Say It with Songs (1929)

This is the first all-talking movie starring Al Jolson. Although he made two 'talkies' before this, they were both essentially silent films with sound portions added. This one was always intended as a sound film and is a bit more modern in this sense. However, in many ways, the film is very, very old fashioned and plot-wise it's just the same old, same old by Jolson....but even schmaltzier!The film has a fatal flaw in how it portrays Jolson. He is a married guy with a cute kid (Davey Lee--who played Jolson's adorable son in several films). But he's also a heavy gambler and hot-head-- and a very difficult man for any woman to love. Despite this, she steadfastly stands by her man--even when Al's wicked boss tries to put the moves on her. Her big mistake is telling Al about this, as soon he gets into a fight with the boss and accidentally kills him. Next, Al's in jail and his heart is breaking. The wife STILL refuses to abandon him, but Al is a knuckle-head and somehow comes up with the notion that she'd be better off without him--so he deliberately pushes her away.Now here is where things get weird. While in prison, Al's great singing ability is discovered and he goes on the radio (I am sure that MOST radio shows of the day originated in prison, right?!). And, even weirder is when Al gets out of prison. He doesn't tell the wife and instead sneaks off to see the kid. Soon (due to the stupidity of the kid), the boy is run over and has one of those mysterious movie ailments. And, Al doesn't tell anyone that the kid is in the hospital. And, when the kid is discharged, Al doesn't bring the child to the mother. Does any of this make any sense? Nope. But neither does what follows. The bottom line is that the film never makes much sense, is WAY too sentimental and schmaltzy and lacks the usual hit tunes of his other films. Overall, this is a boring and silly little film where Jolson and the filmmakers went to the well too many times--and came up with a syrupy sweet mess.

The 4 reviews that precede mine are fair. This film really is for buffs only. I wouldn't have missed it, but it's poorly done at all the important levels. And Jolson really is a ham here. At times he makes fluffs in his lines, as if he just barely had them memorized. I was surprised at how shoddy the film was, in writing and in set design. The courtroom scene has a stark set which looks like the kind of empty sets that Monogram used in the 40s. The songs are subpar for Jolson, with lame lyrics that have you guessing ahead to each rhymed line ending. Two really cheesy scenes gave me the most entertainment. First, in the prison, the (unseen) orchestra starts playing and Jolson sings verse after verse of "Why Can't You?" to his fellow cons. The burden of the lyric is, if caged birds can sing, why can't you? Picture this in a modern prison -- he'd be lucky not to get shanked before the bridge. Second, and even more deranged, he is told by the first attending doctor that his son, who has just been hit by a truck, has spine damage. In the next scene, Jolie carries his son to another doctor for treatment! They had some tough spines in '29. The big message of "Say It With Songs" was in the box office -- Warners learned that all-talkers did not guarantee profits.

Due to the surprise gross receipts of The Singing Fool, Director Bacon, Star Jolson and Sidekick Lee were rushed back to WB to produce something worthy of the former. What they produced was a weak imitation of The Singing Fool and SIWS bombed. It was a bomb then, it still is 80 years later. Rarely does lightning ever strike twice. SIWS is a really good example of that.I have been a huge Jolson fan for 30 years, since I was a teenager. He may be the world's greatest entertainer, but he really shows his acting limitations here. His upbeat scenes are fine but anytime he is supposed to show some emotion, and that's most of the time, none of it is genuine. It's forced, certainly nothing organic. I've seen better acting in high school productions... or in an Ed Wood movie.In his defense, he was given some really crappy dialog. "Early talking" is no excuse. They had great writers on b'way. Why not bring 'em over to H'wood? Oh that's right, WB was too cheap for that back then.SPOILER One of the many examples of bad dialog and bad acting is when Little Pal gets hit by a car, Jolson with wide eyes exclaims "Oh my God, it's MY baby!" is truly an unintentional hysterical moment in the history of film. The reaction I had was, to be sure, not the one Bacon had in mind when he was directing this turkey.I'm not sure if Davey Lee can act. He certainly was cute and lively. He had the best moments in the movie, the courtroom scene being one. I do think that there was genuine fondness between Jolie and Lee and that rings loud and clear here. This was the only thing that was successfully carried over from the first film to the second. I'll give Bacon the credit for that. In fact, years later in The Singing Kid, his scenes with another child actress, Sybil Jason, are even more phenomenal. So Jolie had some panache working with children. He should have done more that.It would have been nice to have, in these first few Jolson films, some A list co-stars. Imagine Helen Morgan as his wife and Adolph Menjou as the doctor!! Most of his early films tend to suffer from being "all about Jolson". Imagine a Jolson and Morgan duet!! I suppose that at this stage in his career that Jolson didn't want to share the marque with anybody on his level, hence, the forgettable supporting actors. In the long run, that was a bad decision on his part as Jolson's infamous ego has hurt the watch-ability of the early films today.Speaking of mediocre, the songs are just that. Little Pal did stay in his rep for the rest of Jolson's life. Not sure why, it's too much like Sonny Boy, which is the better of the two and its by no means a pop masterpiece.The best scene in the film is a brilliantly directed dream sequence of Little Pal dreaming his father is singing... Little Pal... (what else?) to him. It's a really, really nice, very imaginative scene.In conclusion, I still love Jolie. By far, this is the worst film he ever made. It is a curiosity only for Jolson fans like me. The good news is that as the years progress, the scripts got better and he got better and more relaxed as an actor. His ego was more or less in check when worked with A list people like Dick Powell, Frank Morgan, Kay Francis, Don Ameche, Alice Faye, Ruby Keeler and ... Helen Morgan. (Still no duet though - what a loss!) It is a shame that Jolson went out of style, or something, by the end of the '30 as we lost what could have been a wonderful fatherly character type actor in the '40s.

Say It With Songs is the first all talking film that Al Jolson did on initial Warner Brothers contract and for him the first flop in his Hollywood career. You can't say that the Brothers Warner didn't follow the usual Hollywood formula in that if something succeeds, copy it as best you can. Jolson had scored well with his second film The Singing Fool and his singing of Sonny Boy to four year old Davey Lee was the big hit. What to do, team them again and you even get the crack songwriting team of DeSylva,Brown&Henderson to write this score as well.Except for the song Little Pal none of the other songs had any lasting staying power from Say It With Songs. Little Pal did become a Jolson standard though not to the same degree as Sonny Boy. But the score is serviceable for the plot which has Jolson as a radio singer.Being a radio singer obviated the need for Jolson's usual blackface persona. Say It With Songs became the first of two films he did without the blackface, a fact I hadn't known before. I had assumed and I'd seen it written that Hallelujah, I'm a Bum was the only film he did without the blackface.More's the pity here because if Say It With Songs had been a hit Jolson might have abandoned the burnt cork and his historic reputation wouldn't have suffered so.The plot has Jolson a happy go lucky radio singer who unfortunately likes to drink and gamble and generally carouse. A wolfish radio manager has some designs on wife Marian Nixon and offers her an indecent proposal. When Jolie hears of it he kills him when he hits the wolf just a little too hard and his head strikes a cement curb. That lands him in jail. Marian Nixon has to support herself and goes to work for a doctor who's always had an eye on her as well. Of course when Jolie hears about in prison he's all for it, but not for her taking up their kid as well.Jolie gets one of the earliest paroles in penal history, even for what probably is a manslaughter 2 conviction because little Davey Lee ages not a bit. But little Davey also gets himself hit by a car while chasing his dad. Davey becomes paralyzed and what's Jolie to do? By coincidence the doctor is a specialist and he offers Jolie the indecent proposal this time.I think with the general description of this plot you get the idea of the general mawkishness of the plot. Director Lloyd Bacon doesn't try to control Jolson's incredible overacting for the camera. Those two factors were what mainly sank the film.Yet Jolson's dynamism as an entertainer still shines through and when he's singing you almost forget about the plot. Almost that is.