Widely know as the first widely released 'talkie'. The first commercially successful feature-length movie with audible dialog, "The Jazz Singer" tells the story of the son of a Jewish Cantor, who must make the choice to pursue his singing career or carry on his Jewish family traditions and by singing in the synagogue as a Cantor. A tradition in the family, for 5 generations long already.

This movie is definitely better than currently given credit for on here. Not that many serious dramas were made in the '20's and those that were made can't really match up to this well written and directed movie.

Of course the movie is mostly legendary because of the fact that it is widely regarded and accepted as the first 'talkie', even though only few lines are actually spoken in the movie and it also isn't the first movie featuring audible dialog. Only the singing sequences have sound and the moments before and after it. When the first talking happens in the movie, it really hits and stuns you. You totally aren't prepared for it, since the movie begins just as purely a silent movie. Just imaging how this would have been for movie goers in the '20's. Love to have seen the crowd reaction. A revolutionary step in movie-making, though it took 3 to 4 more years before the silent-era was truly over. Making full length movies with sound added to it, simply was too costly at the time. This movie was an important movie that marked the coming ending of the silent period and introduced the 'talkie' movies. This movie forms the perfect and symbolic transition between these two completely different movie types.

But above all, the movie is just simply good. The story is very well written and features some good drama aspect when a young jazz singer has to make a choice between his family and reunite with his loving mother and his disappointed father who denounced him, or his career on the stage and a life with his great love, the well-known stage performer Mary Dale. It's a well written dramatic story that works well and is effective, especially toward the ending of the movie. It provides the movie with some deeper emotional layers.

Of course the acting is totally over-the-top, even though Al Jolson remains very good and likable in his role. Also the heavy make-up and lighting works distracting at times but that's all now part of the charm of it these days.

The whole racial problems some persons have with this movie is ridicules. Yes, toward the ending the main character puts on a so called 'blackface' but this is just part of his performance act. Al Jolson never plays an African-American character in the movie. Back in those days it wasn't uncommon that actors or singers put on a blackface and even black singers did it. People had no problem with it in 1927 but now, 80 years later, people suddenly start having problems with it and consider it racist. Also sort of too bad that most people just remember this movie because of the 'blackface', as if its the most significant part of the movie. The movie has so incredibly much more to offer.

A movie-historical important- and landmark movie but above all a simply just really great movie on its own!

9/10

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Worth watching simply for its historic significance, which is why I watched it. Was the first "talkie", though the amount of actual talking is limited. Most of the dialogue is still silent and is communicated via titles. The "talking" refers to the songs, and a few conversations.

Made in 1927, its production values obviously pale into insignificance against modern standards. The story isn't too bad though, though linear and a tad predictable and trite.

And, in case it comes up at Trivia Night, the famous first audible words uttered on film were "Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet!"

...but it was the first time that it was integrated into the storyline of a feature film in such a way that it was remotely entertaining to audiences.

The story was adapted from a Samson Raphaelson play, and I've heard from many viewers who have reviewed this film with the criticism that the title cards and even the storyline itself for the all but twenty minutes that are silent film are like those from a melodrama from the 1910's rather than the more sophisticated material from films such as Sunrise from that same year. However, clever silent dialogue is not the point of watching this. The point is how Jolson jumps off the screen anytime he is center stage and performing a number and how the dynamism that was Jolson could only be adequately communicated in the presence of sound. Sam Warner, the Warner Brother that dragged the other Warners into the sound era kicking and screaming and died right before the film opened, picked well when he selected Al Jolson to be the centerpiece of the new sound on disc system's ability to capture synchronized dialogue.

What I always notice whenever I watch this film is just how apparently scared the Warners were of letting someone actually speak in what is supposed to be a talking picture. Jolson's famous impromptu dialog with his mother while at the piano performing "Blue Skies" is the only real conversation - although it is completely one-sided - in the entire film. The first all talking picture would have to wait until the following year to be created when a Vitaphone short inadvertently turned into a 59 minute feature film while Jack Warner was out of town. That picture was, of course, "Lights of New York". After that film opened to a grind house run and made over a million dollars the sound revolution was truly on. "The Jazz Singer" was considered only a novelty at the time.

Of course, part of the reason that so much of this film is silent is that is was still very difficult at this time to synchronize speech with film for extended periods of time. Even Jolson's whistling during Toot Toot Tootsie was sound dubbed over silent film versus the Vitaphone process.

Watch this one with an eye and ear mainly for Jolson's singing numbers. Also keep an eye out for some of Jolson's costars that have big careers later on. Of course there is Warner Oland who plays Al's father here and is Charlie Chan over at Fox during the 1930's, but there is also Myrna Loy as a chorus girl peeking through some curtains backstage during a rehearsal with a few catty - but unfortunately silent - remarks. Finally look out for William Demarest sharing a table with Al at Coffee Dan's as they both dig into a plate of ham and eggs. Ironically, Demarest played Jolson's mentor in the excellent 1946 biopic "The Jolson Story".