JAKE AND BOOMER'S SILVER SCREEN HOMEPAGE

Hello, fellow movie buffs. This page is our tribute to the ground-breaking work of film makers of the 1920's and 1930's. We will offer our views and reviews of selected films from those eras, and at the same time give you the opportunity to tell us what you think. Take a second to check out our links section.

ABOUT US

Well, we have graduated and found jobs. I understand that this page fell somewhat by the wayside over the last 4 or 5 months, but that is about to change. This page will feature regular updates beginning very soon. I am also toying with ideas about new looks--we will see. Anyway, we are back and ready to review!

ABOUT THE PAGE

You will notice that several changes have been made to this page. They have been made in the hopes of making this a better, more interesting site. As always, this page will contain film reviews and links. However, I have also added a few more features which I hope you will enjoy. Specifically, I have added a games and trivia section. I have also added a mailbag section in which I will reprint any and all e-mails that I receive about this page. In any event, tell me what you think of these ideas. By the way, have you checked out the links section yet? Oh one more thing, is the larger text in the body of the reviews better or is the old way better??

   Abysmal. Complete trash-- bad acting, writing, cinematography, etc.

   Bomb. One or two redeeming qualities, but inferior overall.

    Average. Not outstanding in most respects, but worth checking out.

    I had a ball. Solid acting, writing, cinematography, etc. Superior in many respects.

...And now our feature presentation

The Jazz Singer (1925)

Cast                                                                               Credits
Al Jolson. . . . . . . . . Jackie Rabinowitz                            Studio . . . . . . . . . . . Warner Brothers
May McAvoy . . . . . Mary Dale                                      Director . . . . . . . . . .Alan Crosland
Warner Oland . . . . ..The Cantor                                     Written by. . . . . . . . Alfred A. Cohn
Eugenie Besserer. . . .Sara Rabinowitz                             Cinematography. . . . Hal Mohr
Otto Lederer . . . . . . Moisha Yudelson                            Edited by . . . . . . . . Harold McCord
Bobby Gordon. . . . . Jakie Rabinowitz (age 13)               Music by. . . . . . . . .Louis Silvers
                                                                                                                                                                                                     Running Time: 88 minutes.

TAKE ONE: BOOMER

          The Jazz Singer is a tale of tradition bumping up against modern ways and the desires of the young which lead to disappointment in the old. It is a tale as old as time itself. Young Jakie Rabinowitz (Al Jolson) desires to be a jazz singer more than anything; however, his father, a Jewish Cantor (Warner Oland), demands that Jackie follow the tradition of the family and use his voice to serve God rather than to entertain the multitudes. Jackie's refusal to follow his father's wishes leads to the elder kicking his son out of his home. Both men desire the love of the other and acceptance of the of the other's ways, yet both are too stubborn to meet the other half way.

          Caught in the middle is Sara Rabinowitz (Eugenie Besserer), Jakie's mother, who wishes Jakie would follow his father's wishes but understands Jakie's desire to "do his own thing." The stress created by the misunderstanding between Jakie and the Cantor clearly breaks her heart; yet, she is powerless to do anything to help heal the tender wounds to each man's pride, thus unable to stop her heart from breaking into bits. She is probably the perfect mother, encouraging her son to do what he wishes even though it has torn the family apart because she wishes nothing for her son but happiness. Of the three main characters, she is probably the most likeable. To be sure, through most of the film, the viewer feels much sympathy for this loving, underappreciated woman.

           The film does have a somewhat negative view of the traditional Jewish lifestyle. The Cantor is seen as a unbending tyrant, kicking his only son out of the house because the son has refused to conform to the traditional ways. However, I did not see the Cantor as such a bad guy. I found myself respecting the Cantor as the film went on. The man was so utterly dedicated to his faith that his family often took second place to God. This is the level of committment that his religion demanded, and he made good on his promise to God. While I cannot say that the Cantor was the model parent, he did instill values in his son--perhaps he did this too well. I do agree with Jake in t hat the Cantor was not the most likeable figure; however, I stand by my assessment that the man deserves respect.

