Cinema: The New Pictures Oct. 1, 1928

The Singing Fool. Al Jolson, Robert Charles Benchley. George Bernard Shaw are the best the sonucinema has offered so far. This is no happy commentary upon 1) cinemactors; 2) sonucinema. Neither Songster Jolson, Funnyman Benchley,

Mimographer Shaw is a cinemactor, yet no cinemactor, no cinemactress has so ably combined appearance with utterance as have Jolson, Benchley, Shaw. Jolson, of course, is the lone member of the trio who has gone to any film length and observers noted that neither of his two operas (The Jazz Singer, The. Singing Fool) has been all-talk. Both have been all-sound. If Jolson, whose singing can lift a drooping piece, has not been permitted to do an all-talk piece, it is obvious that a lesser player, unable to break into song, must falter when the piece itself falters.

The experimental period, painful to subject and clinician, will continue until cinemactors have been soundly trained, and technique (to eliminate such faults as improperly timed lip-moving and speech) has been developed.

In The Singing Fool Jolson is Al Stone, a singing waiter at an inferior nightclub, who is daft over a revue-girl (Josephine Dunn). He writes a song, sings it to the revue-girl, is heard by one Marcus (Edward Martindel), a theatrical shogun. Shogun Marcus, impressed, wants Al to write more songs, gives Molly, the revue-girl, a break. Four years later Al & Molly are Broadway pets, but Al loses Molly, who becomes infatuated with John Perry (Reed Howes). There is a three-year-old child called Sonny Boy (David Lee), who escapes artificiality so completely that a hypersensitive cinemaddict feels like an intruder during the scenes between him and Al.

Molly takes Sonny Boy to Paris, there gets a divorce. Al gives up Broadway and buries himself in vagrancy until he returns to his first stomping-ground. Grace (Betty

Bronson) is a cigaret girl who has always loved Al. She persuades him to return to Broadway. Marcus has been looking for him. He joins a show, again gulps huzzas. Then word comes that Sonny Boy is dying in a Manhattan hospital. Here is the opportunity for the “Laugh, Clown. Laugh” pishtish which was ignored in The Jazz Singer, when instead of going on with the show, Jolson went to synagog, substituted for his father, the dying cantor. With his son dead in the hospital, Al takes his turn behind the footlights, sings “Sonny Boy.”

The piece is nice entertainment, yet all encomia of The Jazz Singer and The Singing Fool must be leavened by one fact, in justice to cinemactors, legitimactors: to play a part is one thing, to play a part which has been written around an actor’s career is something else again.

On the opening night of The Singing Fool Broadwayfarers buzzed with the rumor that Jolson would wed Ruby Keeler.* This Jolson vehemently denied. Two days later Jolson gave the little girl his hand at Port Chester. N. Y., metropolitan Gretna Green. It was Jolson’s third wedding, Ruby Keeler’s first.

Man Made Women. Sophistication in the cinema may be achieved by the simple expedient of introducing the hero and heroine as a wedded pair. The problem in this case is essentially that of the jealous husband, who sternly, illogically resents any influence upon his wife’s life which is extraneous from the elemental man-woman relationship. He is jealous of his wife’s bridge clubs, golf, children; his is a supremely introversive ego. This good piece recounts the story of John Payson, green-ired husband of Nan. John (John Boles) wants to lead his wife’s life. From an afternooon party Nan (Leatrice Joy) comes home befuddled, having been locked accidentally in the wine-cellar of Jules Moret (H. B. Warner) whose name alone, as every cinemaddict knows, reeks of malevolence, depravity. When John flays Nan she departs, gets a job as a companion. Her employer, it so happens, is Moret’s mistress. Soon the mistress suspects an affair between Moret & Nan. deserts Moret, who realizes Nan still loves her husband. A hyper-compromising scene is arranged for John’s benefit, leaving him with no alternative but to welcome back his wife at her own terms.

*Ruby Keeler, earnest, elbowed tap dancer, was discovered by Tex Guinan, and danced at El Fay, onetime Guinan night club.