“THE JAZZ SINGER” HAS GOOD RUN AT THEATRE ROYAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18804, 5 July 1929, Page 6

“THE JAZZ SINGER” HAS GOOD RUN AT THEATRE ROYAL.

“ The Jazz Singer,” one of the most popular picture stories that was ever shown in any country, is attracting: crowded houses to the Theatre Royal, and folk who see it realise why it has run for months and months in cities where the talkies have been showing. Its success is the success of A 1 Jolson. the American entertainer, to whom the talkies came as a great opportunity. The picture is built up from the artist's actual experience of life. It tells of young Jakie Rabinowitz, who has a glorious voice which is the heritage of five generations . of Jewish cantors. But it is the jazz stage, not the synagogue, that calls Jakie. He sings in a saloon in New York, is dragged home by his father, thrashed, and runs away, in spite of the strong attraction to stay offered by his great love for his mother. After years have passed, Jakie, now Jack Robin, finds fame and an assured position on the stage, partly through the offices of Mary Dale, a dancer, with whom Jakie fall's in love. His final chance comes when* he is to be starred in a big show in New York. He goes home, but is disowned again by bis father, and departs with the determination never to return. On the night that the show iis about to commence, his father is taken ill. The mother goes to Jack Robin, and implores him to come home and sing in the synagogue, which is his father’s sick dream of joy. To do so he would have to leave the show flat, and his reputation in stageland would be ruined. Ther£ is a mental struggle, in which the father’s previous scorn and the pleading of Mary and his producer combat the irresistible influences of mother love, the wish of the dying father, and the call of race. Jack Robin becomes Jakie Rabinowitz again, and cantor for the Day of Atonement, and the show does not open on the scheduled night. But the producer attends the synagogue, and as Jakfe’s voice swells out he sees the position, and the next scene takes the audience back to the bright lights, with Jack Robin singing over the footlights to his mother, sitting in the front row of the stalls. Before the big picture, there is the Pathe News Reel, all talkie. Daphne Pollard, an Knglish comedienne, is next on the list., and she has the audience in laughter all the way. After her comes Allan Prior, an Australian tenor, and his perfect voice is perfectly reproduced.