The Jazz Singer

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Biographies-Cast Gallery-Photo Theatrical Trailer - 1.85:1, not 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 (3:32)
Rating
Year Released	1980
Running Time	111:02 minutes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	4	Director	Richard Fleischer
Studio Distributor	Associated Film Distribution  Universal Home Video	Starring	Neil Diamond Laurence Olivier Lucie Arnaz Catlin Adams
Case	?
RPI	$36.95	Music	Neil Diamond Leonard Rosenman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	English (Dolby Digital 2.0, 224 Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	None	Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	No

   Anyway, for a moment let us forget what the film looks like, for we will get onto that shortly. As for what the film is about? Well, this is a 1980 remake of the 1927 film by the same name starring Al Jolson. For those of you confused as to why the film is called The Jazz Singer, it is because in the play and the original film, the cantor actually wanted to become a singer - which in 1927 meant a jazz singer. Of course in 1980 this had become a rock star.

   And so there we have the broad story. Yussel Rabinowitz (Neil Diamond) is a fifth generation cantor at his local synagogue, but dreams of being a rock star. He feels trapped by his circumstances and wants to escape to where his voice can take him. His father, Cantor Rabinowitz (Laurence Olivier), a very died-in-the-wool Jew, sees nothing wrong with being the cantor for their synagogue, and his wife Rivka (Catlin Adams) finds security in the life that she has always known. Things come to a head as Yussel, who unbeknownst to his father sings in local clubs, gets the opportunity to go to that den of iniquity known as Los Angeles for two weeks, where a famous rock star wants to record one of his songs. Naturally enough, things don't pan out, especially when Yussel (who goes by the stage name of Jess Robin) tells said rock star how to sing his song - thus losing the gig and also getting Molly Bell (Lucie Arnaz) fired. They team up, initially as act and agent but you can see where this is going, and get the big break. The big break sets Jess on his way but costs him his wife when she decides to forsake fame and fortune to return to her secure little existence in New York, and eventually his father who does not understand why Yussel and Rivka are apart - until he meets Molly. So family bust up leads to Jess running off and leaving Molly (and unborn child) and tossing away a career - but of course we know that is not how this film will end don't we?

   Not exactly a gem of a story, but then again it was written a long time ago. Unfortunately it does not inspire a gem of a film either. Basically a vehicle for Neil Diamond to sing, that is what he does best and the soundtrack album to the film sold by the boat load. Funnily enough, films do require acting and that is where things go really awry. Laughably, Neil Diamond copped critical acclaim (and a 1981 Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy Golden Globe nomination) for his performance. Just what do they smoke out there in La La land? He cannot act to save his life and somewhat closer to the truth he copped the 1981 Razzie for Worst Actor for this effort. Yes, it is that bad. Even worse, they obviously brought the brilliant Laurence Olivier to the film as the token talent and he ended up producing an excruciatingly clichéd performance - which dutifully copped him the 1981 Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor. Yes, it is that bad. Basically Lucie Arnaz ended up as the best thing here, but that really is not saying much at all. The whole clichéd effort was perfunctorily directed by Richard Fleischer who surprisingly allowed his name to remain on the film.

   By any reasonable standards, this is an eminently avoidable film. A remake, which is always a bad start in my view, brought to some sort of existence by some atrocious performances and some lousy directing and cinematography. Despite all of this, I enjoy the film. I guess that the music from Neil Diamond is a significant part of the reason why - the closing song Coming To America being a particular highlight - but sometimes I suppose the overall film is just more than the sum of its parts. This one had every justification for being thrown into a vault and never being seen again, but a bit of hype (remember that Neil Diamond was at the time HUGE in popularity terms) gave it a chance and something somewhere obviously hit a chord with some people. I guess it is a film that you either cannot suffer or enjoy. I fall into the latter category.

Video

    The transfer itself is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, but it is not 16x9 enhanced. Now I really don't want to go into rant mode again over this particular point, but in my view the lack of 16x9 enhancement immediately qualifies any DVD as being unacceptable in this day and age. Whilst appreciating that the source material for this film is obviously sub-standard, if you are not going to bother producing a 16x9 enhanced widescreen transfer then in my book don't bother releasing the DVD at all (unless the film has a classic status that demands release - not the case here).

    Where exactly do you start with what is wrong with this transfer? As indicated, the VHS tapes of this film have never exactly been wondrous things and that impression carries over to the DVD. The transfer itself looks every one of its twenty one years and more. To describe it as soft is to be a little kind, but on average that is the best way to describe this slightly inconsistent effort. Certainly there is nothing here that is likely to be confused with razor sharp. Unfortunately, there are some indications of edge enhancement here which really don't help the situation - a good example appears to be around the 65:00 mark. Detail could at best be described as average but often falls somewhat short of that, and the overall impression here is of a very flat transfer. Shadow detail borders on atrocious nearly all the time, and this is compounded by the darkish nature of the transfer. Clarity is also at best average. There is a consistent impression of grain running throughout the transfer. Thankfully there did not seem to be any serious problems with low level noise. The only good thing is that as bad as it sometimes gets, this is a better looking effort than the VHS tape and in many ways there is a lot in the film that can be really seen for the first time.

    As you can pretty much guess, there is not much in the way of a colour palette on offer here. Dull, matte colours predominate with very little in the way of bright colour to alleviate the dingy look to the whole film. This really is not a terrific demonstration of colour, and even when there are colour opportunities (stage lighting being a good example), the whole thing still looks as muddy as Adelaide water. This is not a vibrant transfer in any way, shape or form! Tonal depth is non-existent, so that blacks never really look black. Oversaturation clearly is not any sort of issue, but there are some indications of colour bleed at times. Given the nature of the transfer though, I would hazard a guess that this is inherent in the source material.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There are a number of film-to-video artefacts floating around the transfer, but none are really extreme. There are some indications of wobble (around 52:47 being one instance) and there is some mild aliasing if you look closely (whether that is wise or not I don't know but around 91:10 demonstrates the extent of the issue). Given that this is twenty one years old, there are naturally film artefacts to be seen but none are grotesque, being mainly of the dirt mark variety (both black and white).
 
 

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    It is not a pretty sounding soundtrack and has a lot of minor inconsistencies, but overall at least you can hear the dialogue and music which come up reasonably well in the soundtrack. There does not appear to be any real problem with audio sync in the transfer.

    The original music comes from Leonard Rosenman and nothing in it is all that memorable. The memorable stuff is the songs done by Neil Diamond and as I said the soundtrack album sold by the boat load. That probably says it all really.

    The soundtrack goes all over the place and is really nothing better than adequate. The ADR process must have been somewhat problematic for the film because the sound level is all over the place and at no time does the whole thing really sound natural. At times there is a distinct muddiness to the sound, and there are a few distortions and dropouts here and there. Obviously this is straight stereo stuff, mixed to come predominantly out of the centre channel, with no surround channel usage at all. The bass channel naturally is idle throughout. The whole soundtrack is just a tad congested to some extent but is thankfully free from any hiss. Overall, nothing much to write home about and whilst there was obviously no need to go to a Dolby Digital 5.1 remaster, it is a pity that some restoration work was not done on the original soundtrack before some remastering.
 
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Biographies - Cast

Gallery - Photo

Theatrical Trailer

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
13th May, 2001.