New on Blu-ray: "The Jazz Singer" (1927) - Starring Al Jolson

Photo Credits: Warner Bros.

The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length film with completely synchronized dialogue and musical sequences, marked another milestone on January 8 when Warner Home Video released the Blu-ray™ commencing the 2013 year-long 90th Anniversary of Warner Bros. Studios. This is The Jazz Singer's first release on Blu-ray and includes a total of three discs and a 90 page booklet that features production notes, countless photographs and information about the stars of the film, including Al Jolson and Warner Oland.

The film centers around Jakie Rabinowitz (Al Jolson), a Jewish man with a gift for song and dance. Jakie wants to become a jazz singer, but his father, a fifth generation Jewish cantor (Warner Oland), expects his son to follow in his footsteps. Indeed, it is that age old dilemma of whether to be loyal to family history and meet the expectations of your parents, or go off on your own and become the person you want to be and/or are destined to be. Jakie decides to be his own person and eventually becomes a success in show business. After receiving an offer to appear in a Broadway show, Jakie, who now goes by Jack Robin, comes home to New York and hopes to make amends with his father and reunite with his beloved mother (Eugenie Besserer). However, his father's illness causes Jakie to reconsider his priorities and places him in the uncomfortable position of choosing between his career and his family once again. 

The legendary Al Jolson delivers a remarkable performance in this history making effort, which was shepherded by the Warner brothers and marked the eventual end of the silent era and the beginning of talking pictures. While watching the film, I realized how many other movies and television shows have utilized certain dialogue and references over the years, from Looney Tunes shorts to The Golden Girls, which speaks to the enduring influence of The Jazz Singer. On a personal note, I remember Warner Oland from his role as detective Charlie Chan in a series of films that were produced in the 1930s and were rebroadcast some years ago as a weekly series.

The Jazz Singer premiered at the Warner Theater in New York City on October 6, 1927 and soon became a national phenomenon, limited only by the relatively small amount of theaters (200) which were already equipped with Vitaphone’s sound-on-disc technology (a process developed by Western Electric and Warner Bros. wherein a 16” disc was synchronized with standard 35mm projection equipment). The film was a smash everywhere it played, and led to the installation of sound equipment all over the nation. Less than two years later, nearly 8,000 theaters were wired for sound. Fueled by Jolson’s charisma and Vitaphone, The Jazz Singer created the momentum for “talking pictures” that could not be stopped. Silent films would soon become virtually extinct.

The Jazz Singer Blu-ray book is loaded with special features, including the full-length documentary feature, The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk. The 93-minute film covers the 30 plus year struggle to successfully unite sound and image on motion picture screens. The fascinating narrative of failures and triumphs is propelled by insights from notable film historians, including Leonard Maltin, as well as interviews from many talents, including Rose Marie and Andy Rooney, who reveal their personal experiences of this tumultuous period in film history. See below for a complete list of special features.

Own it on Blu-ray 

Special Features:

·         Commentary by film historians Ron Hutchinson (founder of The Vitaphone Project) and Vince Giordano

·         Collection of vintage cartoons and shorts:

o    “Al Jolson in ‘A Plantation Act’“ - 1926 Vitaphone short

o    An Intimate Dinner in Celebration of Warner Bros. Silver Jubilee – 1930 short

o    I Love to Singa - Classic 1936 WB parody cartoon directed by Tex Avery

o    Hollywood Handicap – Classic 1938 M-G-M short with Al Jolson appearance

o    A Day at Santa Anita - Classic Technicolor WB 1939 short with Al Jolson & Ruby Keeler cameo appearance

·         1947 Lux Radio Theater Broadcast starring Al Jolson (audio only)

·          Theatrical Trailer

The Early Sound Era

·         Feature-length historical documentary The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk

·         Two rarely-seen Technicolor excerpts from Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929 WB film, most of which is considered lost)

·         Studio shorts celebrating the early sound era:

·         Finding His Voice (1929 Western Electric animated promotional short, produced by Max Fleischer)

·         The Voice That Thrilled The World - Warner Bros. short about sound

·         Okay for Sound 1946 WB short celebrating the 20^th anniversary of Vitaphone

·         When Talkies Were Young 1955 WB short looking back at the early talkies

·         The Voice from the Screen -- 1926 WB ‘demonstration’ film explores the Vitaphone technology, and looks at the making of a Vitaphone short.

Vitaphone Shorts

In the 1920’s Warner Bros. began producing a series of short films which utilized the Vitaphone process. These films ran the gamut from musical theater legends and vaudeville acts, to dramatic vignettes and classical music performances from the most prestigious artists of the era.

Most of these were shorts considered lost for decades, until a consortium of archivists and historians joined forces with a goal to restore these magnificent time capsules of entertainment history. Up until now, contemporary audiences have only been able to see these shorts via rare retrospective showings in a few large cities, or through the limited release of a restored handful of the earliest subjects, which were part of a 1996 laserdisc set.

·         Over 3 1/2 hours worth of rare, historic Vitaphone comedy and music shorts

·         Elsie Janis in a Vaudeville Act: “Behind the Lines”

·         Bernado Depace: “Wizard of the Mandolin”

·         Van and Schneck: “The Pennant Winning Battery of Songland”

·         Blossom Seeley and Benny Fields

·         Hazel Green and Company

·         The Night Court

·         The Police Quartette

·         Ray Mayer & Edith Evans: “When East Meets West”

·         Adele Rowland: “Stories in Song”

·         Stoll, Flynn and Company: “The Jazzmania Quintet”

·         The Ingenues in “The Band Beautiful”

·         The Foy Family in “Chips off the Old Block”

·         Dick Rich and His Melodious Monarchs

·         Gus Arnheim and His Ambassadors

·         Shaw and Lee: “The Beau Brummels”

·         Larry Ceballos’ Roof Garden Revue

·         Trixie Friganza in “My Bag O’ Tricks”

·         Green’s Twentieth Century Faydetts

·         Sol Violinsky: “The Eccentric Entertainer”

·         Ethel Sinclair and Marge La Marr in “At the Seashore”

·         Paul Tremaine and His Aristocrats

·         Baby Rose Marie: “The Child Wonder”

·         Burns & Allen in “Lambchops “

·         Joe Frisco in “The Happy Hottentots”

You can watch a clip from the film below.