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Yowza, Yowza, Yowza. This is Brian Marcus Decker, for the Jolson and Friends Blog located on the web at www.JolsonBlog.com, which is the first tech-nostalgic blog dedicated to the musical influences of Al Jolson and Friends.

Well folks, it's now time to continue with Part III of our outstanding Jazz Singer interview with Ron Hutchinson, one of the co-founders of the Vitaphone Project. Due to their extensive efforts working with private collectors, university film archives, the Library of Congress, Warner Bros. and Turner Entertainment they have successfully preserved hundreds of early Vitaphone and Vitaphone Variety film performances. Included in this illustrious Vitaphone catalog include performances by the legendary Al Jolson, Burns & Allen, Baby Rose Marie, Ruth Etting, Weber & Fields, The Seven Little Foys, Georgie Price, George Jessel, Joe E. Brown, Sissle & Blake, Jack Benny, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, William Demarest, Joe Frisco, Jack Norworth, Molly Picon, Rudy Vallee and many, many more.

We will also have an opportunity to discuss with Ron Hutchinson of the Vitaphone Project the overall involvement with the recent Commemorative 80th Anniversary Edition of the legendary film, The Jazz Singer: This three-disc deluxe DVD EDITION is nothing short of fantastic. For Jolson fans and anyone interested in early 20th century performing arts, music, film and nostalgia, this is a must buy. This incredible three-disc collection includes more than several hours of digital transferred and immaculately refurbished soundtracks from the original Vitaphone Sound on Disc recordings. This special collection also includes behind the scene Jazz Singer photo cards, souvenir programs that include reviews, news articles, a Vitaphone brochure, replicas of postcards that even Al Jolson sent to Jack Warner following the death of his brother and more.


Perfect Fathers Day Gift: 80th Anniversary DVD Edition of THE JAZZ SINGER

Click here to shop for this three-disc DVD from Amazon

Free Jolson and Friends Podcasts

You can listen to the entire series of interviews including my current eight-part interview with Ron Hutchinson of the Vitaphone Project, Rich Conaty of the Big Broadcast radio show, Asa the Magnificent Minstrel, the Vaudeville series with author Trav S.D. and our favorite child actress, Sybil Jason.

To listen to the free Jolson and Friends Blog Podcast published audio files,

just click on the listen to podcast icon on the top of this post.

Fathers Day Special

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        Jolson Singing Fool                 Cantor Tell it to the Judge                 Moon Rocket Ride

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Al Jolson Limited Edition T-shirt "The Singing Fool": This is a vintage color reproduction of a 1928 theatrical program.

Eddie Cantor Limited Edition T-shirt "Tell it to the Judge": This is a vintage two-color reproduction of 1930s board game.

Moon Rocket Ride Limited Edition Carnival T-shirt: This is a vintage color reproduction of a hand painted tin carnival sign.

Jolie Black & White Limited Edition T-shirt: This is a vintage B/W illustration of Jolie from the 1920s.

History of Time Baseball Limited Edition T-shirt: This is real deal for real baseball fans, an authentic turn of the century History of Baseball T-shirt featuring Boston, New York, Chicago and Detroit.

Amusing Boardwalk T-shirt: This clown no longer graces the Jersey Shore Boardwalk, but this vintage color reproduction lives on.

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Brian Marcus Decker
24 Arverne Road
West Orange, NJ 07052

Jolson Blog: Jazz Singer and Vitaphone Interview with Ron Hutchinson Part III

"It made well over $2 million. And keep in mind, because as the theaters that could play this grew, by this time, Jolson’s next film, The Singing Fool, was out and so on, so there is a point where his newer films were going to take over from his older films. So, the return was incredible, nothing like his next film, which was hugely successful, The Singing Fool. But, it was a 400-500% return on investment, pretty good."



Brian Marcus Decker: Prior to the release of The Jazz Singer, it was rumored that Warner Bros. was having severe financial difficulty and was potentially even facing bankruptcy. How risky was that Warner Bros.’ investment in Vitaphone and is that story even true?

Ron Hutchinson: It’s absolutely untrue. It’s one of these wonderful myths. It makes a great story. Who knows when it was originally told. And then, later what happens, it gets retold and told, so it must be true.

Pretty much, here’s the real story. Warner Bros., while being at the time a second string studio, it was not a poverty studio. They had John Barrymore under contract. They were doing well. They had terrific financial backing from major banks. Goldman Sachs was a major bankroller. They were not in any way, shape or form, hurting. And Goldman Sachs bought into this whole idea of what was initially going to be, not talking pictures, but giving music and sound effects so that the smallest theater in the middle of the country could have the same kind of accompaniment that you would have in a major theater in New York or California.

So, there was no real risk. Certainly, all the other attempts at talking pictures had failed, so it was still not a sure thing. But, if The Jazz Singer didn’t succeed, Warner Bros. would still have remained a major studio. They were just unbelievably successful financially after The Jazz Singer.

Brian Marcus Decker: Can you give us a context of exactly how financially successful The Jazz Singer was?

Ron Hutchinson: Well, The Jazz Singer cost, I believe, just under $500,000, which for a feature film with a major star, albeit then not a Hollywood star, but a major known name, that was an average budget. That was not a big budget film. It wasn’t cheap. It was probably an average for an ‘A’ picture. So, even though it had sound, it wasn’t incredibly more expensive. And if you look at the film, there are a lot of scenes that are in small sets and so on. So, there’s not a tremendous amount of big budget scenes and so on.

It made well over $2 million. And keep in mind, because as the theaters that could play this grew, by this time, Jolson’s next film, The Singing Fool, was out and so on, so there is a point where his newer films were going to take over from his older films. So, the return was incredible, nothing like his next film, which was hugely successful, The Singing Fool. But, it was a 400-500% return on investment, pretty good.

