Film · Warner Bros. · 1927
Pass it on
The Jazz Singer
50Watch it awake.
A house can watch if you name the blackface; the prayer does not cancel the makeup.
The review
The ledgers don't agree whether this or Wings took the year's money, so I won't crown it. It is the first feature with a stretch of spoken dialogue. A cantor's son wants the stage instead of the synagogue. He comes back for the prayer and still gives the audience the songs. The father wanted the other life. That is a parent and a son, not a costume on a poster.
Al Jolson sings in blackface. That makeup is the act, not a footnote. I won't skip it and I won't give you a lecture past the plain fact. A house can watch if someone names the makeup before the number. The prayer does not wash it. He still gives them the songs. If you leave it on because sound pictures start here, say what the face was doing.
Journal
Keep The Jazz Singer in the record.
No house has filed a sentence for this yet.
Live Historic number 50. Yours can differ.
The glance
Temperance and Truth and Stewardship are the thin ones.
Is appetite shown and then put down, or are you being trained to want the next one?
This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.
Consider this
La La Land
60 instead of 50
La La Land is still a musical film, and it scores 60 instead of 50. What you gain is truth: The fantasy reprise tells you the other ending, and admits it is the one they did not live.
The eight
- 7Industry
The son's work is the stage; the father's work was the synagogue he leaves.
- 7Household
A cantor and his son: the father wanted the other life, and the split is real.
- 6Piety
He comes back for the prayer, then still gives the audience the songs.
- 6Courage
The stage risks the father's house, the life the son would actually miss.
- 5Republic
He owes his father's synagogue a life, and the songs are what the crowd gets.
- 3Temperance
One prayer does not settle him; he still needs the audience and the act.
- 3Truth
Blackface is the act, not a footnote, and the film does not treat it as a debt.
- 3Stewardship
Talkies get a landmark, and the crowd is left with a blackface number.
Where to watch
Finding the page.
Live Historic · The Jazz Singer · 50IMDb
