Movies: Al Jolson

After returning home from the Vietnam War, veteran Jacob Singer struggles to maintain his sanity. Plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks, Singer rapidly falls apart as the world and people around him morph and twist into disturbing images. His girl...

A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer. This is the first full length feature film to use synchronized sound, and is the original film musical....

At the turn of the 20th century, young Asa Yoelson decides to go against the wishes of his cantor father and pursue a career in show business. Gradually working his way up through the vaudeville ranks, Asa — now calling himself Al Jolson — joins a bl...

After years of hopeful struggle, waiter and aspiring singer-songwriter Al Stone is on his way. He gets his huge break on a magical night when his song wows big-time producer Louis Marcus and gold-digging showgirl Molly, whom Al fancies. Broadway succ...

Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies....

Swanee River is a 1940 American biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, then is accused of sympathizing when the Civil War breaks out. Typical of 20th Century Fox biopics of...

A multi-studio effort to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort....

Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were battling the Depression as well as eventually getting ready for another World War....

Rose Sargent, a Roaring '20s singer, becomes a Ziegfeld Follies star as her criminal husband gets deeper in trouble....

This tribute to Myrna Loy is organized chronologically with a few photographs, many film clips, a handful of personal appearances, and a detailed commentary delivered on camera by Kathleen Turner. Turner walks us through Loy's career as a dancer and ...

Fictionalized biography of George Gershwin and his fight to bring serious music to Broadway....

Broadway actress leaves New York to become a star in Hollywood, and succeeds despite sleazy directors and her own ego....

NBC's pioneering documentary series, produced by the David L. Wolper Production Company, in association with United Artists Television. Each 30-minute show concentrated on a Hollywood genre, film or legendary star. This series ran from September 30, ...

Starting in 1913 movie director Connors discovers singer Molly Adair. As she becomes a star she marries an actor, so Connors fires them. She asks for him as director of her next film. Many silent stars shown making the transition to sound....

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression....

Neurotic Broadway star Al Jackson faces professional ruin when he loses his voice. While recuperating in the country, he falls in love with farm girl Ruth Haines, the pretty aunt of precocious little Sybil Haines....

In this sequel to The Jolson Story, we pick up the singer's career just as he has returned to the stage after a premature retirement. But his wife has left him and the appeal of the spotlight isn't what it used to be. This time Jolson trades in the s...

Gus, the trusty family retainer, has hopes of riding his boss' horse, Big Boy, to victory at the Kentucky Derby....

Orphaned horse-trainer's little daughter has reciprocated bond with horse, which needs her presence to win races....

Mammy features Al Jolson as the star of a travelling minstrel show, appearing in cities and towns across the U.S. Jolson falls in love with an actress in the troupe (Lois Moran), but she loves another (Lowell Sherman). Sherman is shot onstage as part...