Say it with Songs (Warner Bros.) (1929)

a_i ee all AL JOLSON in “SAY IT WITH SONGS’=—Warner Bros. Latest All-Talking; All-Singing’ Vitaphone Picture 7 FEATURES FOR NEWSPAPERS What the World’s Acclaim Means to . Jolson, the World’s Favorite Son » ||Jolson Says “Being Yourself” Spells Talkie Success “Joe Lane speaking— Al Jolson who sang his way to success in the films and had-much to do with causing the “revolution,” says, “Above everything else, be yourself.” “T believe that you’ve got to be natural in talking pictures, because you are appealing to the masses. For instance, when they gave me the line once, ‘I’m either ooftygoofty or a genius,’ I couldn’t say it because it wasn’t the sort of thing I would say. I changed it to, ‘’m either nuts or a genius.’ “An actor in the talkies gets: his lines in the morning and is asked to stand before a microphone the same day and act them out. He has to think of what to say and how to play the scene at the same time. How ean a person think of the part and show the correct expression on his face when he is trying to fish for a word? I know that I can’t sing a song if I’ve just learned it. I can only do it after I know it well. I’ve got to play around with it and put little things into it. In the same way, dialogue must be mastered until actors could speak it backwards, to get the utmost out of it. “And what difference does it make what words you use in a scene? Whether an actor says: ‘Come sit in my lap,’ or ‘Come jump in my lap’? If it were a line in a song I’d change it if I felt like it. “Onee I sang ‘Old Man River’ four times at one performance in a picture house prologue. I liked it. I said: ‘I don’t care whether the audience likes it or not; I’ve got to have my fun, too.’ “Pictures are harder work than the stage in many ways. But there is an element of surprise in them, particularly during this period of change—of mergers and rumors of more mergers — that makes them fascinating. How can you_ get bored?” Al Jolson is now to be seen with Davey edsaix then seers ace Theatre, the Warner Bros. latest ill-talking, singing picture, “Say It With Songs.’? Al YSo/son Stock N-32 Cut or Mat—Order Separately iii iti iit itiiiii iii titi titi HEAR JOLSON SING “Why Can't You” a = = = = = = You may declare Life is unfair, Keeping your share Of happiness— You ave to blame. = = = = ~ = = = = = = = = They called your name— You did not claim, Your happiness! You say you're through And you sigh. How do you know, Till you try? Violets, from tiny seeds Fight their way up Through the weeds— Violets can do it, Why Cant you? — Davey Lee Likes New Play Mamma. Next To Uncle Al Little brooklets, Breaking free— Work their way down To the sea. Little brooks can do it, Why can’t you? Davey Lee found room -in his heart for another favorite during the making of “Say It With Songs,” Warner Brothers new all-talking and singing Jolson picture, now SHOWINO ab Chet ee pee eee ae Theatre. Marian Nixon, his “play mama” in the story, won her way quickly into the affections of the child and the result was a realistic mother and son relationship in the picture. All of this was the more remarkable because Davey has long since taken his “Uncle Al” who discovered him and who has never given up his great affection for Davey— very much into the family. Davey consequently has his “play mama” and his “play daddy”—who is also his “Uncle Al” off the set as well as a very real mother and father. Perhaps a little good natured rivalry developed between Mr. Jol (agp euuuanavenecueauanauenenuaueneneauennauaguauansncenesuavsneceauansqceusnancensnwoesvesuseaususssausesscauusuauensoueussuausuenuannsesusauscensunscaueseauauausavaususaveonsvaveegaysgseseanenvaca “Hopes and dreams Are things that Life can shatter, Learn to lift your head And say— It doesn’t matter, Birdies sing In cages, too— They know that’s The thing to do— Little birds Can do it, Why can’t you? attentions, and if so this only adds to the. realism in the tender story, “Say It With Songs.” The cast includes Holmes Herbert, Kenneth Thomson and Fred. Kohler. Lloyd Bacon directed. UOCUUUEUCEUAEOUOUUSUOGUSORDSTEOEUAEUOUEGEUOUCCUEORCCUTSEEOEOAUUSRESSEUREROOEEEEEOND EE EAUET) = = = = = = = = = = = ¥ son and Miss Nixon over Davey’s |. By CARLISLE JONES “O, popular applause—what heart of man is proof. against thy sweet seducing charms!” Yes, Al Jolson likes applause. He loves it. So do some hundred and twenty million other Americans. Few human beings are immune from the lure of popular acclaim. No one, used to the spontaneous enthusiasm which greets Jolson when he walks onto a stage, could do happily without some evidence that he is not forgotten by a public that almost overwhelmed him with admiration, applause and profits during his spectacular career on the legitimate stage. From many Jolson memories, four or five seem to be outstanding, each in its way testifying to his great personal power over an audience. They are examples of his ability not only to win deserved applause but to earn it. One of these gala nights, occurred years ago, in a small Middle West city where Jolson was making a one night stand with his show “Robinson Crusoe, Jr.” This was probably the smallest city in which