kenbarr-ny
As a movie, "The Jazz Singer" is not terribly good. However, Neil Diamond's music make it worth at least a look. Particularly relevant in these times is his hit "(Coming To) America, an anthem extolling immigration and the contribution of immigrants to American culture. The acting, however, is another story. This was one of Laurence Olivier's "made it for the money" flicks and Lucie Arnaz was tragically miscast. As an actor, Diamond is a great singer. I don't know what spoilers I'm adding here but I figure it's better to err on the side of caution.
X X
People are seriously giving this 10 stars? I only give it two for the songs, and only some of them. The single biggest contrivance that stuck out to me was the idea that this seemingly level-headed, mature guy just throws a fit one day in a recording session for no good reason and bails out to become a homeless drifter. The second biggest was that after disappearing for two years, she just welcomes him back with open arms--no woman I know would do that. Or a record company. Or an orthodox Jewish father. As near as I can tell, this whole movie was created to showcase a few Neil Diamond songs; the money would have been better spent filming music videos, but I guess they weren't a thing yet in 1980. The level of suspension of disbelief required to appreciate this plot means one serious bong rip.
James Hitchcock
I have never seen the classic film "The Jazz Singer" from 1927 (or for that matter the fifties remake) so cannot say how this version compares to it. It tells the story of Yussel Rabinovitch, a Cantor at a New York Orthodox Jewish synagogue, who finds success as a singer, but only at the cost of estrangement from his traditionalist father (also a Cantor) and his equally traditionalist wife. It keeps the same title as the original, but in this version Yussel is a pop star, not a jazz singer. Yussel uses the stage name "Jess Robin", but to avoid confusion I will refer to him by his original name throughout. I must admit that I did not really have any high hopes for the film when I recently saw it for the first time. I was aware that it had been a critical flop when first released in 1980 and that Neil Diamond (as Yussel) and Laurence Olivier (as his father) were the first two winners of the "Worst Actor" and "Worst Supporting Actor" Razzies. I had even heard it described as a classic of badness. So is it as bad as its reputation in some quarters might have you believe? Well, insofar as the acting is concerned, it is not very good. You can see why Neil Diamond has concentrated on his singing career rather than on acting. He tries hard, but it is clear he is no Laurence Olivier. (To be fair, however, I should point out that my view was not shared by everyone. Diamond was actually nominated for a "Best Actor - Musical/Comedy" at the Golden Globes). As for Laurence Olivier, well, in this film he is no Laurence Olivier either. Towards the end of his life, in the seventies and eighties, Olivier occasionally ended up in films that were not worthy of his status and talents, although I have noticed that even in earlier in his career he was not always at his best playing characters who were not British, or at least Anglo-Saxon. In films like "The Prince and the Showgirl" or "Khartoum" he tended to fall back on stereotype, even caricature, to portray foreigners, and does the same here, making the elder Cantor Rabinovitch a neurotic Yiddisher Poppa with an exaggerated stage accent. (Cantor Rabinovitch's country of origin is never specified, but he is obviously an immigrant to America from somewhere in Europe). The female members of the cast are no better; Catlin Adams as Yussel's selfish, controlling wife Rivka is a one-dimensional figure and Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of two famous parents, is just bland as Molly, the girl with whom Yussel falls in love after his divorce from Rivka. In some respects there is plenty of material for a good film here. At the heart of the story is the clash between the classic "Old World" values of Yussel's father, faith, family, community and tradition, and the "New World" values of Yussel himself, freedom and self-fulfilment. Unfortunately the dramatic potential of this clash is negated by the fact that the representatives of the "Old World" values, old Cantor Rabinovitch and Rivka, are so unsympathetic. Rivka is totally unable to appreciate or sympathise with her husband's talent or ambitions; the old man is seen at his worst, and comes uncomfortably close to bigotry, in the scene where he ritually tears his clothes to indicate that his son is "dead to him". (What has really upset him is Yussel's love for the Gentile Molly). Director Richard Fleischer could turn his hand to virtually any genre, and had earlier been responsible for some good films ("20,000 Leagues under the Sea", "The Vikings"), and at least one excellent one ("Ten Rillington Place"). His creative powers, however, seemed to go into a decline towards the end of his career in the eighties. (A similar phenomenon afflicted some of his contemporaries; Stanley Donen and J. Lee Thompson are two others who come to mind. "The Jazz Singer" is by no means his worst film- that must be the dreadful "Red Sonja"- but it is a long way below the standard of his best work. It would, however, be unfair to blame him too much; he was only drafted in to direct at the last minute after the original director, Sidney J. Furie, was sacked from the production. The music featured here was a success, and the soundtrack album became one of Diamond's biggest-sellers. It actually made more money than the film itself and provided him with three hit songs, "America", "Love on the Rocks" and "Hello Again". Anyone who likes Diamond's music, as I do, will enjoy this aspect of the film. Good music, however, is not generally enough to make a good film. A successful musical needs to be more than a succession of great songs; it also needs good acting, a good story and good direction as much as any other successful film, and in all these aspects "The Jazz Singer" does not have much to offer. 5/10 (4/10 for the film itself, with a bonus point for the music).
jarrodmcdonald-1
Charter cable's on-demand service usually provides films airing on FLIX and those titles are separated by decade. Last night I selected the menu for the 80s, and I came across the Neil Diamond version of THE JAZZ SINGER, from 1980. Since Dr. Goldman had recently screened the 1927 and 1952 versions on TCM as part of the Projected Image Series without even mentioning this later, more modern one-- I decided to watch it. I had never seen it before.Early in the picture, after Diamond's character starts to go off on his own and sing pop music, he is traveling with his band to a club. On the way there, he finds out it's a black club (which is what he says in the movie). All the guys in his band are black, except for him. When they get to the club and go backstage to get ready, someone has the idea of putting him in black face so he will blend in with the rest of them. We cut to them performing on stage and Diamond is indeed in black face for that number. The camera pans to the crowd and all the patrons are black and they are digging the music. At some point, a guy in the audience realizes Diamond is Jewish, not black, and he is exposed for being 'different.'Personally, I did not find this scene to be offensive-- and I thought it was a rather clever way for the writers to come up with keeping that portion of the Jolson version in the story. I can't remember if Danny Thomas appeared in black face in the second film, but I don't think he did. Neil Diamond's THE JAZZ SINGER was not a huge commercial hit, but it made $27 million at the time of its release ($78 million dollars today using an inflation calculator) and it earned another $4 million with domestic television broadcasts. Obviously a lot of people at the time saw Diamond in black face, and it wasn't enough for the project to fail. The soundtrack went multi-platinum, too. So in a way, this version did have a significant cultural impact, long after the days of Martin Luther King and the civil rights era-- but of course, before our current stranglehold of political correctness.
