Unsurprisingly, Foreman didn’t stick around to finish the project, while the studio eventually replaced Furie with Richard Fleischer after production costs spiraled out of control but somehow, Diamond’s blackface scene remained in the film. In the first place, it’s racist, in the second place it’s bullshit.’” (Memo to today’s self-appointed warriors against “political correctness”: Yes, blackface was once a standard showbiz convention, but it had long ceased to be so by 1980, when anyone with even the slightest bit of cultural sensitivity was well aware that wearing it was, at the very least, in poor taste.) “I think he thought it was good entertainment,” Stephen Foreman, the remake’s original screenwriter, told author Rich Wiseman in an interview for Wiseman’s 1987 book, “Neil Diamond: Solitary Star.” “But I said, ‘No way am I gonna write that scene. Yes, that’s right - Neil Diamond in blackface. Furie, insisted upon having Diamond appear in blackface as a knowing wink to the Al Jolson original. That’s because the remake’s original director, Sidney J. Still, unbelievable as it may seem, that love scene isn’t even the worst moment in “The Jazz Singer,” nor is Olivier’s performance the most excruciating component. (Deborah Raffin was originally slated to play the part, but bailed out when Arthur Laurents - one of several writers who attempted to fashion the script into something serviceable - kept rewriting her lines during the shoot.)Īrnaz is a pleasant-enough presence in her own right, but the pairing of her with Diamond generates absolutely nothing in the way of romantic sizzle their shirtless fireside love scene may truly be one of the most agonizingly uncomfortable things I’ve ever watched. Olivier, on the other hand, chews his dialogue like a dedicated fresser digging into a pastrami on rye at Katz’s Deli as cringe-inducing screen portrayals of Jews by non-Jewish actors go, Olivier’s is just a prosthetic nose short of surpassing Alec Guinness as Fagin in 1948’s “Oliver Twist.: And then there’s Lucie Arnaz, a last-minute addition to the cast as Molly, Jess’s shiksa love interest. Diamond, in his first (and understandably last) dramatic role, plays Jess Robin (born Yussel Rabinovitch), a fifth-generation cantor who leaves his wife (Caitlin Adams), father (none other than Sir Laurence Olivier) and home in New York City to pursue pop stardom in Los Angeles.īarry Manilow was reportedly considered for the Jess Robin role, and would have at least injected some campy zest into the film but Diamond, obviously uncomfortable in front of the cameras when he’s not singing, just kind of plows through his scenes with a dull determination that says, “I’d really like to return to my trailer as soon as possible.” Which is not to say that I haven’t spent many, many hours watching and re-watching “The Jazz Singer” - as a longtime aficionado of both Neil Diamond and utterly terrible films, this baby is right in my wheelhouse. with his family shortly before his ninth birthday.) (The story somewhat mirrors Jolson’s own life: the actor, whose father was a rabbi and cantor, was born Asa Yoelson in the Kovno Governorate of the Russian Empire, and immigrated to the U.S. In the film, Jolson’s character Jake Robin (born Jakie Rabinowitz) is disowned by his cantor father for singing African-American-influenced music, and runs away from the Jewish ghetto of the Lower East Side to find fame and fortune on Broadway. Not only was it the first full-length motion picture to feature lip-synchronous singing and dialogue, and a synchronized music score, but “The Jazz Singer” was also the most successful English-language film of the era to tackle the subject of the assimilation of European Jews in America. Though difficult to sit through these days, even without the segments where Al Jolson appears in blackface, “The Jazz Singer” nevertheless continues to hold an important place in the history of American cinema. (I know, I know - seems like just yesterday, right?) On October 6th 1927, the original film production of “The Jazz Singer” made its world premiere at the Warners’ Theatre in midtown Manhattan.
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