Thanks for RAH's comments. I'm currently working my way through the Rooney/Garland collection which is a contender for the collection of the year, but it sounds like THE JAZZ SINGER collection may supplant it.
I'm very anxious to get this collection. The great majority of these shorts will be new to me and it will be a wonderful learning experience going through them as well as the documentaries. One of the great joys of being a classic film fan is learning about the history of the films and the studios who made them.
I'm also interested in reading thoughts on the sound and am also with the understanding that original mint discs were used. There was a report in the silent movies newsgroup about a possible sound anomolies. Quoting from the post from "Gerbonzo":
Quote:
During the scene where JACK ROBIN is at the train station writing a letter to MARY, the sound track pauses while the letter insert is shown and seems to be out of sync throughout the scene where he is told that he is going to NEW YORK to appear in a big Broadway review.
The train scene fades out and we see the title card that says "THE CANTOR'S SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY" and 'GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROADWAY is still playing on the soundtrack. During the scene where JACK/JAKIE is reunited with his mother, the music cues are not quite where they used to be.
Then when there was the reel change for the synchronous sound section for the "BLUE SKIES" sequence-where we used to have dead sound while Jolson led his mother to the piano to start singing-the music seems to "blend" into Bert Fiske's piano intro to the song. Not quite the same
as we remember.
Same type of thing seems to happen before the big finale scene where Jolson sings "MAMMY". The film looks sharp in 95% of the transfer and sound is the clearest I have heard outside of the TURNER/RHINO Jolson disc of 11 years ago.
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This poster does state that he viewed an advance copy so perhaps this was not the final version. In any case, minor quibbles aside this looks to be a 5 star release that I look forward to adding to my collection with hopes that sales will warrant more Vitaphone era releases.
Steve