Jolson Sings Again

7/30/2018

Columbia had scored a significant financial and critical success with The Jolson Story in 1946 featuring actor Larry Parks miming successfully to Al Jolson's singing voice, the ageing entertainer re-recording all his great hits for the film. Then as now thoughts of a sequel were forthcoming but the story of Jolson's career had essentially been told in its entirety. This can be seen in the struggle the screenwriters had in creating a compelling narrative for the second film. The key plot points are fairly anaemic, including the end of one marriage, the gestation of another, a temporary retirement for Jolson and his re-discovery entertaining the troops in World War II. The final third of the film, in almost an act of desperation, is given over to the production of The Jolson

6/5/2025

Larry Parks picks up, almost to the frame, from where he left off with the first part of this biopic of the celebrated singer. Lured back to the stage, his wife “Julie” has done a bunk. She doesn’t want to compete with what she thinks will always be his first love, nor does she want to stop him - so off she flies and doesn’t feature at all. Distraught? Well not really, no. He immediately embarks on resuscitating his career and goes from strength to strength thanks to the support of long-suffering manager “Steve” (William Demarest) and his now reconciled father (Ludwig Donath). Soon firmly re-established but really rather bored with it all arriving on a plate, he gets quite a sudden wake-up call entertaining the troops in Europe during the war before returning to turn his attentions to the