On youtube - Some thoughts

There is an excellent print of this film up on the youtubes. I had never actually seen - recommended for cinemaphiles / history buffs / Al Jolson fans.

Fun facts :

First talkie. The Warner Bros pioneered vitaphone technology, a phonograph played in synch w/ the film. It, and this film, immediately propelled WB from a 2d/3rd rate studio to top of the class.

Sam Warner, who ran production, by most accounts the nicest of the bunch, tragically died of a brain bleed days before the premiere. THe other brothers rushed to Hollywood for his funeral, missing the NY premier.

Warner Oland, who later popularized the Charley Chan series, played the main character's father, the stiff-backed 5th generation old-world Temple Cantor.

Jolson - within his persona, including the actor playing the younger version, we get a snapshot of that quirky moment in time, right in the nadir of racist cultural backlash, a jazz culture still with its foot in minstrelsy. Mawkish sentimentally, but with it also something tender and beautiful, at least in my ears.

Given the basically assimilationist bent of the first-generation Jewish emigre studio owners (the two older Warner brothers were born in Poland), it is somewhat extraordinary that Jewish life is so prominently featured. One aspect of the film that is quite beautifully rendered are the Jewish prayer songs, featuring a world-renowned Cantor with an unbelievable baritone range, dubbed in for Oland - watch for that. Jolson also sings a hymn, in his own style, near the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFaZOaLTkN0