Customer Reviews
The Jazz Singer- 25th Anniversary Edition 
2008-04-10
Excellent Music- Lucy Arnez & Neil Diamond are great in this. Wish they both would have been in more movies.
The Jazz Singer 2008-04-09
Great to find this. I have wanted to see this movie again since it came out and was very pleased to find a new DVD on Amazon. New condition and shipped as requested. Thank you
Jazz Singer better than ever 2008-03-22
Even though this movie is from the 60's era, the plot, message, music, and casting are marvelous. LOVE this anniversary edition as the sound is fantastic. I can watch this movie over and over again. Highly recommend this anniversary edition! GREAT!
OY! I HEF NO FILM CAREER! 2008-03-21
Quick, name the pop singer who made the biggest fool out of himself when he unwisely tried his hand at making movies. If you answered, "Roger Daltrey in LISTZOMANIA," "Paul Simon in ONE TRICK PONY," "Britney Spears in CROSSROADS," "Mariah Carey in GLITTER" or Madonna in ALMOST anything, then you've never seen the third version of THE JAZZ SINGER, which makes Neil Diamond the all-time champ chump.
"So vat's da rush?" asks Diamond's father, Lawrence Olivier, when Diamond cuts out of cantoring at the shul earlier than usual. But how can Diamond explain that he's unsatisfied with the five generation family tradition of being a cantor, so he's hurrying uptown to a Harlem nightclub where he performs, in black face, for an all-black audience? This being Diamond's own vanity movie, the black audience loves his music --- it's the telltale sight of his lily-white hands they don't care for. "That's a white boy!" cries an understandably outraged man. A fight breaks out, and Diamond is jailed. When Olivier bails him out, he asks his errant fortysomething son, "It's not tough enough being a Jew?" Diamond explains, "God doesn't pay so good." All this, in the film's first ten minutes!
Diamond flees to L.A. to break into show biz. There he meets record company flunky Lucie Arnez, who becomes his manager by holding a big-time agent at gunpoint until he'll listen to Diamond's demo tape. (Since she's required to deliver dialogue like, "Is schmuck a Jewish word? I just wanted to say something in Jewish to you," Arnez should have held her own agent at gunpoint to get her out of this movie.) If you've guessed that what comes next is a falling-in-love montage, you probably haven't guessed that it goes thus: walk on the beach, she converts to Judaism, THEN they get naked by the fireside.
When Olivier turns up in L.A. to tell Diamond "Come home vit me, now," Diamond replies, "I can't, Pop, I just cut my first album." When he realizes that his son's living in sin with Arnez, Olivier stops the movie cold with his line reading of four little words, "I hef no son!" In movies this bad, it's not the stars who can't act (Arnez, Diamond) that do real damage, it's the stars who can act that bring the film to its knees. THE JAZZ SINGER had been a Bad Movie twice before, but it took the participation of a full-blown hamola like Olivier to turn this dross into a Bad Movie We Love.
All ends happily, of course. By the time the requisite Neil Diamond-in-sequins concert ending rolls around, Olivier's out in the audience sitting cozily with Arnez --- he's part of the family agian, now that there's an illegitimate lovechild as his grandson. If nothing else, THE JAZZ SINGER is definitely a notch above Diamond's previous venture in moviemaking --- supplying the treacly pseudospiritual soundtrack for JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL. Oy!
Jazz Singer is "misbegotten"? 
2007-10-08
I just read a review on another site. The (professional) reviewer used the term "misbegotten"... I beg to differ.
I own the VHS version of this film, and I am about to purchase the DVD (25th Anniversary? at my age that looks like hype.. :-) ......)
Certainly, the theme has been done before. And certainly, we all know how it will end. But the story is timeless, and well told... and the music? Well... it is Neil's best work according to some, and fine work according to others... so what's to criticize?
We could pick at the acting of a young Ms. Arnaz. We could say that the elderly Lord Olivier dodders through his role... We might even ask if Mr. Diamond "gets" the Jewishness of the role...
But in the end, it is a story, well told, that makes us think and feel and hope about the idea of family, and of love, and of friendship....
"Hello, my friend, hello." Has any one of us not wanted to say that line in real life?
The Jazz Singer 2008-07-07
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and I have watched it over several times. The cast have all excelled. I recommend watching it.
Neil Diamond-Jazz Singer -25th Anniversary dvd 2008-06-04
It Was very good,Just as I Remembered it.I can never tire from anything He does.
The Jazz Singer 2008-05-31
While the acting is not the best and the story is predictible, the music is outstanding, which is why we love this movie!
Excellent 2008-05-13
You had the movie in stock that I was looking for and I received the DVD within 10 working days.
Thank you for the great customer service.
The Jazz Singer third version 2008-05-03
This movie is usually trashed by everybody. I enjoyed the music, Neil Diamnond and seeing an updated version of the movie. I will agree the the title should be the Rock Singer, then again the last version of A Star is Born with Steisand and Kristofferson could use the same title. The original story of that movie was about the rise and fall of movie stars.
I grew up seeing the 1950's version of this movie and always enjoyed it. The updated version had the good sense to drop the jazz and vaudeville storyline. Period pieces don't go over well these days.
I bought the soundtrack in vinyl and loved it. At least when Jess decided he had had enough, he just left town. He didn't get hooked on drugs or booze. That in itself is worth seeing as a piece of good sensible advice. The music is a good mixture. Laurence Olivier gave his usual stellar performance. I kept thinking of hin in a NBC production of The Merchant of Venice. All in all its a good update to an old storyline.
