Business and Economy:
Hollywood -
A talkie just recently came out and everyone is going crazy! The Jazz Singer was presented in movie theaters on October 6, 1927 and no american has seen anything like it! The citizens of the United States have now realized that movies are 10 times better when they can hear the actors talking. The movie was produced in Warner Bros studios and directed by Alan Crosland. The talkie was based off of a short story, The Day of Atonement, which was written by Samson Raphaelson in 1921. It was adapted for the screen by Alfred A. Cohn. Although The Jazz Singer is a hit, it was initially a risky investment that the Warner Bros Studios had to ponder over. Last year, the Warner Bros had to invest of a half million dollars with Western Electric in the Vitaphone sound system. But the investment was worth the profit and became a huge success! The Warner Bros brought back a profit of $3.5 million and transformed their business into being the most known producers of movies in Hollywood. Although The Jazz Singer is not the first talkie with the sound-on-disk feature, it is the first feature-length Hollywood talkie film that uses spoken dialogue as a part of the dramatic action. Only 25% of the movie is part-talkie, the other 75% is composed of sound-synchronizing, vocal musical numbers, and accompaniment. Only a few scenes, besides the songs, consists of dialogue being spoken synchronously. The rest of the entire movie has musical scores and musical sound effects accompanying the action and subtitle cards throughout the entire film. The characters had their own individual musical themes. Although the movie is a really big turn in film history, It is sad to say that a beloved friend of Times Magazine, Sam Warner, died the day before the New York City world premiere. He was the co-founder of Warner Bros studios and the died at the age of 40. He will be greatly missed and a memorial service will be held for him next week.
Now enough of this nonsense let's talk about the storyline of the movie.The main character of the talkie was a young Jakie Rabinowitz, played by 13 year old Bobby Gordon, who lived in one of the ghettos in New York. Rabinowitz has a deep love for jazz music that his very religious family, especially his father, does not agree it. One of the most famous scenes that take place in the talkie is young Jakie singing popular jazz songs inside of Muller’s bar cafe and being snatched out by his father, who was played by Warner Oland. Throughout the movie Jakie struggles with winning his father over, because he rejects the family tradition of being a cantor. After he continues to have a secret life of singing and defying the rules of his parents, his neighbor finds out about his secret and tells the rest of his family. Then, Jakie gets kicked out of his house and the movie fast forwards to a decade later with Al Johnson playing an older Jakie Rabinowitz. At this moment in the movie, Jakie has changed his name and married a fellow performer, Mary, but he still struggles with trying to win his dad over. The movie is great and I highly recommend everyone reading this to watch it!
-Natalie Williams
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