ianlouisiana Review of The Jazz Singer

The Jazz Singer (1980)

"Oedipus-Schmoedipus..as long as you love your mother"

[1/10 · 6 December 2005]

My wife loves this film.She thinks an Oedipus Complex is a Greek Shopping Centre.(NB this is satire - I have nothing against wives,greeks or shopping centres).You don't have to be Jewish to hate this movie but I am a little concerned that "The Jazz Singer" is so inextricably bound up in that faith that to give it a bad crit might be considered somehow anti-semitic.In fact you could transpose the plot into a Muslim musical or a Jehovah's Witness musical without too much effort,so I hope I am not going to offend too many faiths by saying that I found it very,very bad. So bad that it was not even so bad it was good,if you follow me. I have no feelings one way or the other (well,not the other,actually) about Neil Diamond who is obviously very popular.Popular singers make movies - who's to blame them?Blame their agents if you like.They don't often make good movies.Some kind person ought to have told Mr Diamond that if you don't learn from the mistakes of history you are doomed to repeat them.They didn't and he did. Laurence Olivier was cast as Mr Diamond's father.Presumably he was unavoidably detained elsewhere and the producers scoured the Old Folks Homes of west L.A. until they found some geezer who looked a bit like him and offered him 3 hots and a cot for the duration.I hope he didn't give up his day job. The other possibility,that Olivier actually turned up,does not bear thinking about. It wouldn't be fair for me to comment on the songs,but a lot of people like them apparently. The original "Jazz Singer" was pretty dire,but at least it was innovatory."Sonny Boy",originally written as a joke for Al Jolson,is ommitted from this remake.Pity,it would have added a bit of class.