FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Finally on DVD! Movie ‘Heard
Round the World’ that Changed Film Industry Forever …
THE
JAZZ SINGER 80TH ANNIVERSARY
3-DISC COLLECTOR’S EDITION
From Warner Home Video October 16
Entertainment Legend Al Jolson Stars in the 1927 Black and White
Classic, Newly Restored, With Collectible Memorabilia and Hours of
Additional Content, including New Documentary “The Dawn of Sound”
And over
Three and 1/2 Hours of Rare Vitaphone Shorts
Burbank, CA (July 9, 2007) – Experience film history on October 16 when
Warner Home Video (WHV) debuts on DVD the studio’s landmark motion
picture, The Jazz Singer, the first
feature-length film with synchronized dialogue and musical sequences.
The movie, which brought Broadway superstar Al Jolson “alive” and
seemingly singing from the screen, was an immediate sensation when it
opened in 1927 and created a revolution in the history of the motion
picture industry.
WHV proudly presents The Jazz Singer in a deluxe
3-disc 80th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (at
$39.92 SRP), with the film itself immaculately restored and remastered
from earliest surviving nitrate film elements and original Vitaphone
sound-on-disc recordings. Hours of rare, and never-before seen features
include a myriad of vintage shorts and film excerpts, a 1947 radio show
adaptation featuring Jolson, a commentary from film historians Ron
Hutchinson (founder of The Vitaphone Project) and Vince Giordano, and a
wealth of collectible memorabilia. Orders are due September 11.
Disc two contains a new full-length documentary feature, The Dawn
of Sound, commissioned by Warner Home Video specifically for
this very special DVD release. The 93-minute film covers the 30+ year
struggle to successfully unite sound and image on motion picture
screens. The fascinating narrative of failures and triumphs is propelled
by insights from notable film historians as well as interviews from many
talents who reveal their personal experiences of this tumultuous period
in film history.
The third disc includes more than four hours of extraordinary Vitaphone
shorts (see more detail below), unique and historic rarities that
capture performances from the era’s great entertainment legends of the
era: Burns & Allen, Baby Rose Marie, Weber & Fields, Blossom Seeley and
Benny Fields and many others.
Said George Feltenstein, WHV’s Senior Vice President Theatrical Catalog
Marketing, “Since the arrival of DVD more than ten years ago, we have
had a torrent of requests for this cinematic milestone. However, we
wanted to take the necessary time and care to create a unique
collectible release in a special multi-disc presentation that explores
the historical context. We anticipate that this will become a ‘must
have’ item in any serious DVD collection, and we hope the film’s legion
of fans will be pleased.”
The Jazz Singer –
Background
The Jazz Singer
stars entertainment legend Al Jolson in a story that bore a few
similarities to his own life story. Jolson portrays a would-be
entertainer whose show-business aspirations conflict with the values of
his rabbi father (Warner Oland). The Jazz Singer
began life as a 1925 Broadway play, and was revived early in 1927,
starring George Jessel. The Warner brothers offered Jessel the
opportunity to reprise his stage role on the screen, but he and the
studio couldn’t agree on salary. The studio then offered the part to
Eddie Cantor who declined. The part was finally offered to Jolson, who
was then at the height of his popularity.
Jolson had broken new ground on the stage and sold millions of
phonograph records. Just his name on the marquee of a Broadway theater,
or on a piece of sheet music, almost always guaranteed success. He found
the challenge of conquering the screen via the new VITAPHONE technology
irresistible. Jolson headed to Hollywood and began work on The
Jazz Singer at a fervent pace. Only a few months later, his
labors resulted in the creation of an indelible piece of motion picture
history.
While a few earlier sound films had bits of dialogue, they were all
shorts. The first Warner Bros. Vitaphone feature film, Don Juan
(1926), starred John Barrymore, and was a handsomely mounted epic. It
was a silent film, but one that featured a synchronized instrumental
score and sound effects. Audiences and critics responded with great
enthusiasm, and Don Juan was a box-office smash. Many thought its
success was not so much due to the feature film, but more for the
fascinating program of Vitaphone shorts that preceded the feature. Its
success drove Warner Bros. to try and expand the potential of VItaphone.
