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Pre-Order The Jazz Singer (1927) (Blu-ray) Available for Preorder (1 Viewer)

Robert Crawford

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Warner Archive reissuing "The Jazz Singer" (1927) on Blu-ray for $24.99 MSRP on March 19th.
 

Robert Crawford

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The price link below will take you directly to the product on Amazon. If you are using an adblocker you will not see link.

 
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B-ROLL

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Wasn't this on Blu-ray already?
This IS a re-issue probably sans the digi-book and Vitaphone movies that were on DVDs and part of the Deluxe set ...

jazz-set-e1359419290672[1].jpg


The original 2013 release was pretty extensive:
Disc 1 (Blu-ray)

  • Commentary with Ron Hutchinson and Vince Giordano – Sometimes, these commentaries for older movies are pretty dry, but these two guys not only know their stuff, but they keep it interesting too. Ron Hutchinson is a co-founder of the Vitaphone Project, while Vince Giordano has an orchestra called the Vince Giordano Nighthawks that focuses and plays music from this era. They not only talk about The Jazz Singer’s production and historical impact, but they also discuss what was going on at the industry at the time and how the transition to sound came to be.
  • A Plantation Act – A short starring Jolson where he appeared in blackface and sang several songs. Warners liked this short enough to greenlight The Jazz Singer. Once again, I don’t agree with popular opinion.
  • Hollywood Handicap – A short that features a bunch of stablehands betting on a horse with appearances from several stars including Jolson. It’s kind of humorous but seems really dated now.
  • A Day at Santa Anita – Here’s another short at the racetrack but this time its about a girl named Peaches and her horse Wonderboy.
  • An Intimate Dinner in Celebration of Warner Bros.’ Silver Jubilee – This is one of those self-congratulatory short where the studio brags about their movies and their stable of stars. The only problem is that almost all of these stars never became famous. If I remember correctly, the only one I recognized was Edward Robinson.
  • I Love to Singa – A Warner Brothers Merrie Melodie that parodies The Jazz Singer with The Owl Singer, a young owl that just refuses to follow his father’s demands and becomes a jazz singer. It’s cute and more enjoyable than the movie it’s based on.
  • Radio Show Adaptation – At almost an hour long, this radio broadcast from June 2, 1947 is an adaptation of The Jazz Singer and Jolson returns to play his role again.
  • Theatrical Trailer
Disc 2 (DVD)

  • The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk – For me, the highlight of this set was this hour and a half documentary about the history of sound and its incorporation into the movies. We see the earliest beginnings with Thomas Edison and his team’s efforts on through Lee and Cases’ work too. When Lee tried to diminish Case’s contributions, Case took his research to Fox where they put it too good use on their Movietone newsreel shorts. Warners continued on with their Vitaphone use and ended up licensing it to other studios once they understood that sound in movies was no longer a fad. We get to hear all about the wars between studios and how long the industry took to adopt sound. We also get to hear from knowledgeable sources including: sound designers Ben Burtt (Star Wars!), Dane A. Davis, Ron Hutchinson and Vince Giordano (from the commentary), critic Leonard Maltin, and film historians Rudy Behlmer, Scott Eyman and Robert Gitt.
  • Surviving Sound Excerpts from 1929’s Gold Diggers of Broadway – There’s many lost films from this era but there’s some surviving footage from two early films containing sound: “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” and “Finale”. Some of the vaudeville footage is very cool and my son loved seeing the acrobatic parts.
  • The Voice from the Screen – This is a demonstration of the Vitaphone for the New York Electrical Society by Edward B. Craft of Bell Telephone that was recorded on Oct. 27, 1926. Excepts from this are in the main documentary too.
  • Finding His Voice – This is a cartoon made to teach viewers how sound was added to film through cartoon characters who get a “voice”. This cartoon from 1929 was co-directed by animation legend Max Fleischer!
  • The Voice that Thrilled the World – This is another almost twenty minute look at the history of sound in movies that was directed by Jean Negulesco.
  • Okay for Sound – This is another self-congratulatory featurette where Warner Brothers and Vitaphone celebrate their twenty years of sound in movies. Expect a lot of clips and self-promotion.
  • When the Talkies Were Young – This is a documentary from 1955 that contains short talkies with stars like James Cagney and a very young looking Spencer Tracy. These clips also give away a lot of of the movies they are promoting, so if you want to stay spoiler free for those movies, don’t watch these clips.
Disc 3 (DVD)

