A year before the making of The Jazz Singer, Al Jolson entered the Vitaphone studios to make a short that some feel was essentially a screen test for the film to follow. Thought lost for years, the Vitaphone disk turned up a few years ago, broken; and was restored and reunited with the existing film to resurrect this feature. Performing three songs in blackface on a plantation set, the young Al Jolson shows us a glimmer of his powerful stage personality. Here is the conclusion of A Plantation Act, in which Jolson answers the critics, even then, of "Mammy songs," and sings one of his favorites. In the picture above, by the way, Al Jolson is standing with Vitaphone executives during the filming of A Plantation Act. According to legend, Sam Warner, pictured at the far right, had decreed that all copies of this film be destroyed, to promulgate the legend that The Jazz Singer was the first talking picture. Thankfully, a copy survives to prove otherwise. Here is a sample of that classic video.
You can read all about the discovery and restoration of "A Plantation Act" in the "Vitaphone News." The Fall/Winter 1994 issue tells the tale of the discory, and the Summer/Fall-1995 issue the story of the restoration of the classic piece of Jolson movie history.
