I just want pop in and add our theatre's official writeup for the event, including the late addition of live organ music before the show:

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Saturday, November 10, 7:30PM

An 80th Anniversary Screening of "The Jazz Singer" -- The Movie That Changed Hollywood Forever Through The Introduction Of Sound.

Starring Al Jolson, May McAvoy, Warner Oland

With Comments by Ron Hutchinson of the Vitaphone Project

This is the only anniversary-year screening scheduled for New York City and New Jersey, and the first of only two in the entire Metropolitan Area. Don't miss this rare opportunity to see this historic film on the Big Screen.

Also, working with the Afro-American Historical & Cultural Society of Jersey City the Loew's will offer a contemplation on the OTHER historical aspect of "The Jazz Singer": Blackface and the legacy of racial imagery at the movies.

Entrance music (before the movie) will be provided by Ralph Ringstad playing the Wonder Morton. You can see a video of him playing at a preview performance for members of the Garden State Theatre Organ Society on our web page http://www.loewsjersey.org or at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDmjTlwsE6M . Also, visit http://www.gstos.org/wonder.htm for more information about the organ and the dedicated people restoring it.

Admission is $6 for adults, $4 for seniors & children 12 years old and younger.



See below for more background information:



More About "The Jazz Singer" And The Coming Of Sound

The history of the movies can be divided in two: Silent vs. Sound. Today, in the age of Dolby and THX, it's tempting to think of silent movies as antique, if not inferior curios of an almost pre-historic era. But silent film was the dynamic vanguard of a new and wildly popular medium. Silent movies built Hollywood, made millions of dollars, and created the first mega stars of pop culture. Most movie goers and movie stars alike did not think they were living in an inferior era, but rather took the lack of sound for granted -- and probably assumed it would always be that way.

But inventors had been trying for years to find a way to synchronize the playback of recorded sound with the projection of moving images. All these attempts failed -- until Warner Bros. and Western Electric jointly developed something called the Vitaphone. This was a 35mm projector that had a turntable attached to it on which 16 inch disks -- similar in size to an LP record -- were played and "read" by a moving arm with a stylus on its tip -- just like a record player. The turntable was connected to the same gears that moved the film, and so if started at the same time, film and record played in sync.

Originally, Warner Bros. only expected to use its Vitaphone equipment to record music and sound effects, not dialogue. But after experimenting with recorded song in several short subject films, Warner's decided to add singing to the instrumental music it would record for an upcoming feature film, "The Jazz Singer." Accordingly, the studio signed one of the most popular Broadway singing stars of the era, Al Jolson, to star in the movie. Jolson had a dynamic, larger-than-life stage presence that audiences loved, and which was only matched by his outsized, ebullient personality. And so it was perhaps inevitable that while filming his first singing performance in the "The Jazz Singer," the irrepressible Jolson ad-libbed this dialogue: "Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet!"

There was an electric -- if unexpected -- alchemy between these prophetic words, Jolson's dynamic charisma and wide popularity, and the fact that for the first time ever audiences could hear a major star speaking dialogue in the course of a feature film. The public was enrapt. When "The Jazz Singer" premiered, only 200 theatres in the United States were wired for sound. Still, hundreds of thousands of people managed to see this first "talkie" anyway. The movie was a smash hit, and suddenly the public, which up until then had probably never imagined anything better, was bored with silent films. Without warning, the movie studios found their operations were obsolete, forcing them to rush to license the new Vitaphone technology and build sound studios. Virtually overnight, some stars found that their careers were over because their voices did not match the public's expectations. Cinematographers, who had developed very sophisticated techniques with their silent cameras, suddenly found that they had to essentially re-learn their craft to accommodate the new, much bulkier sound recording equipment. Theatres raced to be equipped for sound, and less than two years after "The Jazz Singer" premiered, 8,000 theatres were wired for sound.

"The Jazz Singer" is a singular moment in history -- an unexpected pivot on which everything turned and changed. Jolson's ad-libbed line was more than prophetic; with it, the Silent Era effectively came to an end, and Hollywood was born again into The Talkies.


On The Use Of Blackface In "The Jazz Singer"

Jolson performed in blackface on stage as well as in "The Jazz Singer." His use of blackface did not usually include the most exaggerated of stereotyped gestures and speech typical of minstrel shows -- Jolson in blackface sang, moved and spoke pretty much like Jolson in white face, which is to say in his own very unique style. But the fact that a major popular star such as Jolson regularly performed in a make up tradition that was rooted in the stereotyping of a whole race of people, and was perfectly accepted (indeed, encouraged) in doing so by the vast majority of audiences says something significant about racial sensibilities and sensitivities of America at the time. While we will ask our audience to remember that any film -- including "The Jazz Singer" -- should be viewed in the context of its time, there will be a display for the Theatre's lobby that addresses part of that context: the long history of stereotyping and negative imagery in the movies and how this has impacted the ways we think about one another and ourselves. We'll also ask viewers to ponder how far -- or not -- we have come.

'You ain't heard nothin' yet!'

Anniversary screening of early talking pic 'The Jazz Singer' at historic Loew's

Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter staff writer

It was known as the movie that popularized the use of sound in motion pictures and pretty much ended the silent picture era.

