The Jazz Singer (1927)

Directed by Alan Crosland. Starring Al Jolson, May McAvoy, Warner Oland, Eugenie Besserer, Otto Lederer, Richard Tucker.

Bare-bones, paint-by-numbers story of a young entertainer (Jolson) from a devout Jewish family who defies his cantor father (Oland) and becomes a jazz singer of populist fare. First feature film with synchronized voice recordings and musical score still contains numerous “silent” segments, but the song numbers pointed the way to the future—it’s also, of course, the first proper movie musical. The acting, writing, and music are all creakier than the new-fangled application of this technology to a full-length enterprise, making it good for little more than a milestone footnote…unless one happens to be strangely enamored by Jolson’s outmoded schtick. He spends most of the second half in blackface, and even when forgiving for historical perspective and analyzing it as subtext for paralleled racial camouflage, it’s really hard to take at length. Won studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck an honorary Academy Award for producing “the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry.”

41/100