Like Don Juan, The Jazz Singer was initially
conceived as a silent feature film, with synchronized underscore and
sound effects, but this film would have synchronized singing sequences
built around Jolson performing as only he could. There was never any
intention to have dialogue in the film, but during his first vocal
performance, Jolson improvised the words: "Wait a minute, wait a minute,
you ain't heard nothin' yet!" In actuality, The Jazz Singer
contains a total of only two minutes of synchronized talking, most
of it improvised, while the rest of the “dialogue” is presented through
the typical standard “title cards” found in all silent movies of the
era. But after Jolson uttered his now famous line, the rest was history.
The movie premiered at the Warner Theater in New York City on October 6,
1927 and soon became a national phenomenon, limited only by the
relatively small amount of theaters (200) who were already equipped with
Vitaphone’s sound-on-disc technology (a process developed by Western
Electric and Warner Bros. wherein a 16” disc was synchronized with
standard 35mm projection equipment). The film was a smash everywhere it
played, and led to the installation of sound equipment all over the
nation. Less than 2 years later, nearly 8000 theaters were wired for
sound. Fueled by Jolson’s charisma and Vitaphone, The Jazz Singer
created the momentum for “talking pictures” that couldn’t be stopped.
Silent films would soon become virtually extinct.
Directed by Alan Crosland, the film co-stars Warner Oland, May McAvoy,
and Eugenie Besserer Among the hit songs featured in the film are
Jolson’s trademarks, “Toot-Toot-Tootsie, Goodbye”, “Dirty Hands, Dirty
Face”, “My Mammy”, and a then-new song composed by Irving Berlin …“Blue
Skies.” The story was remade in 1952, starring Danny Thomas and Peggy
Lee, and then again in 1980 with Neil Diamond and Lucie Arnaz. There was
even a television version in 1959 starring Jerry Lewis. None of these
subsequent iterations were anywhere as successful as Al Jolson’s
history-making original from 1927.
DVD Special Features:
Disc 1 – The Movie
·
All new feature digital transfer and immaculately refurbished soundtrack
from restored picture elements and original Vitaphone-Sound-on-Disc
recordings
·
Commentary by film historians Ron Hutchinson and Vince Giordano
·
Collection of rare cartoons and shorts:
o
I Love to Sing-a
classic 1936 WB parody cartoon directed by Tex Avery
o
Hollywood Handicap
classic M-G-M short with Al Jolson appearance
o
A Day at Santa Anita
classic Technicolor Warner Bros. short with Al Jolson & Ruby Keeler
cameo appearance
o
“Al Jolson in ‘A Plantation Act’ “1926
Vitaphone short made a year prior to The Jazz Singer
o
An Intimate Dinner in Celebration of Warner Bros. Silver Jubilee
·
1947 Lux Radio Theater Broadcast starring Al Jolson (audio only)
·
Al Jolson Trailer Gallery
Disc 2 – The Early Sound
Era
·
All-new feature-length documentary The Dawn of Sound: How Movies
Learned to Talk
·
Two rarely-seen Technicolor excerpts from Gold Diggers of Broadway
(1929 WB film, most of which is considered lost)
·
Studio shorts celebrating the early sound era:
·
Finding His Voice (1929 Western Electric animated promotional short,
produced by Max Fleischer)
·
The Voice That Thrilled The World -
Warner Bros. short about sound
·
Okay for Sound
1946 WB short celebrating the 20th anniversary of Vitaphone
·
When Talkies Were Young
1955 WB short looking back at the early talkies
·
The Voice from the Screen
1926 WB ‘demonstration’ film explores the Vitaphone technology and,
looks at the making of a Vitaphone short.
Disc 3 – VITAPHONE SHORTS
In Warner Bros. began producing a series of short films which utilized
the Vitaphone process. These films ran the gamut from musical theater
legends and vaudeville acts, to dramatic vignettes and classical music
performances from the most prestigious artists of the era.