Now in its 80th anniversary year, people will have an opportunity to view "The Jazz Singer" in one of its few screenings on the East Coast before year's end, when it shows at the historic Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre in Jersey City on Nov. 10 at 7:30 p.m.

The 1927 movie starring the legendary entertainer Al Jolson is the story of Jakie Rabinowitz, a young Jewish boy who bucks the cantor tradition of his rabbi father and grows up to become popular "jazz singer" Jack Robin, only to return to his estranged family as his father is on his deathbed.

The film is first-rate melodrama that doesn't necessarily distinguish it from the many of the films of its era. But it became one of the top films for Warner Bros. Pictures the year of its release and was nominated for two Academy Awards. It currently ranks No. 90 on the American Film Institute's 100 greatest films list.

It is acknowledged by film historians for being the first feature-length Hollywood film to feature sound not just for a score and sound effects but also for dialogue and musical numbers. This was done by utilizing the Vitaphone process, a sound-on-film technology used on features and nearly 2,000 short subjects produced by Warner Brothers from 1926 to 1930.

"The Jazz Singer" also benefits from Jolson's oversized presence on screen, whether it is performing show-stoppers such as "My Mammy" and "Blue Skies," or literally stopping the show to utter improvised dialogue such as the immortal "You ain't heard nothin' yet!"

The Vitaphone Project

The screening, which will also include the showing of early sound shorts, will be introduced by film aficionado Ron Hutchinson of the Vitaphone Project, a group of record collectors and film buffs who have since 1991 have sought out missing soundtrack discs and film elements of Vitaphone talkies.

"It's a great film because of its success and it gets to be seen in a historic movie palace like the Loew's," said Hutchinson about the theater that opened only two years after the Jazz Singer hit the big screen.

From LA to JC

Colin Egan, co-founder of the Friends of the Loew's volunteer group, said last week the screening is taking place thanks to help from a former Loew's employee.

"A technician who used to work with us at the Loew's now works on West Coast, and he contacted me about screenings that took place out there," Egan said.

Screenings of "The Jazz Singer" were held earlier this month in California at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood and at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills. There was a showing on Turner Classic Movies on Oct. 6, and a three disc DVD set has been issued this month by Warner Home Video.

Egan continued, "We weren't planning to screen The Jazz Singer, but since this is the 80th anniversary and it's a pretty important film, we felt what better place to show it than at the Loew's, one of the first theaters designed for sound."

Egan said what also moved forward the special anniversary screening was their longstanding relationship with Warner Bros., as the Loew's theater has over the years held hundreds of screenings of classic movies in new and restored prints provided by Warner Bros. including a new, pristine 35 mm. print of the Jazz Singer.

Egan said while the Friends group is elated to show this classic, he is not sure how many people will be showing up and is not going to get too preoccupied over audience size.

"To be honest, it will be an experiment, as it's slightly more esoteric than what we normally show," Egan said. "But I am not doing it for the audiences, but for the historic value of the film."

What is Vitaphone?

People think of movies before the 1930s as being all-silent, with piano music playing over the action and characters were moving quickly.

But there were attempts at meshing sound technology with motion pictures since the turn of the 20th century.

It wasn't until the late 1920s when Warner Bros. and Western Electric developed the Vitaphone process that would see its greatest success after the Jazz Singer took audiences by storm.

This is how it worked: A 35mm projector had a turntable on which 16-inch disks (about the same size as an LP record) were played just like a record player. That turntable was connected to the same gears that moved the film, and if started at the same time as the movie, both film and record would play in sync.

With the Vitaphone Project, Hutchinson has tracked over 3,000 12- and 16-inch shellac soundtrack discs around the world, and has assisted on the restoration of over 35 shorts and 12 features. Amongst those disks found were two for a 1929 MGM movie that had been stored in a cabinet in the projection booth at the Loew's. Egan said he has kept those disks in the same cabinet, and the theater also acquired two non-operating Vitaphone projectors in recent years.

He said Vitaphone helped bring top stage performers of the day to the neighborhood movie theater.

"Instead of people paying hundreds of dollars to go to New York to see Al Jolson or some other top act of the day, they could see a Vitaphone short and hear them perform," Hutchinson said.

Dealing with blackface

The Friends group also is working with the Afro-American Historical & Cultural Society of Jersey City to create a display to be placed in the lobby of the Loew's Theater on the history of entertainers, both black and white, performing in blackface.

Blackface is a style of theatrical makeup that originated in the United States, used on actors to affect the countenance of an iconic, racist American archetype.

Jolson, as was customary amongst his peers at the time, performed numerous times in blackface during his career, including several numbers in "The Jazz Singer."

Egan points out Jolson while employing blackface in the movie, does not engage in gestures in the movie that was blatantly racist, but said the public should be informed about how and why the practice was done.

"The Jazz Singer, like many movies of its time has a less enlightened view about various racial and social groups, not just with the blackface, but also the Jewish caricature," Egan said. "With that said, Jolson performing in blackface was not him trying to imitate black people, but it's just Jolson in makeup."

The Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre is located at 54 Journal Square in Jersey City.
Admission for the Nov. 10 screening will be $6 for adults, $4 for seniors, students with ID and children 12 years old and younger. For more information, call (201) 798-6055.

For comments on the story, contact Ricardo Kaulessar at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com