The Jazz Singer | Summary, Movie, Cast, & Facts | Britannica (2025)

The Jazz Singer, American musical film, released in 1927, that was the first feature-length movie with synchronized dialogue. It marked the ascendancy of “talkies” and the end of the silent-film era.

(Read Lillian Gish’s 1929 Britannica essay on silent film.)

On Yom Kippur, cantor Rabinowitz (played by Warner Oland) looks forward to when his 13-year-old son, Jakie (Robert Gordon), will succeed him at the synagogue. However, after discovering that Jakie is singing in a saloon, the cantor beats him, and Jakie runs away from home. As an adult (Al Jolson), Jakie becomes a jazz singer, performing under the name Jack Robin. When his father falls ill before Yom Kippur, Jakie must choose between singing at the dress rehearsal of his new Broadway show or singing the Kol Nidre at the synagogue in his father’s place. Jakie finishes his number and rushes to the synagogue, where his father hears him singing the Kol Nidre and then dies, reconciled to Jakie.

Although widely credited with being the first talkie, the accolade is somewhat misleading. Other films had synchronized sound for music or sound effects prior to this film. The small studio Warner Brothers had bought a sound-on-disc system called Vitaphone and debuted the system in 1926 with Don Juan, a lavish costume drama featuring a score performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. However, The Jazz Singer, the second Vitaphone feature, was the first full feature film to have a sound track that included dialogue (though only the musical numbers and some select conversations amounting to one-fourth of the film were recorded for sound). The first feature in which all the dialogue was recorded was another Warner Brothers Vitaphone film, Lights of New York (1928).

Comedians Eddie Cantor and George Jessel (who played the lead role in the 1925 play on which the movie is based) both turned down the film, leaving the historic role for Jolson. Studio executive Sam Warner, one of the founders of Warner Brothers and the creative force behind the film, died one day before the movie’s premiere, which was intentionally set for the day before Yom Kippur. One of Jolson’s first lines, “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” came to symbolize the arrival of the talking picture. The film’s financial success established Warner Brothers as a major studio, and the studio won an honorary Academy Award for “producing The Jazz Singer, the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry.” There have been many remakes of the story onscreen and onstage. Jolson’s performance in blackface has long been studied for what it says about stereotypes and the problems of assimilation often encountered by ethnic groups.

Production notes and credits

• Studio: Warner Brothers

• Director: Alan Crosland

• Writer: Alfred A. Cohn

• Music: Louis Silvers

• Running time: 88 minutes

Cast

• Al Jolson (Jakie Rabinowitz)

• Mary McAvoy (Mary Dale)

• Warner Oland (The Cantor)

• Eugenie Besserer (Sara Rabinowitz)

• Robert Gordon (Jakie Rabinowitz, age 13)

Academy Award nomination

• Screenplay