the already famous comedian was to play for many years. Already he was travelling in his private car. A great rush for early reservations had sold out the house a week or more ahead. Before the show Jolson came out to the lobby quietly, as he often does, and mixed with the crowd. A few people recogniezd him, but the one irate patron calling at the box office for his reservations, objecting loudly to what he termed an outrageous ticket price, three dollars and thirty cents a seat. Jolson interested himself in the argument. New Yorkers had paid just twice that to see the same show. “Buy those seats,” the famous Singer told the grumbling patron, “and D’ll guarantee you your money’s worth.” Throughout that show Jolson exerted himself. Ever so often he stopped everything and asked the unnamed man in the audience if he was getting enough entertainment for his money. Jolson sang and danced. and visited with the audience. Time after time he held up the show to add numerous encores to his numbers. About midnight the show closed in a riot of applause. If the disgruntled ticket buyer did not get his money’s worth everyone else did. Another time in Chicago Jolson was the headliner in a pretentious review. For that matter any review that could afford Mr. Jolson as a headliner, had to be pretentious. That evening he came out white face. A murmur of disappointment rippled across the audience. The price had been eight-eighty at the scalpers, largely on account of Jolson, the famous black-face mammy singer. Sensing this disappointment Jolson determined to make them like it and call for more. It was a kind of personal triumph—Jolson personally over Jolson black-face. Once in New York while playing “Big Boy,” Jolson tried himself out again. When the audience seemed not inclined to let him go after a song or two in the second act, he sent the whole cast home and finished the evening himself—alone. It was a great success. Still another night comes to mind a Saturday night in New York. Harry Richmond promised his early patrons a real treat later in the evening. Just before midnight Al Jolson and his party came in and Jolgon took over the job of master of ceremonies: for his friend Richmond. The few hundred that could be crowded into that club will not soon forget the. entertainment that Jolson night. but never a more enthusiastic one. gave, With these and a thousand other successes in the back room of. his memory it can scarcely be imagined been completely weaned away from the legitimate stage even by such spectacular success as have recently been hig in the new medium of Vitaphonepic that Jolson has tures. Recently I watched him making his latest picture on the Warner It is a feature picstaged and. exIt is his third ven Brothers lot. ture, elaborately pensively cast. ture of this nature, both the preceding ones having been tremendously successful. It will add new millions to the vast numbers of people who have met Jolson on the screen, more than could have been crowded into a lifetime of theater performances. There is, according to Mr. Jolson, a kick in this as well as in a personal appearance triumph on the legitimate stage. The song he sings into a microphone one day will be heard by thousands upon thousands in every corner of the globe. He could travel in one night stands the rest of his life time and not reach a tenth of the places where one of his pictures will be shown during the coming year. His unseen audience isn’t always a silent one either. There is fan mail—tremendously increased with his entry into pictures. There are spontaneously that He has had large audiences a PP Sp “ % New York, Los Angeles and other important centers. They have all the thrill of a first night of a new show, according to Jolson, and. after all the first night is the big thrill in any actor’s season, A hundred people now recognize Jolson when they see him to one before his picture career began— that is, outside of New York. This is a nuisance sometimes, of course, but Jolson likes it just as you and I and all the rest would like it— admit it or not. It must take away some of the regret at losing that peculiarly Jolsonistic personal contact with a _ peculiarly personal audience. There is another recompense, too. Jolson is essentially a sentimentalist and tragedian at heart. On the stage he is irrevocably bound to comedy, black-face, ballad singing, skits in reviews. In pictures he can make use of drama, sometimes perhaps, melodrama, but the kind of melodrama that the public likes, He can be serious, at least, and Jolson, like all tremendously successful men is a lonesome man and a serious one. None of his pictures to date have been comedies. I doubt if any of them will be. During his greatest success on the stage he was pointed out as a man who made people laugh. Now more often than not he is pointed out as the man who made people ery in “The Jazz Singer” and “The Singing Perhaps ‘sis ambition is, in “Say It With UULe his new picture, premier showings of his pictures, in Songs,” quite the same, WOR EPRI Hon eretere Scene From” Say it with Songs" Starring Al Jolson A Werner Bros. Proouctio# LITTLE PAL, FOLLOWING HIS DAD, IS RUN OVER BY TRUCK Production No. 10—Cut or Mat