          While the father is the symbol of the old, outdated way of life, Jack is seen as the symbol of the new--full of life and energy. We are to respect him because he has chosen to assimilate into the larger culture around him rather than stand apart from it. However, I found Jack to be an insensitive, uncaring, wayward son. I fully embrace the notion that he was free to choose to live his life as he saw fit, but at times, jack showed utter contempt for his father's wishes and values. At one point, Jack comes home to visit before he opens on Broadway. While there, he begins playing jazz tunes on the family piano, knowing full well that the Cantor disapproves of this type of music. A contemporary analogy would be a son having sex in his parents' bed while they shopped at the store. It shows disrespect of the highest degree.

Not only does Jack disrespect his family, he even goes so far as to tell Mary (May McAvoy) that his career was more important than anything, including his family. One can embrace the new while honoring the old; this is what makes society progress ecoomically and technologically while enabling civilizing institutions such as the family to remain intact. Without this deep abiding respect for the the traditional, society would degenerate, and we would beome cultural nomads, constantly searching for that thing to make whole and fill that empty spot in the depths of our soul. Jack's attitude towards his family and career is the kind attitutde that runs rampant in 1990's America, and we can see where this attitude has gotten us--computers which do a gazillion calculations a second and children too illiterate to know how to operate a computer.

          Honoring the past while keeping an open mind about the future is the key to a dynamic, yet stable society. Jack seemed incapable of performing this most difficult tightrope act through most of the film, and as his career progressed, he appeared to be more sad and more lost. Fortunately, Jack learns the imporatnce of family before it is too late and returns home to sign Kol Nidre before his father passes away. One can only hope that Jack has learned that there is some value to tradition and will honor that which those before him have created. However, I fear that his return to home was really more of a gesture made out of guilt, and that he has not learned his lesson. This makes me fear that, notwithstanding the aparent happy ending, Jack is doomed to misery and strings of failed personal relationships.

          This film has been much maligned in the past. Many feel that the story lacks texture and is overly simplistic. One critic has even suggested that one should see the film for only to wonder at its technical achievements--this film is the first "talkie." I disagree with these negative assessments of the film. I liked the film, and I really liked the story of struggle between father and son. I think it's a story that most men can relate to. It's a story of the natural order of things. Watch a Discovery Channel show on lion prides, and you will see the same drama unfold--just without the nifty tunes to go along with it. For this reason alone, it's one of my top 10 favorites.

          The technical aspects of the film are also remarkeable. It's one of the best lit films of the era. It is not often washed out, as was common of so many films in the '20's. The sound is magnificent. It was usually not hard to understand what was being said. However, a word of warning--the film is about 85% silent, not that that detracts one iota from the overall product.

          The acting was uniformly good. I particularly liked the abilities Eugenie Besserer. She had to have one of the most melodramatic roles of all time, and she played it perfectly. Warner Oland was not quite the actor that Ms. Besserer was, but he was solid overall. Much kudos go out to Otto Lederer as Moisha Yudelson. He provided some much needed comic relief to an often depressing film. Lastly, I liked Jolson in the part of the jazz singer. However, he was guilty of seriously hamming it up in the scenes where the dialogue was audible; I preferred him as a silent actor.

           My rating:

TAKE TWO: JAKE

           I would hazard to guess that The Jazz Singer is little more than a quaint piece of movie trivia within the minds of most people, serving occasionally as the correct response when someone asks "What was the first 'talkie'?" After reading Boomer's review, however, you can hopefully see that this assessment of the film's significance is not only reductive, but also incorrect, at least in part.

          Granted, there are some isolated moments of speech within The Jazz Singer, always occurring immediately after Jakie Rabinowitz (Jolson) has finished one of his songs, but in each instance, the characters only talk for a brief period of time before quickly lapsing into silence once more. Thus, as Boomer has indicated, it is essentially a silent movie, but I don't make such an observation by way of detraction. Instead, I do so to highlight what I feel is The Jazz Singer's true accomplishment with regard to sound engineering, namely, the production of an audio track that is integrated and synchronized with the visual elements of the film. Given our contemporary mindset, it is difficult for us to imagine the almost mystical wonderment that 1920s audiences felt when young Jakie (Gordon) began singing "My Gal Sal," causing the sonic and optical dimensions of cinematic reality to coalesce. We can, however, appreciate the comparative sophistication of the musical moods created in The Jazz Singer by looking back to other films produced during that era, such as The Gold Rush, which was the subject of last week's review. During the scene in which young Jakie leaves home, for example, we hear somber, melancholic music, and this is certainly a welcome contrast to those jarring passages in the Chaplin film where bright, sunshine-filled tunes play as the characters fight their way through situations of utter bleakness and despair

