Day 11: "Schmuck" is a Jewish Word

THE JAZZ SINGER (1980)
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Starring: Neil Diamond, Laurence Olivier, Lucie Arnaz, Catlin Adams

One of the many reasons I started "100 Days, 100 films" is so I could really stretch my writing muscles.  I've been told I don't completely suck at it, so I try to write as much as I can.  This project has certainly given me time and a reason to do so.  But now comes a challenge: writing about the first movie in this project that I hated.

Neil Diamond plays Yussel Rabinovitch (or Jess Robin, as he prefers), a young synagogue cantor in New york who moonlights as a night club singer.  His father (Olivier) thinks he should save his voice for Shabbos, as it's a more noble endeavor.  However, after his band mates play a tape of Jess's songs for a pop-music bigwig, they're out to Los Angeles to record it.  After Jess decides to join them, he decides that the band is doing the song all wrong and shows them how to do it correctly by taking all the flair and personality out of it.  Because it was the late 70's and that sort of thing was in, he is noticed by Molly (Arnaz), who quickly becomes his manager and wannabe lover.  Sadly, Jess is still married and his wife Rivkah (Adams) visits during one of his shows.  Jess is getting bigger and bigger for some reason, but Rivkah wants her simple life to stay simple and leaves him.  Now free to finagle around with Molly, he does so with gusto, while recording some pretty lame music that the entire West Coast goes ga-ga over.  But one day, Jess's father arrives and, with some of the saddest overacting I've ever seen, begs Jess to come back.  That is, until he meets that shiksa Molly.  Mr. Rabinovitch is devastated and rends his garment, crying out the Kaddish, as he now considers Jess dead to him.  This would be extremely sad if the performance wasn't so laughably over-the-top.  In fact, just thinking about made me forget the rest of the film. 

Oh yeah, I remember now.  Jess pisses off his band, his lover and his friends, leaves town, turns into Hank Williams, Jr., sings a bunch of country songs, is found by his band leader, comes back, meets his newborn son, and goes back to New York to perform at Radio City Music Hall.  But before that, we have one of the few good scenes in the film.  See, it's Yom Kippur, and a Rabinovitch has sung the Kol Nidre prayer for four generations.  Only this year, Jess is famous and his father is ill.  Moved by all this, he returns to the synagogue and sings the Kol Nidre.  Jess's father forgives his son, and that would be a great place to end the film.  However, since this is a Neil Diamond vehicle, we've still got one more awful song to sit through.

This movie made me sad for a number of reasons.  Number one, it was a remake of the vastly superior 1927 version with Al Jolson (widely believed to be the first sound film, but it wasn't.  It was the first successful sound film).  Second, it was directed by Richard Fleischer, who did my favorite Sci-Fi film Soylent Green.  And last but not least, we have Sir Laurence Olivier, widely regarded to be the best actor of his generation, turning in one the worst performances I've ever seen from any actor.  There is a difference in actors who realize they're in a terrible film and just give the bare minimum of effort.  It's another thing when an actor gives it everything he has and it looks silly.  And Larry looked silly here.  His misplaced accent, overly dramatic delivery and wild gesticulations just made him look like the whole film was an elaborate practical joke, with him as the victim.  If you want to remember Sir Laurence, go rent the 1948 version of Hamlet.

Now, contrast that with Neil Diamond, who had never acted before.  Now I'll give him credit - he tried.  There's no shame in that.  And his performance, all things considered, isn't that bad.  However, he did write all the songs for the movie, which were ranged from bland and uninteresting to terrible.  I wasndering whether or not Neil Diamond had released an album of Jewish Prayers, because those were the best musical numbers in the film.

Now I know a lot of people will read this (all three of you) and say, "Oh, it's the easy thing to do, picking on Neil Diamond."  Believe me when I tell you that it was not my intention to "pick on him."  I will admit to liking a few of his songs.  Just not any of the songs that appeared in this film.  Which, by the way, are about as far away from "Jazz" as one can get.  Isn't that the title of the film - The Jazz Singer?  Where was the jazz?  It was replaced with some pretty lame pop songs without an ounce of life in them.  But I guess The Lounge Singer wasn't as catchy a title.