When Jolson Sang Again

 

Columbia Makes Old Show Biz New 

Would Larry Parks have become a major star but for HUAC heave-ho? He was an admitted Communist and named names, but damage was done and he left screens for a decade other than television, stage/club work, and a Brit obscurity called Cross-Up, which might have been a title given Larry's own biopic, had they done for him what he did for Jolson. Parks worked like a hound perfecting lip sync to Al's voice in not one, but two, Jolson stories, the first such a hit as to insist upon encore of Jolson Sings Again. It was soon after when April showers turned stormy for Parks, his testimony widely reported and few on either side applauding him for it. Variety's headline of his confessional hearing read "Jolson Sings Again," a cruel dig on the disapproving trade's part. Outcome was Larry Parks remembered, if at all, for impersonating Al Jolson, and though he did that superbly, it was no engine to sustain stardom, insiders wondering if Parks as Parks could pack the gear even before political axes fell.

To say Parks did Jolson “well” is really to say he cooled his inspiration’s bombast, a necessary process for Al to be made palatable on 1946 terms. Where Parks succeeded was taking the Jolson out of Jolson, but keeping the voice, which was about all of Al anyone wanted a part of. “Hot” performers, one-man bands as it were, had left, or been eased, out of buildings. Where a new one showed up, like soon-to-emerge Jerry Lewis, bigger noise of his two-fer with Dean Martin, a shocked-by-such-brass public could respond warmly, but more so in clubs where M&L live-played, their movies by all account a letdown from what had convulsed crowds in person. Same with Al Jolson, so forceful as to be unearthly where it was flesh-and-blood him, but drained somewhat by talkie embrace. That’s comparative speaking of course, for Jolson put plenty across on screens, just not supernatural energy as when he stopped shows to ask audiences it they had enough of stage narrative, other players, so why not just listen to me, me, me. No wonder Jerry Lewis was a huge admirer of Al, remade The Jazz Singer (for TV) in fact. Elvis too revered Jolson. Birds of a feather. I’d say Jerry and Elvis very much felt Jolson's spirit within them.

Now to the Parks dubbing. It’s remarkable. You don’t catch a syllable wrong. People had waited, I think, for the Jolson voice to come out of a more attractive box. They got a best of both worlds when appealing Larry, who could credibly get the girl too, made with Al’s music. So who needed Al at all? It was like he had already passed, someone more congenial to play him post-mortem. Jolson sensed that, didn’t like it, was testy toward Parks even as circumstances forced him into bed with the younger nova. Al knew the while that it was him, him, him that made Larry Parks tick, and drat that public, they wouldn’t have it any other way (Harry Cohn got apoplectic when Al suggested himself to play himself). Jolson’s had not been a pretty face, and besides that he was pushy, always the exploding cigar in a crowd, this when newly talking movies needed personalities to get real, like those in paying seats. For bigger-than-lifeness, Al oft-paid penalty of losing the love interest (they weren’t interested, or betrayed him, or took away his Sonny boys), freedom itself (AJ on the run from law, or taken in hand by it). Word got round that Jolson movies were downers, and so perhaps, was Jolson himself. Larry Parks was meant to fix that, and to wildly successful extent, he did. $7.6 million in domestic rentals was history being made. No Columbia picture had come near it before.

Reviews of The Jolson Story were expectedly mixed, some insiders darkly hinting that Al’s life was not so orderly as the movie suggested. It was as though some were realizing for a first time that it was necessary to make lemonade of often lemon subjects, and never mind toes  stumped on edgy Al. Whitewashed Jolson was overexuberant at worse, singing for every supper he sat down to. Medicine went down easier thanks to Larry Parks, so who cared about Al Jolson’s private life or how accurately it was portrayed? Whatever he did to who was long enough ago for us to ignore (Jolson sixty by 1946). Primary asset to exploit was the music. Columbia had proved the year before, with Chopin and A Song To Remember, that oldies, even extreme ones, could be goodies again. Complication was Jolson long ago tangling with his record label (Brunswick), so little being out there by way of platters. It was for Columbia, with Decca Records, to rebuild the Jolson sound with new arrangements, orchestrations, the works. No artist who went so far back would be revived so spectacularly, Jolson “new” even as he was kidded (on radio primarily) for being old. As to airwaves, Al was back in spades, a starring berth, plus continuing parlays with Bing Crosby on the latter's weekly stand. Overwork, always a Jolson pitfall, took him out at a peak that would have kept on peaking (d. 10/23/50). Imagine Al conquering TV, a cinch given his profile among youth and seniors.

The Jolson Story was a movie for people who didn't remember vaudeville first-hand, let alone burlesque, where Al is shown to have gotten his start as a balcony singer. Rough-and-tumble 19th century burly of catcalls and thrown vegetables is here a gentle confine of polite applause, while Jolson's fictional mentor, "Steve Martin," played by real-life vaude vet William Demarest, is referred to by a priest as "a man who can be trusted" with welfare of adolescent AJ. Were there such paragons among performers in burlesque? Cleansing is almost as thorough as one given Jolson himself. All of Story told here is flapdoodle, but necessary rinse of linen Al had left over a lifetime, those who knew him admitting Jolson genius, but wary always of the monster-id beneath. That, of course, was show biz, and you could have pasted a same label on nearly anybody that got to top rungs.

 

A Jolson Story 70's Reunion, Bill Demarest and Evelyn Keyes Joining The Party

Whatever their up-to-then biggest hit in The Jolson Story, Columbia was obliged to split gate with AJ (50% of profit) and outside producer Sidney Skolsky, who developed the package, the torch lady as result getting less than in-house work might have yielded. Younger folk had forgot Jolson, if they knew him at all, it being years since he had a starring hit. For a meantime, there had been radio, USO touring, and guesting in films (most recently Rhapsody In Blue). Decca spin on Jolson standards pepped up tunes for a swing generation, and from that, Al’s career soared to heights unknown since he knocked them dead at the Winter Garden. These recordings still have fizz (there’s a CD with sixteen numbers), and I don't wonder that juke mavens flipped for them when issued in tandem with The Jolson Story. Columbia/Decca's success was of a magic moment, follow-up Jolson Sings Again past that summit, but still liked. Reissues of The Jolson Story were tried in 1954, again for the 70's and ill-advised 70mm, but memory of the singer had retreated by then to irretrievable stone-age. You can’t give him away now without product warnings, so why flirt with trouble by broadcasting Jolson at all?

More Al Jolson at Greenbriar Archive: The Jazz Singer and Mammy.