Only in America: Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer

Bernstein (China 1945) offers insight into the making of 1927’s The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length film with synchronized spoken dialogue, and the problematic life of Jolson (1886–1950). The Jazz Singer was a fictionalized version of Jolson’s life based on Samson Raphaelson’s short story “The Day of Atonement” and introduced Jewish culture to many Americans. Bernstein traces the immigrant Jolson through his sojourn in Washington, DC, and his emergence as a vaudeville singing comedian. He provides background on fellow Jewish entertainers of Jolson’s era, including George Jessel (who starred in The Jazz Singer on Broadway in 1925). Bernstein acknowledges that Jolson performed in blackface, which Black Americans correctly saw as a harmful racist caricature. Bernstein also faults the peripatetic performer for furthering a distorted vision of the South, perhaps as a longing for a settled place of his own. The reportedly bombastic, insecure, womanizing Jolson was, during his lifetime, idealized in the biopics The Jolson Story (1946) and Jolson Sings Again (1949), which revived his popularity. Bernstein also evaluates remakes of The Jazz Singer from 1952, 1959, and 1980.