Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

See here:
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6457771.html

The Al Jolson-starring title will be issued in a three-disc 80th Anniversary Collector’s Edition that contains, among other things, a restored and remastered version of the film featuring a refurbished soundtrack, a collection of period cartoons, shorts and rare Vitaphone comedy and music pieces, a handful of early sound era shorts and the newly produced feature-length documentary The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk. The package will carry a list price of $39.98.

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

I knew this would be announced sometime this month since its anniversary is in October.

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

Kickarse!!!

That is all I can think of at the moment

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

All those glorious extras and that documentary should be very good like all the Warners produces.

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

Very pleased to read about all the goodies contained in this set. I just wish the other early Jolson films were being mastered for DVD, too. They're all creaky vehicles but still fascinating to watch regardless.

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

/off topic
I wish Fox would release a boxed set of early CinemaScope films, along with documentaries and extras about the history of CinemaScope. Surely - like sound - CinemaScope is another important technological innovation that should receive DVD based documentation in the form of documentaries, and the release of rare CinemaScope shorts, cartoons, and test reels.
/on topic

I commend Warner Bros. for making the early sound materials available as extra features! Why leave these rare materials in a vault when they can be used to make money?

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

Can't wait to see what the packaging looks like! This sounds amazing. As usual, with WB.

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

This is really great news. I am really eager to see "The "Dawn of Sound" documentary most of all.

I hope Richard Barrios is involved with it, his book about musicals at the beginning of the sound era is without a doubt one of my all-time favorite film books.

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

Any idea what the shorts are or how many (A "handful"?) will be included? I'd love it if they portalled the old "Dawn of Sound" lds which included some MGM features and the you've-got-to-see-it-tobelieve it GOLDEN DAWN.

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

Took the words right off my keyboard, CH!
You haven't lived until you've seen Noah Beery in blackface singing to his whip:
"My bwaaaaaaannnnnaaaaa...."

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

A bit more info from The Digital Bits:
Here's great news for you classic film fans... Warner has just announced the DVD release of Al Jolson's original 1927 The Jazz Singer in a 3-disc 80th Anniversary Edition. As many of you know, The Jazz Singer was the first feature-length film to have recorded dialogue and music synchronized to the images. The set will be released on 10/16 (SRP $39.98). The restored and remastered release will include vintage cartoons, rare Vitaphone shorts, early sound shorts and the new, feature-length documentary The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk.

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

Very Cool. Until now, The Jazz Singer's soundtrack has only been available from a print who's optical track was taken from Vitaphone discs in the 1930's. Apparently, pristine Vitaphone discs were discovered and I believe it is from these that the new soundtrack has been remastered from. In the beginning, Vitaphone discs had superior sound compared to sound-on-film technologies at the time. Of course, that changed.

Yep, those Dawn of Sound box sets were amzing, as was the Jolson one. When will the restored (with Technicolor sequences) Mammy become available? I believe UCLA has a print.

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

This is defintely worth at least a rental. What I'd really like to see is an SE of the first Vitaphone feature Don Juan starring John Barrymore and Mary Astor, along with a recreation of the memorable New York premiere with all the featured Vitaphone shorts and Will Hays' filmed intoduction. It is possible- TCM did such a thing last year for the 80th anniversary of the premiere, and all of the shorts from that night still exist. This could be a great DVD release under the TCM banner to show how sound films really began before Jolson opened his mouth!

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

The ld of DON JUAN contained all the premiere shorts and the Hays intro.

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

Really? I never had a laserdisc player, so forgive my ignorance. The fact that the whole Don Juan program made it to laser should be inducement enough for Warner Bros. to do a DVD version- so where is it?

