Paul Whiteman

(On Cable TV, April 2021) Don’t bother looking for a story in King of Jazz — as with many musicals of the early sound era, it’s a straight-up adaptation of a Broadway revue show, with segments loosely connected together so that audiences across America could go to the movies and have as good a time as their fellow Manhattanites. It was, in retrospect, a classic case of imitating success: at a time where the cinematographic grammar hadn’t yet adapted to the possibilities of meshing sound with images, this was the surest, least-risky, most profitable way to go. As a result, you have to assess King of Jazz on the merits of its number sketches and novelties. Chief among them is that the film was shot and preserved in two-tone colour, which adds a surprising amount of interest when compared to other movies of the early 1930s. But there are a few other pieces of interest as well: It’s a film that features the first-ever Technicolor animated segment (a curiously morbid/racist sketch), as well as Bing Crosby’s first screen appearance. The titular “King of Jazz” is Paul Whiteman, an interesting figure in the history of the genre who’s remarkably well-captured here. There are more special effects than you’d expect from a 1930 musical film, and the intentional variety of the musical numbers (remember: bringing Broadway to entire families in small-city America) means that the film doesn’t play to a single musical aesthetic — but despite the title, don’t expect much of what we now expect from “jazz” considering the way it has evolved over the decades. I found much of King of Jazz interesting for the raw window it opens on circa-1930 popular entertainment, without the added filter of a plot to get in the way. It has quite a documentary value and a few pleasant surprises even ninety years later.