TCM coming in clutch so I could watch the “first” talkie, with the “first” on-screen performance of Al Jolson. I’m fairly out of my depth with this one, so I apologize ahead of time.
Jakie Rabinowitz, a 13-year-old Jewish kid, dreams of becoming a jazz singer. His father, a 4th generation cantor, disapproves of Jakie’s affinity to “raggy time” music. He catches Jakie performing at a beer garden, drags him home, and hits him with a belt off-screen, insinuating that it’s OK to beat your kids, but it’s too violent to be shown in a movie. Jakie tells his parents he’s going to run away, his father disowns him, and they let him go, because parents in the 1920s seem super chill.
Jakie changes his name to Jack Robin and starts performing on the jazz singer circuit. He meets a popular dancer named Miss Mary Dale at a nightclub, and she uses her clout to get him a job on a travelling vaudeville show. His act is so popular, they decide to transfer him to a show on Broadway.
Hoping his father might have softened his opinion of his career over the last 10 years, Jakie returns home to visit his parents and flaunt his new-found wealth. He gets uncomfortably close with his mother and sings her a few songs.
Seriously, even in the movie poster he looks at her like he’s going to swallow her whole.
His father comes home in the middle of this display of affection and loses his shit, kicking Jakie out of the house once again. This entire fight is set to the “Romeo and Juliet Overture”, which I only associate with over-dramatic declarations of love in cartoons.
The next day, during dress rehearsal, his mother visits Jakie to tell him his father is now gravely ill, and he should come home to sing Kol Nidre for the day of atonement, because if Jakie does the thing he’s actively been avoiding doing for the past 10 years, it will magically cure his father. He argues he can’t leave dress rehearsal because it’s important, and he doesn’t have time to be a jazz singer AND a Jew. He goes on stage (in blackface… we’ll get to it), his mother hears him sing and leaves, declaring she no longer owns her son, the world does.
After dress rehearsal, Jakie feels guilty about abandoning his family, and decides to bail on the Broadway show. This causes the Broadway show to be cancelled, even though he’s only in one number out of several featured in the lineup, with dozens of other performers that could have taken his place to fill up time. He sings Kol Nidre in the synagogue, and even though his father hears it and is relieved, he dies anyway. Jakie then goes on to be a wildly successful headlining jazz singer. The end.
This is where I’m in the deep end of the swimming pool. Jakie spends a good amount of the end of the movie in blackface. I’m not here to make judgments if Al Jolson was racist, or if what he was doing was intended to disparage the African American community. I’ve seen arguments that white actors would wear blackface like a mask and use it as a way to transform into their stage persona. But watching this in 2020 is really rough, because I can’t ignore that white people wearing blackface was usually intended to ridicule, dehumanize, perpetuate stereotypes, and exert power over black people. Because he is in blackface, the climax of the movie, where his mother confronts him about singing for his father, fell completely flat for me. I could not push that part of my brain aside that felt unbelievably uncomfortable.
That being said, based on the theme of the movie, it didn’t feel as if Jakie was wearing blackface to perform as a stereotype (although he does sing a Mammy song at the end, which.. oof), but instead uses it to portray how “other” he feels. He doesn’t feel comfortable singing as a cantor, but trying to hide that part of himself to perform on Broadway also feels disingenuous. Even the Mammy song comes from a place of empathy since he’s singing it directly to his mother, and we know how much he loves his mother… But again, I’m not here to whitesplain historically racist creative choices. There are much better resources than me that illustrate the history of minstrel shows, and I encourage you to check out if you’re unfamiliar.
The songs are fairly enjoyable (I’m all for that 1920′s aesthetic), and Al Jolson, for being a funny looking dude, is very charismatic. He looks like he genuinely enjoys every second he’s singing, and his voice wavers like he’s constantly pleading for the audience buy-in. He’s got some pipes on him.
This was the first partially-silent movie I had ever watched, and it certainly was an adjustment. I found myself increasingly frustrated by the way it would cut away from the actors faces to display the text of what they were saying, instead of having them say it, and then showing the text. I felt like I was constantly missing out on the actors emoting. I never realized how blessed I am to be living in an age where subtitles are available.
When Jakie finally does talk during his performances, it was genuinely shocking to me because I was already resigned to the silent dialogue. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to watch this back in 1927 – it would have blown my fucking mind.
This film does live beyond its novelty. It attempts to address serious subjects of familial responsibility, religion, and personal and racial identity. It does fail in its subtlety, which could be a result of the limited technology of film making.
Next is Head, the Monkees’ film I had no idea existed. I wonder if they’re going to monkey around, or if they’ll be too busy singing to put anybody down…
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