| Abstract: | The 1927 movie The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson—famously ad-libbing synch dialogue, infamously appearing in blackface—has spawned three remakes: a 1952 and a 1980 movie starring Danny Thomas and Neil Diamond, respectively; and a 1959 television drama starring Jerry Lewis.1 The 1927 Jazz Singer was directed by Alan Crosland, the 1952 version by Michael Curtiz, the 1959 version by Ralph Nelson, and the 1980 version by Richard Fleischer. View all notes While none of the remakes can possibly match the singular importance of the original, arguably the cinematic ur-text of the Jewish assimilation narrative (not to mention of the American sound film), taken together the four films function as a compelling “metaphor for Jewish modernization.”2 Hoberman, “Deracinatin' Rhythm,” 1, 3–31. My “ur-text” designation for the 1927 Jazz Singer is based on its unrivaled sociocultural impact rather than on its chronological priority. Several other popular works dealing with Jewish assimilation preceded the Jolson-starring film. British playwright Israel Zangwill's The Melting Pot (1908) “first articulated the ideology upon which America's grand assimilation narrative of assimilation was built” (Brook, Something Ain't Kosher Here, 22). Noted novels on the subject include Mary Antin's The Promised Land (1912), Abraham Cahan's The Rise of David Levinsky (1917), Fanny Hurst's Humoresque (1919), and Anzia Yezierska's Hungry Hearts (1920). The latter two of these were adapted for the screen in the early 1920s, as, in the late 1920s, was Ann Nichol's 1924 play Abie's Irish Rose. Samuel Raphaelson's short story Day of Atonement, (1925) and his stage play The Jazz Singer (1926) provided the source material for the 1927 film version. View all notes Beyond the ethnically specific insights the films provide, their variations on the theme of an aspiring Jewish pop singer's conflict with his sternly religious father have much to say, individually and collectively, about continuity and change in American culture and society during the four films' six-decade span. Through social-historical and textual analysis, this essay further examines how identity issues raised by the four Jazz Singers continue to resonate among a Jewish people beset, perhaps more than ever, by the double bind of difference. |
