The Jazz Singer

I dislike the half-assed mannerisms of half-talkies.. If they wanted to do only the songs in sound and the rest with intertitles, fine. If they wanted to do everything with sound, fine. But for the love of god, why are they doing only random samples of discussion in sound? Otherwise it's a lot of fun and Jolson is a joy to watch, it's as if he's thoroughly excited about every note he gets to sing. It's cleverly humorous as well, and let's be honest here, blackface is always funny.

There's really not much reason to watch this beyond just to say "I watched the first talky!".

Yes, I understand it was (distastefully) used as a device to explore Jack's Jewish Identity, but in all good conscience I can't give film that uncritically uses Blackface a higher score than this. It's a very important film, yes, but a narratively slow, visually bland and irreconcilably racist one as well. The Half-sound/half-silent set-up doesn't work and in the long run it is a film that is really hard to like.

I have to admit, that I liked Jolson's singing.

May McAvoy is pretty in this historically important but overly prolonged film. The songs were not particularly entertaining, but they they held some value in Al Johnson's peculiar body language and maneuvering. Except for the two "Mammy" songs where the first one was kind of acceptable, but the latter was strikingly awkward. Gotta love early Hollywood racism too - "He sounds like Jakie, but he looks like his shadow!" Blackface is the clear highlight of the film. Feels o out of place.

Blackface and general datedness aside, it's a rather touching story about a man with conflicted passions. Much better than expected.

Blackface aside this isn't a bad film, it just doesn't really reach the same classic quality as the few other films that we collectively remember from this period.

A surprisingly rich cultural landmark; much better than I thought it would be. Most of the sound bits pack quite the punch and are recognizable from their reference/usage elsewhere - from The Brave Little Toaster to Bamboozled, and various historical film compilations. All things considered, we really couldn't have expected a better introduction to sound on film. "waitaminute, waitaminute, you aint heard nothin yet.."

Al Jolson's an old master of schmaltz and snappy musical numbers, and this delivers both, though rather more of the former than the latter. It all plays out a bit predictably, but it's smoothly driven along by a varied and well-integrated musical score that leans as heavily on Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture as it does on the jazz and Jewish themes.

ahh, loyalty to tradition versus following your dreams.... religious guilt on behalf of an asshole dad is definitely one of the reasons you might choose to guilt someone out of blackface but not the one I expected

I understand what they were trying to do, wish they found a way to do it that wasn't racist. And the middle section is a slog. But the central relationship between the singer and his father is a solid hook for the film and leads to some genuinely affecting scenes.

Discomforting blackface

A gimmick for its time made mostly to showcase the sound of Al Jolson's singing. It's watchable, but only a classic because it was the first.

Obviously an important step in the change from silents to "talkies," but it's a pretty blah film otherwise. There's a scene where Mama sees son in blackface and wonders whether maybe Papa was right all along in shunning him, and I kind of felt the same way.

Watchable. And a landmark in film history, of course. Jolson has an expressive face and he carries the movie reasonably well. His dilemma needn't have been spelled out as much as it was, though.

A landmark in film history only because of having sound, the story its as best "meh" and at worst it has blackface. Yeah, i get it, it was 1927, but it makes it hard to enjoy. Jolson is a pretty good actor though

Al Jolson hits it big.

After a semester in Silent Film class, hearing the dialogue was really interesting, and a very cool effect. But it's otherwise a pretty standard drama. Enjoyable enough to be watchable, but otherwise bland. The songs are good, the blackface not so much.

innovative, but not fully memorable from start to finish. See this is one of those prime examples where innovative?good, but it's still charming in places

Is it an important film? Yes. Is it an enjoyable one? Not for me. I'm not a fan of outdated musical performances, bland storytelling, or blackface. I especially don't enjoy watching blackface.

Sure it's offensive, but it's also extremely boring.

If there was no movie from 20's 30's that surpasses its time I would accept this movie's outdatedness. However, there are many great ones but this one is lacked the story so sadly. It's simple, standard and cliché drama. And that blackface..

The songs were good and I loved the story but I thought there would be more talking. Very monumental though. Very good.

A film that is of enormous historical significance to the industry as the first film with any spoken dialogue does not hold up well on its own terms. I'm willing to look past the blackface to some degree given the time it was made, but while the underlying plot is ok it's more than anything an excuse to show off the possibility of sound. It's probably something that should be seen by people who have an interest in the history of movies, but there's not much to recommend outside that.

The musical numbers were entertaining enough and it moves along quickly, so it wasn't a total loss, but now I can somewhat empathize with those dinosaur movie execs calling talkies a novelty, a gimmick, and a passing fad. The entire film is just a vehicle for the new technology, nothing more.

Another Jewish propoganda film like Fiddler on the Roof. boring. I'm sick of religious and political movies. and, yes, Chaplin was right. TALKIES SUX.