Al Jolson

  • Rhapsody in Blue (1945)

    Rhapsody in Blue (1945)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) According to Rhapsody in Blue’s production history, the biggest problem the filmmakers faced was in wringing drama out of George Gershwin’s biography. While his death at 38 was tragic and he had multiple romantic liaisons, the rest of his life was somewhat uneventful—his rise to fame and acclaim being somewhat linear without major setbacks. Accordingly, this old-school but solid musical biography of Gershwin highlights the music (with some numbers notably played at length, something even remarked upon with stopwatch precision by the characters) and downplays the drama to the point of being a bit hazy about the man himself. All characters repeatedly agree, though—Gershwin was a genius, and women loved him. Much of this admiration can be explained by how the film is crammed with real-life Gershwin friends and admirers: Al Jolson (in blackface, inevitably and alas), the always-excellent Oscar Levant (wisecracking as himself, perhaps his favourite role ever) and Hazel Scott singing two rather good numbers in a Parisian nightclub—the first half of her performance in intelligible but probably phonetic French. Meanwhile, Robert Alda is not bad in the lead role. One notes the film as being one more contribution in the “Americans go to Paris for inspiration” subgenre, magnified by the later musical comedy An American in Paris paying homage to Gershwin—and also co-starring Levant. Inevitably, the conclusion becomes an Ode to a Fallen Great given Gershwin’s untimely death. Rhapsody in Blue does make for a nice introduction to Gershwin and his music, although as usual for Hollywood biopics the film does not survive even a quick Wikipedia check. Enjoy the music, don’t worry too much about the facts.

  • The Jazz Singer (1927)

    The Jazz Singer (1927)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) So… just so that we’re clear—the first sort-of-not-silent film is one that stars a white guy who made an entire career out of blackface? That’s the legacy we’re talking about? Birth of a Nation as the first film shown at the White House, and the first talkie as a showcase for black cultural appropriation? All right then. No, The Jazz Singer is not the first full talking film—it was designed as a silent film, then rushed through then-experimental sound production segments in order to wow audiences, but it’s not the first full sound film, as it’s largely silent-ish with only a few songs and talking sequences (“Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”) making up maybe a quarter of the film. Much of the dull narrative is narrated through title cards, and focuses on a protagonist torn between his strict Jewish father and a career in showbiz. While there’s nothing wrong with that premise, it’s just that… well… the film’s headliner is Al Jolson, who became famous for doing blackface. A lot of undeniable, unsubtle blackface. What softens the blow, slightly, is that blackface in this narrative stands for something a bit more than racist jokes and appropriation; it’s the protagonist (Jewish and so different from the mainstream, if that helps) distancing himself from himself, and paradoxically affirming whiteness by exaggerating blackness. In other words: It’s not quite so simple by the standards of 1927, although you can take a shortcut to problematic in 2020. Of course, such cultural analyses are wasted in talking about the film that launched the talkies—it wasn’t so much the technology as the public’s enthusiastic approval of the technology that sealed the fate of silent films. Within a mere three years, the vast majority of Hollywood switched to sound films and never looked back. (Incidentally, it made Warner Brothers go from near-bankruptcy to a major studio.) It probably would have happened without Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer, but the more you dig into the film and what it meant to the Warner Brothers, the more you understand why it was a near-perfect launching pad for talkies. Still: it’s now of historical interest only.