October 06
The Jazz Singer’s new sound technology, Al Jolson’s moving portrayal of a conflicted Jewish man, and his rendition of the song “Mammy,” all combined to create a box office sensation.
1927:
You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet!
The Jazz Singer opens in movie theaters
Goodbye silent film, hello talkie. This movie became the first feature-length film with a soundtrack synchronized to what was happening onscreen. In short, it was the first bona fide “talkie,” the movie that heralded the beginning of the end of the silent film. Al Jolson played Jakie Rabinowitz, a man who yearns to be a jazz singer but whose strict Jewish family disapproves of his creative goals.
Jolson performed some of the songs in the movie in blackface, a tradition left over from minstrelsy. While the practice is considered shameful and improper now, scholars have lauded the movie as “the only film where blackface is central to the narrative development.” For all these reasons, The Jazz Singer continues to be a landmark movie all these years later.