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

Here's some info posted at another board:

DVD Special Features:


Disc 1 The Movie


· All new feature digital transfer and immaculately refurbished
soundtrack from restored picture elements and original Vitaphone-
Sound-on-Disc recordings


· Commentary by film historians Ron Hutchinson and Vince Giordano


· Collection of rare cartoons and shorts:


o I Love to Sing-a classic 1936 WB parody cartoon directed by Tex
Avery


o Hollywood Handicap classic M-G-M short with Al Jolson appearance


o A Day at Santa Anita classic Technicolor Warner Bros. short with
Al Jolson & Ruby Keeler cameo appearance


o "Al Jolson in `A Plantation Act' "1926 Vitaphone short made a year
prior to The Jazz Singer


o An Intimate Dinner in Celebration of Warner Bros. Silver Jubilee


· 1947 Lux Radio Theater Broadcast starring Al Jolson (audio only)


· Al Jolson Trailer Gallery


Disc 2 The Early Sound Era


· All-new feature-length documentary The Dawn of Sound: How Movies
Learned to Talk


· Two rarely-seen Technicolor excerpts from Gold Diggers of Broadway
(1929 WB film, most of which is considered lost)


· Studio shorts celebrating the early sound era:


· Finding His Voice (1929 Western Electric animated promotional
short, produced by Max Fleischer)


· The Voice That Thrilled The World - Warner Bros. short about sound


· Okay for Sound 1946 WB short celebrating the 20th anniversary of
Vitaphone


· When Talkies Were Young 1955 WB short looking back at the early
talkies


· The Voice from the Screen 1926 WB `demonstration' film explores
the Vitaphone technology and, looks at the making of a Vitaphone
short.


Disc 3 VITAPHONE SHORTS


In the 1920's Warner Bros. began producing a series of short films
which utilized the Vitaphone process. These films ran the gamut from
musical theater legends and vaudeville acts, to dramatic vignettes
and classical music performances from the most prestigious artists
of the era.
Most of these were shorts considered lost for decades, until a
consortium of archivists and historians joined forces with a goal to
restore these magnificent time capsules of entertainment history. Up
until now, contemporary audiences have only been able to see these
shorts via rare retrospective showings in a few large cities, or
through the limited release of a restored handful of the earliest
subjects, which were part of a 1996 laserdisc set. This new
collection will finally make these amazing rarities available to the
thousands of film fans awaiting their DVD debut.


· Over 3 1/2 hours worth of rare, historic Vitaphone comedy and
music shorts


Elsie Janis in a Vaudeville Act: "Behind the Lines"
Bernado Depace: "Wizard of the Mandolin"
Van and Schneck: "The Pennant Winning Battery of Songland"
Blossom Seeley and Benny Fields
Hazel Green and Company
The Night Court
The Police Quartette
Ray Mayer & Edith Evans: "When East Meets West"
Adele Rowland: "Stories in Song"
Stoll, Flynn and Company: "The Jazzmania Quintet"
The Ingenues in "The Band Beautiful"
The Foy Family in "Chips off the Old Block"
Dick Rich and His Melodious Monarchs
Gus Arnheim and His Ambassadors [
Shaw and Lee: "The Beau Brummels"
Larry Ceballos' Roof Garden Revue
Trixie Friganza in "My Bag O' Tricks"
Green's Twentieth Century Faydetts
Sol Violinsky: "The Eccentric Entertainer"
Ethel Sinclair and Marge La Marr in "At the Seashore"
Paul Tremaine and His Aristocrats
Baby Rose Marie: "The Child Wonder"
Burns & Allen in "Lambchops "
Joe Frisco in "The Happy Hottentots"


Outstanding Collector's Edition Bonuses:


· Rarely seen behind-the-scenes Photo cards


· Original release Lobby card reproductions


· Original release Souvenir Program book reproduction


· Booklet with vintage document reproductions and DVD features guide


· Reproduction of post-premiere telegram from Al Jolson to Jack L.
Warner


THE JAZZ SINGER 80TH ANNIVERSARY 3-DISC DELUXE EDITION
Feature Running Time: 88 minutes
4x3 Fullscreen, B&W
Dolby Digital 1.0 audio

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

It'll be interesting to see future TV sitcom stars Burns & Allen and Rose Marie in their vaudeville days (did she have a bow in her hair then?). Ironically the advent of talkies may have helped kill vaudeville, but many a vaudeville vet would find stardom on TV twenty years later: Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Burns & Allen, Ed Wynn, Jackie Gleason, and even Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz, who first honed their comedy & music act on the road before filming the pilot for I Love Lucy.

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

Re: Warner celebrates The Jazz Singer with 80th Anniversary Edition

I don't like the cover at all. it looks so generic. they could've used this one: