02 Jazz singer - Film History Final

8/7/2019 02 Jazz singer - Film History Final

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Josh Terwey

Film History Research Paper

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The Marketing of The Jazz Singer and Blackfaced Posters

Today, we have the luxury of a highly evolved multi-billion dollar movie

marketing industry. Radio, television, billboards, newspapers, and the internet are all

crammed with print or video advertisements for films. No matter if you are an avid film

buff or the average movie-goer, film advertisements influence which movies we decide to

see. Can you imagine going to the cinema, paying your $8.00 and sitting in a dark theater

to watch a film you have seen no advertisements for? Absolutely zero advertisements?

Some people may think they are not influenced by the mass media, but everyone is on

some level. We are all consumers of media, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, whether

consciously or unconsciously. Whether it’s a director, actor, genre, writer, or subject

matter there is always some marketable element of a film that draws audiences to the

cinema. It is now easier than ever to mass market a film not only nationally, but globally.

As opposed to the exclusive print advertisements of early cinema marketing, today

someone in Melbourne Australia can, at the click of a mouse, watch a trailer for an

American film that won’t be released for weeks. With the proliferation in movie

marketing techniques, films have become increasingly globalized, reaching larger and

more diverse audiences. This, therefore, leads to more ticket sales and more profits, all

because of the marketing of films. In the early days of film marketing, there were no

luxuries such at television or internet and, consequently, marketers of early films had

only the printed medium with which to advertise their films. With the growing popularity



of films, more and more were being created and released every year. Marketers,

therefore, had to get creative with their print advertisements; they had to focus on specific

aspects of their film, aspects that set it apart from others. Instead of posters with simply

the title of the film on them, popular actors and actresses began appearing on

advertisements. This was the beginning of film marketing. By 1927, however, posters and

other printed mediums were still the only available means with which to market films.

This, of course, was the year the first “talkie” was released, Warner Brothers’ The Jazz

Singer (1927). A landmark film on many different levels, The Jazz Singer is most widely

recognized for introducing synchronized dialogue in film. An achievement of this

magnitude alone would be enough for a marketing campaign. The Jazz Singer ’s

marketing, despite its legacy as the first talkie in history, however, was focused more on

Al Jolson’s blackface minstrelsy than the groundbreaking Vitaphone sound

synchronization process, as represented by the original poster advertisements for the film.

The plot of The Jazz Singer was no surprise to the American public at the time of

its release in early October, 1927. The story of Jack Robin, a young jewish boy from the

lower East side of New York was originally published as a short story entitled “The Day

of Atonement” published in Everybody’s Magazine in January 1922 (Carringer, 12).

Later, the author of “The Day of Atonement”, Samson Raphaelson, sold his short story to

Broadway producer Al Lewis in 1925, and it was then renamed The Jazz Singer

(Carringer, 12). The Broadway production of The Jazz Singer saw a sustained, successful

run of thirty-eight weeks despite relatively negative reviews such as this in September 15,

1925 New York Times review:

“The play is a shrewd and well-planned excursion into the theatre…and assuredly so

written that even the slowest of wits can understand it. The Jazz Singer takes no chances

with its audiences; it strives always to be successful. The distinct discernibility of the



effort probably will be an unimportant factor in the play’s career” (Carringer, 13).

A review in the American goes on to describe the stage adaptation of The Jazz Singer as a

“garish and tawdry Hebrew play” and that it is performed with “ludicrous and maudlin

pomposity” (Carringer, 13). Although receiving such negative reviews, the play ran for

thirty-eight weeks, and was a moderate success. The public, most notably the Jewish

community in New York, therefore, had at least an inkling of the story at the heart of The

Jazz Singer . Consequently, film periodicals of the time shifted their focus on the

introduction of the Vitaphone process that was said to be a part of the upcoming film

version of the play. Even before marketing for the film began, the possibility of the

Vitaphone playing a part in The Jazz Singer was the focus of the respected Moving

Picture World magazine. In the May 28, 1927 issue of Moving Picture World , it was

announced that The Jazz Singer would be the “first Vitaphone production to be made by

Warners on the coast” and that this would be the “first motion picture made with

Vitaphone sequences” resulting in “an epoch in motion picture production” (Carringer,

18). Given that the plot and story elements of the play were already published and well

known, Moving Picture World ’s article focused on the fact that The Jazz Singer would be

the first film with full sequences of Vitaphone synchronization, a revolution they saw as

the major attraction for The Jazz Singer . This development, however revolutionary, was

not the focus of the Warner Brothers’ marketing campaign; an error that would never be

made today, given we have the luxury of hindsight. We know today how remarkable this

was, an insight Warner Brothers did not fully appreciate, as represented in their

marketing for the film. Such a development in film history would be a selling point for

any film, regardless of stars, directors or genre. Rather, Warner Brothers decided to

market the film based on Al Jolson’s face--his blackface.



In order to accurately analyze the poster advertisements for the film, the act of

blackface itself must first be understood within the context of the Jewish community.

What would be considered extremely racist and offensive today, blackface minstrelsy

was a common method of entertainment in the Vaudevilles of the early twentieth century.

Before appearing in films, the majority of Al Jolson’s stage performances relied on his

blackface routines. Blackface was almost exclusively a Jewish invention, as it has clear

references to the religious history of the Jewish people. These parallels are actually quite

obvious, given that

“The two types of songs that Jolson used most often in his blackface repertoire exemplify

the nostalgia for slavery and exile inherent in Jewish minstrelsy: Mammy and Back-to-

Dixie. In both types, Jewish songwriters of the 1910s and 1920s imagined that African-

American identity was founded on being strangers and in dreaming of home” (Alexander,

135).

Being that The Jazz Singer is the story of a young Jewish cantor from the lower East side

of New York, Warner Brothers decided to market the film using Al Jolson’s blackface

routines on their movie posters. In this original poster advertisement for The Jazz Singer ,

Al Jolson’s face is completely covered in black makeup, effectively masking his whole

face (Dirks, 2). The fact that the star of the film is unrecognizable is completely foreign

to today’s marketing techniques. Star power is the main driving force behind every major

marketing campaign for films today. Moreover, the revolution of the Vitaphone process

is nowhere to be seen on this poster--if a poster essentially masks it’s star’s face, it needs



to present something else to draw the

audience to the cinemas. This poster

pitches the film to it’s audience solely

on Al Jolson’s disguised face. In this

second original poster for the film,

Warner Brothers decided to picture

Jolson’s face minus the makeup, but still

included a screenshot of one of his blackface performances (Dirks, 3). Additionally, this

poster, just like the first, neglects to make any mention of the sound synchronization

process. The third poster is much like this second one in that it includes both Jolson’s

face in makeup, and his normal face (Dirks, 1). This fourth poster is the most overt in its

blackface presentation of Jolson (Dirks, 3). The whole poster is black, highlighting only

Jolson’s eyes, mouth, part of his

shirt, and his gloved

hands. In each one of

these four posters,

Warner Brothers

claims that this film is

their

“Supreme Triumph”, yet none of them explain why. It is the synchronized Vitaphone



sequences that made this film a triumph, but the marketing makes no light of this

milestone in film history. Lastly, this photo is of the actual premiere of The Jazz Singer at

the Warner Brothers’ own theater in

New York on October 6, 1927

(Schoenherr, 1). As you can see, the

massive, oversized poster for the film

once again only shows Jolson

performing his blackface minstrelsy.

Interestingly, however, this

advertisement actually mentions

Vitaphone, but it only appears at the premiere. Moreover, all the poster mentions is

“Vitaphone”, not how it works, or what sound is synchronized. What made this film

special was that it synchronized dialogue, something not mentioned on this or any other

poster for The Jazz Singer . This major oversight was corrected with Warner Brothers next

Vitaphone “talkie”, The Singing Fool in 1928. An original 1928 poster for The Singing

Fool reads, “Vitaphone Talks” even above Al Jolson’s name and the title of the film

(Gomery, 53). The Singing Fool was so popular “that it would come to stand as US box-

office champion from 1928-1940, when it was replaced by Gone With the Wind ” (1939)

(Gomery, 53). By marketing The Singing Fool as a film with specifically synchronized

Vitaphone dialogue sequences, it became one of Warner Brothers’ most successful films

of all time. This was a marketing method lost on Warner Brothers when advertising for

The Jazz Singer .

The marketing for The Jazz Singer is an excellent example of the evolution of



movie marketing techniques on two different levels. First, Warner Brothers saw their

miscalculation by not marketing recorded dialogue with The Jazz Singer and corrected it

with The Singing Fool . Additionally, the obvious racially offensive poster advertisements

for the film would never be shown today. Advertisers today would find other ways to

attract audiences to a given film, namely if there was a revolutionary breakthrough like

the Vitaphone synchronization process first introduced with The Jazz Singer . Today’s

audiences can look back at The Jazz Singer and fully appreciate what it did for film

production and history. At the time, dialogue in film couldn’t be fully appreciated, as the

audiences of 1927 really had nothing to compare synchronized sound to. Indeed, many

people in the film industry at the time were severely opposed to the introduction of

sound, feeling that it would reduce the visual “language” of movies. Film periodicals and

publications, however, saw the revolutionary impact of the Vitaphone process, as is

evident in Moving Picture World ’s article proclaiming that recorded dialogue would

usher in a new “epoch” in filmmaking. On some level, the Warner Brothers had to have

known how revolutionary the Vitaphone was, but still insisted on marketing the film as a

blackfaced Al Jolson performance vehicle. Had they advertised it like they did on their

very next film The Singing Fool , the impact, audiences, and box office take would have

been much, much larger. Although the marketing for The Jazz Singer was less than ideal

for a film that introduced such a revolutionary achievement, the film eventually became

so popular that “The Jazz Singer [is] to the silent mimes in 1927 what Black Tuesday was

to be to the financiers of the Jazz Age in 1929” (Sarris, 31).



Work Cited

Alexander, Michael. Jazz Age Jews. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.Dirks,

Balio, Tino. The Jazz Singer. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1979.

Dirks, Tim. “The Jazz Singer (1927).” AMC. <http://www.filmsite.org/jazz.html>.

Gomery, Douglas. The Hollywood Studio System: A History. London: British Film

Institute, 2005.

Sarris, Andrew. “You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Schoenherr, Steven. “The Jazz Singer.” University of San Diego.

<http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/filmnotes/jazzsingernotes.html>. September

2005.

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