Nathan Rabin's Happy Place's Definitive Guide to American Movies about the Film Industry
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The Jolson Story (1946)
In the 1946 hagiography The Jolson Story the star of The Jazz Singer is much more than merely the world’s greatest and most beloved performer, although he is certainly that as well. The Jolson Story portrays Jolson as the living embodiment of the human urge to entertain but he personifies the irresistible pull of show-business as well. He’s a born entertainer so hopelessly addicted to the high that comes with wowing audiences that he sings offstage as well as on. For Jolson, singing comes as naturally as breathing, and with as much effort.
Jolson, who provided vocals for star Larry Parks to lip-sync, often in blackface and directly to the camera, stood to benefit handsomely from the blockbuster biopic’s success (it was the third top grossing film of 1946) but it would be worth getting involved with for the ego boost alone. The highly fictionalized story of the legendary entertainer’s ascent to glory follows the preternaturally gifted youth from his adolescence as a nice young Jewish boy who leaves home to form a double act with mentor and eventual manager Steve Martin (William Demarest, in an Oscar nominated performance) to his stint working in blackface in minstrel shows and finally to his superstar days as the lead of the first big talkie and one of the biggest multi-hyphenates in the business.
It would be impossible to tell Jolson’s story without blackface but it’s nevertheless jarring that a film from this era showcases the deplorable practice so extensively and in such an unambiguously positive fashion. The Jolson Story treats the minstrel shows where Jolson paid his dues and learned his craft as socko entertainment rather than a sustained insult to the dignity of African Americans. The more The Jolson Story presents blackface as good old fashioned American fun the more disturbing and offensive it feels.
In its third act The Jolson Story suffers from a fatal lack of stakes as its universally beloved subject is forced to choose between his insatiable, demanding public and a movie star wife who wants him to settle down to a quiet life far from the spotlight. Everybody wants a piece of this world famous, world class cornball but there’s only so much of him to go around.
The Jolson Story is a lumbering tribute to its subject’s lucrative genius for musical melodrama never even begins to look beyond the surface to what made Jolson a deeply problematic as well as successful and influential figure.
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