The Singing Fool
About The Singing Fool
Al Stone waits tables and sings at Blackie Joe's. A song he wrote for Molly Winton lands him a Broadway job with Louis Marcus. He marries Molly. They have a son, Sonny. Molly takes up with John Perry, leaves Al, and takes the boy to Paris for a divorce. Friends from the cafe pull Al back onto the stage. Sonny is dying in a hospital. Al sings "Sonny Boy" to him. That night he sings it again in the theater, collapses as the curtain falls, and tells Grace he will not give up.
Cast & crew
More about The Singing Fool
Lloyd Bacon directed. C. Graham Baker wrote the scenario and Joseph Jackson the dialogue and titles, from Leslie Burrows's story "The Singing Fool." Byron Haskin photographed it. Ralph Dawson edited, with Harold McCord uncredited. Warner Bros. opened it in New York on September 19, 1928, and released it in the United States on September 29. It went out in a sound version and a silent version. About 66 minutes contain talking or singing, recorded on Vitaphone discs.
Themes
Making
It was the follow-up to The Jazz Singer, again with Jolson and again on Vitaphone discs. Extant picture copies are the British release, with plain British title cards in place of most of the original Warner cards.
Reviews
Film Daily wrote, "Here is complete vindication for the advocates of sound pictures," and called it "the finest example of sound pictures made to date." Mordaunt Hall, in The New York Times, found the dialogue "a little halting" and Josephine Dunn "not convincing," and said the interest was "not in its transparent narrative, but in Mr. Jolson's inimitable singing." John Mosher, in The New Yorker, wrote that whenever the story lagged, "Al has only to step forward and do his stuff, and the day is saved."
Look
Byron Haskin photographed the film. Warner released both a part-talkie and a silent version.
Technique
Dialogue, songs, and effects were locked to the picture on Vitaphone sound-on-disc. The discs for the track survive.
Music
Louis Silvers is the credited composer. "Sonny Boy," "It All Depends on You," and other songs are by Lew Brown, B.G. DeSylva, and Ray Henderson. "There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder" is by Billy Rose, Al Jolson, and Dave Dreyer. "I'm Sittin' on Top of the World" is by Sam Lewis, Joe Young, and Ray Henderson.
Preservation
Surviving prints are the British version. Jolson's performance of "The Spaniard That Blighted My Life" is missing from them. The Vitaphone discs of the soundtrack survive. The film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2024.
Notes
- Al Jolson plays Al Stone. Betty Bronson plays Grace. Josephine Dunn plays Molly. Davey Lee plays Sonny Boy. Reed Howes plays John Perry. Arthur Housman plays Blackie Joe. Edward Martindel plays Louis Marcus.
- The domestic gross was $3,821,000 and the foreign gross $2,095,000. Wikipedia calls the total the largest for a sound film until Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), and Warner Bros.' largest until Sergeant York (1941).
- Sonny Boy" was the first movie song to sell more than a million copies. Sheet music, piano rolls, and records together passed three million.
- Billy Merson's "The Spaniard That Blighted My Life" was cut from surviving prints after Merson sued, claiming the film hurt his own earnings. It was removed from every print shown in the United Kingdom.
- The film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2024.
Scenes
- Al sings the song he wrote for Molly and Louis Marcus hires him.
- Al sings "Sonny Boy" at the boy's hospital bed.
- He sings it again that night and collapses as the curtain comes down.