Brian Marcus Decker: In 1926 Charles Divine from the Evening Telegraph called "Vitaphone-the miracle of sound." Another contemporary journalist at the time referred to Vitaphone as "the eighth wonder of the world".

First of all, do you consider the technology behind Vitaphone revolutionary or evolutionary?

Ron Hutchinson: It was evolutionary. What you had was a merging of a bunch of technologies, most of which were through Bell Laboratories and Western Electric. And it was really a merging of electrical recording, in other words, recording sound on a disc not from the force of your voice through a horn, which is how home recordings or recordings for commercial 78’s were made, where the strength of your voice vibrated a needle that cut the wax. This was doing it electrically. So, instead of a very narrow range of sound, which made for an unrealistic reproduction, this was very natural sound, a very deep, full bass, high treble and so on, a fairly natural sounding sound quality. So, now, you had natural sounding quality.

Western Electric came up with a way of synchronizing the 33 1/3 disc with the picture reliably, instead of having two motors or pulleys that Edison had or all these other contraptions. It was a fairly reliable system to keep the picture and sound in sync. And then, you had the way to reproduce it in a large theater. Edison’s attempts to have a cylinder phonograph fill a theater of 500 were futile. But now, you had loudspeakers. So, all the technology came together. But, it was an evolution from acoustic recording, from all these other attempts, and it kind of merged all these things together.

Most people had never heard electrical recording. It was just starting to be introduced at the time of The Jazz Singer into homes. So, very often, people forget one of the reasons The Jazz Singer was so awesome was they were hearing really naturally recorded sound, singing and so on, in a theater, whereas before, all they heard was this very truncated, acoustic kind of muffled sound before that.

Jolson Blog: Vitaphone Project Interview Part IV: June 26, 2008

• Continuing, there are obviously many other stories that had to do with how Jolson actually accepted the lead role in this pioneering film, The Jazz Singer. One of them as the story goes, Georgie Jessel had appeared in a very successful theatrical version of the movie and was obviously, one of the stronger contenders for the movie role. Even Eddie Cantor was considered for the role, according to Brian Gari, Eddie Cantor’s grandson. As it goes, we talked a little bit before about the misnomer about Warner Bros. struggling financially and the mythos goes that they were not prepared to pay Jessel what he was asking. And Jolson became interested in the project. After all, the original story was loosely based on his life to begin with. Made an offer to Warner Bros., which they could not refuse, which had to do with some money, but also taking some Warner Bros. stock. From your research, can you separate for us the truth from the myth?

•  What were some of the other Warner Bros. Vitaphone produced films that Jolson did star in after The Jazz Singer?

• The Jazz Singer includes several seminal Jolson songs including Dirty Hands, Dirty Faces, Toot Toot Tootsie (Goodbye), Irving Berlin’s classic Blue Skies, Mother of Mine, I Still Have You and of course the classic rendition of My Mammy. What are some your favorite Jolson films and songs and why?

Wait a Minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Looking for great Fathers Day Gifts: Jolson and Friends Blog Required Viewing and Reading List

This three-disc deluxe DVD EDITION is nothing short of fantastic. For Jolson fans and anyone interested in early 20th century performing arts, music, film and nostalgia, this is a must buy. This incredible three-disc collection includes more than several hours of digital transferred and immaculately refurbished soundtracks from the original Vitaphone Sound on Disc recordings. This special collection also includes behind the scene Jazz Singer photo cards, souvenir programs that include reviews, news articles, a Vitaphone brochure, replicas of postcards and more.

Click here to shop for this three-disc DVD from Amazon

No Applause--Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous (Paperback) by Trav S.D.



Click here to shop and buy this book from Amazon

My Fifteen Minutes: An Autobiography of a Child Star of the Golden Era of Hollywood (Paperback) by Sybil Jason




Click here to shop and buy this book from Amazon

When Jolson Was King: (Paperback) by Richard Grudens

Richard Grudens has written an entertaining and informative (must read) book for anyone interested in the legendary, Al Jolson "The World's Greatest Entertainer".

"The book contains many facets of Jolson' career including those around him, his competition, employers, and comments from those he inspired enough to form their own careers, the issue of minstrel, blackface performers, fabled stories of the famed Friar's Club, a chapter of the infamous Shubert Brothers, and chapters covering Jolson's experiences in film, radio and his extensive USO travels. Covered too are vignettes of the theatres in which Jolson performed, and of those great theatrical competitors like the Barrymore's and where they were voicing their talents while Jolson was pulling them in at the Winter Garden, and a full feature on Jolson's films from the first talkie, The Jazz Singer to his famed bio-pics The Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again." - Richard Grudens

Click here to shop and buy this book from Amazon

Changes to Jolson and Friends Blog

In the upcoming months I am looking to continue to evolve the Jolson and Friends Blog and wanted preview some upcoming changes. I am continuing to promote the sale of Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Houdini, History of Baseball and several other unique Limited Edition T-shirt designs (featured above) and matching gift cards (all with free U.S. shipping). The sales from these items help offset the cost of maintaining this blog. Your continued support is greatly appreciated and besides they are great T-shirts.

Due to the time intensive nature of ongoing research, content development, production and maintaining and the Blog, the next blog update will happen on June 26th. I am continuing to work on several future Jolson and Friends projects including:

• Jolson and Friends Recommended Reading and Viewer Lists including cost-saving shopping links to find unique books, videos and more.
• Expanded global coverage of local events.
• Future podcasts of upcoming interviews and special performance-based content.

To ensure that you are automatically informed about new postings, please enter your email address at the sidebar on the left of this blog page or send an email to my attention, with the subject line "Subscribe", to: brian@JolsonBlog.com .

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