         After making all appropriate genuflections to The Jazz Singer's technical merits, I'm inclined to give more credit to the compelling story which it relates, a story that is not amenable to simplistic assessment or resolution. Prior to watching the film, I assumed it would be the sort of cinematic bildungsroman in which a young artist struggles for fame against countervailing forces of popular sensibility and reception, but the barriers to Jakie Rabinowitz's success are in fact much more personal and disturbing. While the public generally seems to lionize Jakie, the rigid, unyielding orthodoxy of his father, Cantor Rabinowitz (Oland), makes him feel as if he must choose between his professional dreams on the one hand and the values of his race and his religion on the other. I therefore have to roll my eyes a bit whenever some tiresome advocate of political correctness maligns Jolson's donning of blackface and minstrel garb, because I find them merely emblematic of the racial confusion and obfuscation which Jakie experiences in his "climb to the top." Since Jakie is clothed in this attire at movie's end, we have to wonder if he has indeed sacrificed too much of his identity, notwithstanding an earlier return to his parents' synagogue to sing the Kol Nidre.

            Ultimately, it is Jakie's questionable sense of integrity which prevents me from giving The Jazz Singer our highest rating. Although he is supposed to be the protagonist, I feel very little pathos for him, probably because the movie is far too sketchy with regard to both his early childhood and his rise to celebrity. We never see the formative experiences that inspire a passion for jazz in Jakie, just as we never see the hardships he has to endure while trying to make a name for himself. Furthermore, as Boomer has already pointed out, Jakie is markedly callous with regard to his father's dreams and beliefs. In my opinion, however, this does not make Cantor Rabinowitz a more sympathetic character, because he takes an essentially identical position, dismissing the most heartfelt desires of his son and treating him as a sort of spiritual and familial pariah. For these reasons, I look upon Sara Rabinowitz (Besserer) as the true protagonist of the film, because, unlike her husband and her son, she is not consumed by pride, and thus does not allow her conception of the way the world should be to overshadow the importance of love. Even though many aspects of Jakie's existence are clearly alien to her, she accepts him for what he is, a happenstance which is all too rare on both the silver screen and in our daily lives. My rating:

TAKE THREE: THE BELLETIN BOARD--YOUR CHANCE 

          We are trying to create a bulletin board for you folks to commuicate with us and between yourselves. This section is experimental. If you like it and it is utilized, we will keep it up; otherwise, we will take it down. It only takes a few momennts to register. 

PAST REVIEWS

      Intermezzo                The Littlest Rebel             Beau Geste                      The 39 Steps

  Destry Rides Again        The Gold Rush

FUN AND GAMES

        6 Degrees of  Al Jolson--- Can you link Al Jolson with Jerry Seinfeld in four steps??? Not all of the links are movie related. I will have the answer for you next time. E-mail me the answer if you know!!

        Here are 5 words/phrases associated with Al Jolson, can you unscramble them??? I will have the answer for you next time. E-mail the answer if you now!!

1) ggseuayon
2) lievdveua
3) rntcao
4) mymam
5) slaktie                           

    Trivia: What was Al Jolson's birth name???? I will have the answer for you next time. E-mail the answer if you know!!

          2) The words were: 1) pantomime (it's obvious how that's relevant),
                                           2) United Artists (Chaplin was a co-founder of the studio),
                                           3) slapstick (once again, obvious),
                                           4) Tramp (as in "The Little Tramp"),
                                           5) Limelight (one of Chaplin's films)

          3) Popular but scandelous 1940 Chaplin film---The Great Dictator. Chaplin played a               nameless barber and Hynkel, the dictator.

This Classic Films & Animation of Yesteryear Ring site is owned by Leon Storie [Prev] [Skip it ] [Next 5] [Random] [Next] Want to join this Ring? Go to The Classic Films & Animation of Yesteryear Homepage

This Hollywood Ring site is owned by Jake and Boomer. [ Prev| Skip It| Next 5| Random| Next ] Want to join the ring? Go to The Hollywood Ring Homepage.

The Movie King Ring
	Member: Classic Movie Reviews E-mail: classic_movies@hotmail.com Remote Nav
[ Prev | Skip It | Next 5 | Random | Next | List ]