Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1928 - Feb 1929)

19 Makes Whoopee When not working in his new picture "The Singing Fool", Al Jolson devotes his Broadway sophistication, ready wit and dynamic energy to satisfy Hollywood's demand for his presence at all functions. Reid Don't get the impression that he is blase, or diffident, or at a loss for words. He is none of these, and he is pleasantly affable. Not cagy, not bored, not high-hat — just uninterested. In a brief burst of garrulity he described the story of "The Singing Fool." It is a melodramatic story, strongly spiced with the sentiment which Jolson frankly enjoys. Supplying much of the pathos in the picture, is the love of the singing waiter for his baby son. Jolson himself discovered the child who plays this role, and displays marked affection for his small choice. With no children of his own, it is obvious that he adores this one. Side by side with his kidding and sophistication, gentleness tempers these qualities and makes him a good trouper. For it was apparent, even under ,the inevitable moments of awkwardness in his first picture, that he is that. He has an instinctive "feel" for the elements that reach beyond the eye, past the mind, down into the emotions. The accurate perspective he keeps on this ability, is what saves his ballads from being lugubrious, and the pathos in his pictures from becoming bathos. I spoke of the appeal to the heart of "The Jazz Singer," and he admitted that that is the sort of thing he prefers. He is a propagandist for the emotions, the human touch. "I don't know if 'Jazz Singer' was a good picture," he remarked. "In fact, I have serious doubts. But I do know that its idea got under the skin of the audience. It even got me, when I saw the opening in New York. My wife was with me — that is, my ex-wife. We've been divorced several years, but we're very dear friends. When it came to the climax — you remember where I come back home to sing/Kol Nidre' for my father? — she cried and cried, 'It's so beautiful. You couldn't be bad, and act like that. You just couldn't. Why, I'll marry you again to-morrow !' But I was too excited to answer." The anecdote finished with the knowing, sidelong glance and wicked grin. And that was all of the interview for then. Irving Berlin dropped in to say, ''Hello," and to see how Al was getting on. When he had left, what "few threads of conversation had been woven were out of hand again. In desperation, I resorted to bromides, hop ^g^fSj Kraney'«Ji?~ ' * cruited from Rio mg that he would Rita» for «The Sing. follow. ing Fool." Josephine Dunn, Jolson, and Betty Bronson take instructions from director Lloyd Bacon during the filming of the picture. "How, Mr. Jolson, do you like Hollywood ?" "Great. I live in Beverly Hills." Silence, broken by polite, but quite irrelevant, remarks from Al. "What decided you to continue in pictures ?" "Money — lots of it," he grinned. After another silence I hauled out the old reliable, the starter guaranteed to make any one talk — any one but Al Jolson. In a nice way, I asked for the "story of his life." And what did I get? Not even a synopsis. It had been printed so often, he objected — too often. Everybody had read it. I explained that the motion-picture public is a mass quite apart from that of the theater, that to them he is an entirely new face, but to no avail. "Your people " I insisted. "Well, my mother came from St. Petersburg— and I don't mean in Florida." "You were born in " "I was born " He jumped up to greet George Jessel, the original Jazz Singer of the stage, and now doing a picture or two. George had stopped by from his studio to make a dinner date with Al for that night. "How's the picture going, Al?" "Who can tell ? How's your own ?" "Finished already. Started shooting Monday — finished Tuesday — titled and shipped this afternoon — in New York to-morrow." [Continued on page 119]