Asks a rather nervous John Miljan in this seven minute trailer for Warner Brothers' The Jazz Singer (1927).
John Miljan played romantic types in the silent era, and played mainly villains in the sound era, often for MGM. He was one of the few actors Charles Bickford had something good to say about in his biography, and his usually small roles can be overlooked jewels. But I digress.
Like just about everybody speaking before the early movie cameras, John is as stiff and unnatural as Richard Nixon in his 1960 presidential debate performance, but I digress. I have wanted to write a review about this for years, but an imdb reference for it just recently appeared. The irony of this promo just cannot be overlooked. Miljan is here to promote one of the first major films to have synchronized speech. However, because Vitaphone sound is recorded on discs, it is impossible to splice the sound portions of the film into this promo. So the promo only shows two silent scenes from The Jazz Singer and is nothing out of the mundane since scenes like this had been in the movies for twenty years at this point.
What is interesting? Before Miljan shows two silent scenes from a (somewhat) talking film, he shows the crowd arriving at the theatre for the premiere of The Jazz SInger. It's like a snapshot in time of the film industry. Included are Jesse Lasky, founder of Paramount Pictures and Joe Schenck - Film executive and producer of Buster Keaton's independent films. Schenck ceasing to finance Buster and the talkie revolution would put a big dent in Buster's career. Then there is Lita Grey Chaplin dressed to the nines and looking happy after having just taken ex-husband Charlie Chaplin to the cleaners for 600K in an ugly divorce a couple of months before. Also there is Irving Berlin - famous composer who will outlive everybody in the crowd, living until 1989 and age 101. Finally there is Al Jolson arriving with an unidentified woman. Since Al divorced his previous wife the year before and won't meet Ruby Keeler until 1928, I do not know who this person is, and Miljan does not identify her.
Truly a great piece of film history crammed into seven minutes, this is a must for the film history buff.
John Miljan played romantic types in the silent era, and played mainly villains in the sound era, often for MGM. He was one of the few actors Charles Bickford had something good to say about in his biography, and his usually small roles can be overlooked jewels. But I digress.
Like just about everybody speaking before the early movie cameras, John is as stiff and unnatural as Richard Nixon in his 1960 presidential debate performance, but I digress. I have wanted to write a review about this for years, but an imdb reference for it just recently appeared. The irony of this promo just cannot be overlooked. Miljan is here to promote one of the first major films to have synchronized speech. However, because Vitaphone sound is recorded on discs, it is impossible to splice the sound portions of the film into this promo. So the promo only shows two silent scenes from The Jazz Singer and is nothing out of the mundane since scenes like this had been in the movies for twenty years at this point.
What is interesting? Before Miljan shows two silent scenes from a (somewhat) talking film, he shows the crowd arriving at the theatre for the premiere of The Jazz SInger. It's like a snapshot in time of the film industry. Included are Jesse Lasky, founder of Paramount Pictures and Joe Schenck - Film executive and producer of Buster Keaton's independent films. Schenck ceasing to finance Buster and the talkie revolution would put a big dent in Buster's career. Then there is Lita Grey Chaplin dressed to the nines and looking happy after having just taken ex-husband Charlie Chaplin to the cleaners for 600K in an ugly divorce a couple of months before. Also there is Irving Berlin - famous composer who will outlive everybody in the crowd, living until 1989 and age 101. Finally there is Al Jolson arriving with an unidentified woman. Since Al divorced his previous wife the year before and won't meet Ruby Keeler until 1928, I do not know who this person is, and Miljan does not identify her.
Truly a great piece of film history crammed into seven minutes, this is a must for the film history buff.
