ham over my mammy

For a story about a cantor's son, 1927's The Jazz Singer comes served with an unholy amount of ham.

If you think Al Jolson's "My Mammy" is hammy, wait 'til you see him "act". You'd think the camera was on fire, the actors in this movie gesticulate so frantically. There is a priceless scene in Singin' in the Rain, when Debbie Reynolds drives Gene Kelly home, where she makes fun of silent film acting. She mocks three classic poses, and even those of us who have never watched a silent film get the joke. The Jazz Singer, referenced by name in Singin' in the Rain, uses all three poses. Repeatedly.

The use of sound only in and around Jolson's songs is distracting. When his post-song spiel switches to intertitles, my interest in the movie drops, and my eyes get droopy. The same goes for the unsynchronized long shots of the same singers who are synchronized in the closeups before or after. It's like watching a spaghetti western. The parts that were synchronized must have been astounding back then, but hey, everyone thought Pong was the shit when it came out too.

There are mild compensations. The intertitles are relatively well done, with some amusing Yiddishisms tossed in. This, along with the cantor scenes, is quite fresh to someone who is used to Jews being invisible in classic Hollywood films. One wonders if audiences in 1927 (and The Jazz Singer broke box office records across the country) understood words like shiksa, which is largely lost on modern Americans. But it's these details that lend an otherwise boilerplate backstage musical a glimmer of interest.

One of the rewards of watching a lot of classic Hollywood films is star spotting. Back in the studio era, actors made lots of films, especially when they were starting out in supporting roles. The Jazz Singer has its share, with Warner "Charlie Chan" Oland playing the Cantor, and, in bit parts, William Demarest (from the Preston Sturges movies), Roscoe Karns (It Happened One Night, Twentieth Century, and His Girl Friday), and Myrna Loy (the "Queen of Hollywood" in the mid-30s, whose career spanned into the 80s). But why not, rather than waste your life watching The Jazz Singer, watch any of these actors' later, better performances?

Some movies are valuable purely for their historical significance. Put them in a museum, where they belong.