This third disc contains a bunch of Vitaphone shorts from the Warner Brothers vaults. Some of them are missing footage and some aren’t in the best of condition, but it’s still interesting to see this glimpse into the past. What’s a shame is that many of these vaudeville performers did their skits on film which later left them out of work as these new shorts with sound were want the audiences wanted. Here are the shorts included:

  • Elsie Janis in a Vaudeville Act: “Behind the Lines”
  • Bernado De Pace: “Wizard of the Mandolin”
  • Van and Schenck: “The Pennant Winning Battery of Songland”
  • Blossom Seeley and Bennie Fields with the Music Boxes
  • Hazel Green & Company
  • The Night Court
  • The Police Quartette
  • Ray Mayer & Edith Evans in “When East Meets West”
  • Adele Rowland: “Stories in Song”
  • Stoll, Flynn & Company: The ‘Jazzmania Quintette’
  • The Ingenues: “The Band Beautiful”
  • The Foy Family in “Chips off the Old Block”
  • Dick Rich and His Melodious Monarchs
  • Gus Arnheim and His Ambassadors
  • Shaw & Lee: “The Beau Brummels”
  • The Roof Garden Revue Directed by Larry Ceballos
  • Trixie Friganza in “My Bag O’ Tricks”
  • Green’s Twentieth Century Faydetts
  • Sol Violinsky: “The Eccentric Entertainer”
  • Ethel Sinclair and Marge La Marr: “At the Seashore”
  • Paul Tremaine and His Aristocrats
  • Baby Rose Marie: “The Child Wonder”
  • Burns & Allen in “Lambchops”
  • Joe Frisco in “The Happy Hottentots”
DigiBook – A lot of times these digibooks are basically just glossy fluff, but not this time as all thirty-nine pages included offer a ton of behind the scenes photos and information. We also get the original souvenir program from the film’s premiere, the signing of Jolson to the movie, a program fro Vitaphone, and more personal items like Al Jolson’s sympathetic telegram about the passing of Sam Warner. There’s also a table of contents that lists what’s on each disc which is nice.
 

Patrick McCart

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I have the digibook, which turned the printed material from the 3-disc DVD into the book portion.

This is an essential classic release. Blackface stuff aside, it’s an entertaining and moving film with a magnetic performance by Jolson. The restoration looks and sounds amazing. I could be wrong, but I think it’s from a 4K master (or at least 4K transfer).
 

David Norman

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Wasn't this on Blu-ray already?

Yes, It appears that many of the older Warner Digibooks are being rereleased in basic WAC packages -- Meet Me in St Louis, Papillon and now this. At least these releases so far have been 19.99 instead of the usual 21.99.

I;m not sure what other Digibook only releases might fit this pattern for later releases. I have most of the original items, but I do know there are many who hate Nonstandard packaging and I'm sure it's a lot cheaper for Warner to do these through WAC than reprint some of these 7-10 yo Books

A Star is Born (Garland)
A Star is Born (Streisand)
The Man who Would be King
The Big Parade
Mutiny on the Bounty 1935
Guy and Dolls
Streetcar Named Desire
Hamlet 1996

There are several other Warner Digibooks that already have a Basic Release under WHV packaging.
 
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PMF

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This IS a re-issue probably sans the digi-book and Vitaphone movies that were on DVDs and part of the Deluxe set ...
An omission of the Vitaphone films would be a terrible disservice to the work of Ron Hutchinson;
especially now, in regards to his most recent passing.

To learn more about Ron Hutchinson and Vitaphone:
http://www.vitaphoneproject.com
 
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