of a great selection of archival clips and photographs as well as interviews with experts in film history and technology and it turns out to be a fascinating and very well rounded look at this aspect of filmmaking, an aspect that most modern audiences likely take for granted.
Also included on the second disc (a DVD) are the surviving sound elements from 1929's Gold Diggers Of Broadway (just short of sixteen minutes worth of clips), a collection of studio shorts made up of The Voice From The Screen (a fifteen minute look at how Vitaphone technology works), Finding His Voice (an eleven minute long vintage Max Fleischer cartoon from 1929), The Voice That Thrilled The World (an eighteen minute short on the history of sound in the movies), Okay For Sound (a twenty minute short celebrating two decades of 'talkies') and When Talkies Were Young (a collection of clips from early sound pictures that clocks in at twenty minutes and which was made in 1955).
The third disc in the set (also a DVD) contains a great collection of Vitaphone Shorts, just over three and a half hours' worth:
Elsie Janis in “Behind the Lines†/ Bernado Depace: “Wizard Of The Mandolin†/ Van and Schneck: “The Pennant Winning Battery Of Songland†/ Blossom Seeley And Benny Fields / Hazel Green And Company / The Night Court / The Police Quartette / Ray Mayer And Edith Evans: “When East Meets West†/ Adele Rowland: “Stories In Song†/ Stoll, Flynn And Company: “The Jazzmania Quintet†/ The Ingenues In “The Band Beautiful†/ The Foy Family In “Chips Off The Old Block†/ Dick Rich And His Melodious Monarchs / Gus Arnheim And His Ambassadors / Shaw And Lee: “The Beau Brummels†/ Larry Ceballos' Roof Garden Revue / Trixie Friganza In “My Bag O' Tricks†/ Green's Twentieth Century Faydetts / Sol Violinsky: “The Eccentric Entertainer†/ Ethel Sinclair And Marge La Marr In “At the Seashore†/ Paul Tremaine And His Aristocrats / Baby Rose Marie: “The Child Wonder†/ Burns And Allen In “Lambchops†/ Joe Frisco In “The Happy Hottentotsâ€
There's over three and half minutes of material on this disc and while some of the shorts are missing a bit of footage here and there, the majority of them are presented here in pretty decent shape. Combined, the material paints an interesting portrait of the jazz and vaudeville scene of the era in which they were made and while they are understandably dated in almost every regard they could be, they're still quite interesting to watch, particularly for those with an interest in film history.
As this is a digipack release, an eighty-eight page booklet is included in the packaging that contains loads of production and promotional photos as well as loads of great information on the history of the movie, early sound pictures and the cast and crew involved in the feature. Some of the promotional art included in here is awesome to see and this makes a very nice addition to an already fantastic set. A few vintage trailers that were included on the DVD release of the movie are missing from this release, but otherwise everything else has been ported over.
The Final Word:
Warner Brothers have done a very fine job bringing this historically important and technically groundbreaking picture to Blu-ray. The transfer is excellent, the audio impressive and the extras not only plentiful but simultaneously educational and entertaining. All in all, a great package for film history buffs.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
