The Jazz Singer - one star?

It must have been a retro weeknight feature for the movie network Encore recently, when I tuned in and happened to catch The Jazz Singer - Neil Diamond's 1980 version - and then noticed that Dustin Hoffman's Tootsie, followed.

It was late so I DVR'd The Jazz Singer, which I watched in installments over the last three nights. I wrapped it up tonight, saving the last half hour, when Neil Diamond's character, a New York City Jewish cantor turned pop-rock star, returned to California to reunite with the mother of his child and meet his son for the first time.

The Jazz Singer made its debut when I was 7, and it must have been a staple on HBO shortly after that. I remember watching it repeatedly while my mother hummed the songs, some of Neil Diamond's classics: 'Hello Again', 'Love On The Rocks,' and 'America', to name a few. The movie always had a positive association in my mind, which may have been the reason why, after all these years, I decided to reserve parts of three weeknights, to savor the film.

Which I did. Even though I hadn't seen the movie in its entirety in probably 30 years or so, I remembered it well, from Diamond's character Jess Robinovich leaving his wife and cantor father in NYC, to his efforts at disguising himself by painting his skin to play at a black nightclub.

There are more classic moments, such as when Diamond's father, played by Lawrence Olivier, comes out to California, and breaks down because he realizes his son is not returning to New York, and then Diamond taking off and playing country bars on the road in an effort to find himself.

I don't know - maybe my standards are just not that high. Or maybe too much of my opinion of the film is influenced by the nostalgia from when I first saw it. But I have always  liked the movie. It was not a complex film, and Diamond was not a trained actor, but I was a bit surprised to read of the widely negative reviews of the movie.

Top critics of that time were scathing. Roger Ebert, who rated it one star, said, "The Jazz Singer" has so many things wrong with it that a review threatens to become a list

Janet Maslin of The New York Times said, ' Mr. Diamond, looking glum, and seldom making eye contact with anyone, Isn't enough of a focus for this outdated story." She also complained that the film's score, now legendary, was 'nondescript.'

I thought that Diamond's glum affect fit the movie perfectly. And the soundtrack was, in my opinion, pretty damn good.

But everyone is entitled to his opinion. On the movie review site, despite the 15% percent Tomatometer rating, based on professional reviews, 75 % of more than 4800 raters liked it.

I would happen to agree. Maybe some of those people are locked in a mindset of another time. Maybe they have poor taste in movies. Or maybe they saw something emotionally riveting in the story, the music, and acting. Whatever the case, there are many fans of the movie.

I was happy to have taken a trip down memory lane recently to watch it again. While it didn't win an Oscar, its story still resonates with fans, and its music, more than 30 years later, is almost timeless.