In light of Song Sung Blue coming out last month, I thought it would be fun to look at 1980’s The Jazz Singer, starring the actual Neil Diamond. I have vague memories of this movie, mostly of the last scene, partly because it’s so iconic, also partly because “America” is one of my favorite Neil Diamond songs, and still also partly because, again, my late Aunt Rosemary was a big Neil Diamond fan, rest her soul.
So yeah. The Jazz Singer. Heh. It turned a profit but not a lot of heads, at least not in the right direction.
It all opens in New York City, where Yussel Rabinovitch (Neil Diamond) is a cantor at his local synagogue. He’s a fifth generation cantor, and his dad, Cantor Rabinovitch (Laurence Olivier) is very proud that his son is following in his footsteps.
Yussel’s life seems settled. He’s married to his childhood sweetheart, Rivka (Caitlin Adams) and they’re looking to get a place of their own, but Yussel knows the money’s just not there, so on the side he’s been writing songs and playing gigs with his best friend, Bubba (Franklyn Ajaye), who knows Yussel as Jess. One of these gigs involves Jess ducking out of temple early so that he can play at an all-black club. In blackface, by the way.
Go ahead and cringe. It’s weird and awkward, plus Jess’s blackface looks more like he put on too much bronzer.
Bubba’s next move is to go out to California, where he lines up a job for Jess to write songs for a record company. Rivka’s not crazy about the idea in the slightest, but Jess tells her it’s just for two weeks.
Famous last words, of course. The first friendly face Jess sees when he gets off the plane at LAX is Molly (Luci Arnaz), and from what it appears, she’s like an agent or a liason for record companies or something. Either way, she knows Bubba and everyone else in the music business. After a couple of false starts, Jess starts getting bookings, and his rise is pretty steady.
Dear old Dad, however, isn’t too happy about any of this, especially after Rivka comes to visit Jess and the two of them decide to separate. Dad is even less enthused when he sees Molly with Jess at Molly’s Venice beach apartment and is told that Jess and Rivka are divorcing.
Jess isn’t the same after that, and lives the life of a drifter for a few months, where he makes a huge splash as a country singer in a dive bar. How no one recognizes him from his TV and concert gigs is a mystery that can’t quite be chalked up to bad TV reception. Dude’s got a pretty distinctive voice.
The big question, although not too big, is whether or not Jess can get his life back on track. When he finds out that his dad is in the hospital and won’t be able to sing the Kol Nidre for Yom Kippur, Jess feels compelled to step in, but he’s got a gig on the same night. What in the world will he do? At least his relationship with Molly is in a good place, and the two of them even have a baby son named Charlie.
This is such a strange movie. It’s got shades of A Star Is Born and was meant to be a vehicle for Neil Diamond, who certainly didn’t need any help attaining stardom in 1980, although the movie gave Diamond a popularity boost. It rather offensively acts as if every Jewish person in America is socially awkward. It’s a biopic but it isn’t a biopic even though it hits a lot of the usual biopic points (Incidentally, Neil Diamond got his start trying to pitch songs to publishers on Tin Pan Alley, not as an overnight sensation in LA). The title character is supposed to be a jazz singer, but Neil Diamond never sings jazz in the movie. It has Diamond in blackface at a black-only club in 1980. Why? I don’t know. Al Jolson performed in blackface, but that was Al Jolson. Either way, it’s awkward and yucky.
Speaking of Jolson, one of the biggest complaints about the 1980 Jazz Singer is the antiquated story and Diamond’s advanced age making him too old to be a young cantor dissatisfied with his life. Diamond was thirty-nine when The Jazz Singer was released. Funnily enough, Al Jolson, for all his Jazz Singer is a landmark achievement, was also thirty-nine when it was released, Heck, Danny Thomas was forty when his version of The Jazz Singer came out, so age isn’t really the issue, although it stretches the cred a little.
In the case of the 1980 film, the biggest problem is Neil Diamond’s acting. It was his first film, he was clearly uncomfortable onscreen, and his acting range is embarrassingly limited. He goes between staring at people’s chests to uncomfortably smiling to looking long-faced. It reminds me of how Dorothy Parker once described Katharine Hepburn: “Miss Hepburn runs the gamut of emotions, from A to B.”
One of the movie’s obvious strengths, though, is Neil Diamond’s singing. It’s often said that The Jazz Singer could have been built out of just concert segments alone, and it’s true that they didn’t have to manufacture enthusiasm in that case, because the audiences were genuinely happy to be watching Neil Diamond give out live onstage. The soundtrack album was the most successful thing about The Jazz Singer, with sealed albums still selling on auction sites to this day.
The other big strength of the movie is Luci Arnaz, who is funny and pretty and way too good for The Jazz Singer. She’s a treat to watch, honestly, to the point that I was almost asking what she was doing with this group of slackers. Affectionately, of course.
On a side note, I also liked seeing Venice and LA from forty-five years ago, and for that matter, New York City from forty-five years ago. Southern California was so clean back then. So open. So unlike it is today. Same thing with New York City. When I saw it in the mid-nineties it was still had the nicely-kept shabbiness and quirk that’s shown in the movie, with tiny staircases and old hallways and enough space in a lower middle-class dining room for a six-seat table.
No, The Jazz Singer isn’t the greatest movie, but it’s got its high points. Just ignore the blackface scene.
Another post is coming up on Saturday. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…
The Jazz Singer is available to own on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon. It is also free to stream on Tubi (1927 and 1980 versions only).
~Purchases made via Amazon Affiliate links found on this site help support Taking Up Room at no extra cost to you.~
If you’re enjoying what you see on Taking Up Room, please subscribe to my Substack page, where you’ll find both free and paid subscriber-only reviews of mostly new and newish movies, documentaries, and shows. I publish every Wednesday and Saturday.
Taking Up Room 