Part 5 - The Jazz Singer:  George Groves and Al Jolson (1927)

Everybody held their breath...It took everybody by storm that he just came out with spoken words  -  {George Groves}
Poster for The Jazz Singer (1927)
In April 1927 George Groves and the rest of the New York-based Vitaphone team were relocated to Warners' Sunset Boulevard studios in Hollywood. George was initially tasked with instructing Warners' staff on the production techniques used in the making of sound pictures as well as recording a number of short subjects.

However, Warners were shooting a picture called The Jazz Singer, which was based on Samson Raphaelson's stage play and director Alan Crosland decided to incorporate some singing sequences. So George was invited to record the soundtrack to what would be a seminal sound film.

He was already acquainted with the picture's star, Al Jolson, having recorded him in 1926 in New York in a ten minute short subject called A Plantation Act. In this Jolie sang When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob-Bob Bobbin' Along plus two other songs in blackface make-up. In The Jazz Singer, Jolson - who was third choice for the role of Jakie Rabinowitz - was given six songs to perform, including Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye, My Mammy and Dirty Hands, Dirty Face.  

Musical accompaniment was planned for other 'silent' sections of the picture but spoken dialogue was neither scripted nor rehearsed. So the production crew were quite taken aback when Jolson began to adlib, as George Groves explained in his oral history:
It was all planned that he should sing. In one sequence he came into the set to sit down and play for his mother and purely ad-lib he said “Mother you ain’t heard nothing yet”. When they saw this stuff [they said] “My gosh he talked”. It seemed to be a tremendous surprise...It was done completely ad-lib without rehearsal. Everybody held their breath, then he sang. It took everybody by storm that he just came out with spoken words.

Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (1927)
Above left: Jolson adlibs to his mother played by Eugenie Besserer; Above right: Jolson sings to her at the end of the film

George also commented on the microphone placement in one scene in the film (pictured above right):

In one song where he sings to his mother he’s in blackface, in a black suit on bended knee on the stage near the end of a show. You’d never know it but there’s a microphone on the stand right in front of him and that was all draped in black. And against the black suit you don’t see it, when he’s down on his knees. When he stood up he went to another microphone overhead.

A crowd queuing to see Don Juan in 1926
A crowd in New York queue to see The Jazz Singer which was dubbed 'Warners Bros. Supreme Triumph'

The film was premiered on October 6th, 1927 and was a huge success. It was tagged on promotional posters as Warners Supreme Triumph and film historians label it a cinematic landmark. In financial terms alone it was a massive success. Produced by Warners and the Vitaphone Corporation for $422,000, it grossed $2,500,000 at the box office. It demonstrated to the reticent film executives in Hollywood that audiences could, after all, appreciate talking movies. However, not everyone was impressed with the sound innovation. Writer Aldous Huxley commented on his own experience of hearing Al Jolson's performance of My Mammy:

My flesh crept as the loudspeaker poured out those sodden words, that greasy sagging melody. I felt ashamed of myself for listening to such things, for even being a member of the species to which such things are addressed.
 
Al Jolson and George Groves
Warners' Head of Production, Darryl F. Zanuck was presented with a special Oscar at the very first Academy Awards which took place in 1929 for:

'Producing The Jazz Singer, the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry'

With George Groves responsible for the all-important sound within the film, this was also a tribute to the young engineer from St.Helens who had followed his Tiller girl fiancé to America not knowing that he would end up at the birth of talking pictures.

George made such an impression on Jolson that he dubbed him The Quiet Little Englishman and insisted on George recording all his future pictures. (The picture of them together (right) was published in the Liverpool Daily Post in 1946.) George in his American Film Institute oral history, remembered how "the world's greatest entertainer"  had made a big impression on him too:
Jolie I thought was a wonderful, wonderful man...We were very good friends and I had to do all of his shows...He was a greater entertainer off the stage than on, in my observations...Any time he was off stage and relating some story or anecdote to a group of people, they would stand around absolutely spell-bound.

George Groves Oral History