Most of these were shorts considered lost for decades, until a
consortium of archivists and historians joined forces with a goal to
restore these magnificent time capsules of entertainment history. Up
until now, contemporary audiences have only been able to see these
shorts via rare retrospective showings in a few large cities, or through
the limited release of a restored handful of the earliest subjects,
which were part of a 1996 laserdisc set. This new collection will
finally make these amazing rarities available to the thousands of film
fans awaiting their DVD debut.
·
Over 3 1/2 hours worth of rare, historic Vitaphone comedy and music
shorts
Elsie Janis in a Vaudeville Act: “Behind the Lines”
Bernado Depace: “Wizard of the Mandolin”
Van and Schneck: “The
Pennant Winning Battery of Songland”
Blossom Seeley and Benny Fields
Hazel Green and Company
The Night Court
The Police Quartette
Ray Mayer & Edith Evans: “When East Meets West”
Adele Rowland: “Stories in Song”
Stoll, Flynn and Company: “The Jazzmania Quintet”
The Ingenues in “The Band Beautiful”
The Foy Family in “Chips off the Old Block”
Dick Rich and His Melodious Monarchs
Gus Arnheim and His Ambassadors
[
Shaw and Lee: “The Beau Brummels”
Larry
Ceballos’ Roof
Garden Revue
Trixie Friganza in “My Bag O’ Tricks”
Green’s Twentieth Century Faydetts
Sol Violinsky: “The Eccentric Entertainer”
Ethel Sinclair and Marge La Marr in “At the Seashore”
Paul Tremaine and His Aristocrats
Baby Rose Marie: “The Child Wonder”
Burns & Allen in “Lambchops
“
Joe
Frisco in “The Happy Hottentots”
Outstanding
Collector’s Edition Bonuses:
·
Rarely seen behind-the-scenes Photo cards
·
Original release Lobby card reproductions
·
Original release Souvenir Program book reproduction
·
Booklet with vintage document reproductions and DVD features guide
·
Reproduction of post-premiere telegram from Al Jolson to Jack L. Warner
TCM Night of Early
Talkies
To celebrate the 80th
anniversary and the DVD release of this seminal sound film, TCM will
present a night of early talkies on October 16 to accompany the Al
Jolson classic. The schedule will be as follows:
8:00 PM The
Jazz Singer
9:45 PM Vitaphone
Shorts
The Foy Family in Chips Off The Old
Block
(1928)
Shaw and Lee, The Beau Brummels (1928)
Mayer and Evans in The Cowboy and the Girl (1928)
Georgie Price in Don't Get Nervous (1929)
Trixie Friganza in My Bag O' Trix (1929)
The Night Court with William Demarest
(1927)
(All six were preserved
and restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.)
10:15 PM Don Juan
(1926)
12:15 AM The Better
Ole (1927)
2:15 AM When a
Man Loves (1927)
4:15 AM The
Jazz Singer
THE JAZZ SINGER 80TH ANNIVERSARY 3-DISC DELUXE EDITION
Catalog #: 79889
Street Date: October 16, 2007
Order Due Date: September 11, 2007
$39.92 SRP
Feature Running Time: 88 minutes
4x3
Fullscreen, B&W
Dolby Digital 1.0 audio |
First
a quick review of the movie, for those of you that might not have seen
it. This movie is about the internal struggle within a man between
his duty to family and faith versus his heart and desire. Jackie
Rabinowitz, young man played by Al Jolson is the son of a Cantor (Warner
Oland), and he comes from five generations of Cantors. Cantors are the
prayer and song leaders in a Jewish temple. His father wants him to
follow in his families footsteps. Young Jackie has ideas of his
own. He has been introduced to sounds of Jazz music and wants to
follow his passion. Jackie leaves to become an entertainer and
sing jazz. Along the way he changes his name to Jack Robin, and
gets involved with a woman in the industry (May McAvoy).
However, the old and new paths still meet and Jack/Jackie is torn
between the two, or how to balance both to create a happier life.