A Plantation Act

1926 Music 10 minutes Directed by Philip Roscoe

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About A Plantation Act

Al Jolson, in overalls and blackface, stands in front of a cabin set with a field behind it and a cage of live chickens. He sings "April Showers," "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody," and "When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along)," then takes three curtain calls. Two locked-off cameras cover a wide shot and a medium shot.

Cast & crew

More about A Plantation Act

Philip Roscoe directed the Vitaphone sound-on-disc short, the first film in which Jolson starred. The New York premiere was at the Colony Theatre on 7 October 1926, closing a program of shorts with Warner's feature The Better 'Ole. The end card marked "Intermission" comes from that bill. Sid Grauman played it at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on 27 October 1926 with the Vitaphone Don Juan. Copyright was filed on 2 April 1927 as "Al Jolson in A Plantation Act."

Themes

Background

The short opened a year before The Jazz Singer. While it was missing, that feature was often described as Jolson's first sound film.

Audiences

Gerald King wrote that Grauman's Don Juan first night, with this Vitaphone short in place of a stage prologue, filled the Egyptian with film people who came for Jolson as much as for the feature.

Look

Two fixed cameras, one wide and one medium, cover a single cabin set.

Technique

Sound-on-disc Vitaphone, played as a filmed stage turn with three curtain calls.

Music

Vitaphone disc. Jolson sings "April Showers," "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody," and "When the Red, Red Robin."

Preservation

Considered lost by 1933. A mute Library of Congress print and a broken Vitaphone disc were matched and restored for a UCLA showing in April 1995.

Notes

  • By August 1933 Jolson asked Warner Bros. for a print and was told the studio had no record or film of the short.
  • A mute print at the Library of Congress had been mislabeled as a trailer for The Jazz Singer.
  • The soundtrack disc, broken in four pieces and glued, was found in 1994. Technicians dubbed it and removed the clicks. UCLA showed the restoration at its Seventh Annual Festival of Preservation in April 1995.
  • It was a bonus on the 2007 three-disc DVD of The Jazz Singer, and had earlier been on a 1990s laserdisc.

Scenes

  • Jolson takes three curtain calls after the third song.

Influenced

  • The Jazz Singer (1927)

Also available

  • The Jazz Singer, Warner 3-disc DVD (2007), bonus short

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