The first remake, The Jazz Singer (1952) was remade starring Danny Thomas as the jazz singing son, and the Eduard Franz as the pious cantor father. This production of the film also produced by Warner Bros. would closely follow the Al Jolson version. Danny Thomas playing a young Korean War veteran who is lunging for success in Hollywood. He returns to his synagogue in the end, where he sneaks into the synagogue’s choir section to surprise his family with his joining in the singing of Kol Nidrei.
The musical performance by Danny Thomas is outstanding. And truly impressive, when one considers that he wasn’t Jewish; Danny Thomas was a Lebanese Maronite Catholic.
Now what is interesting to take notice of is that this 1952 version of the film was filmed at one of the most fashionable Jewish congregations at the time. It was filmed at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, in their grand sanctuary of their second synagogue site located near Fourth and New Hampshire in the mid-Wilshire District, which as built in 1925; it was their synagogue site before their eventual migration more westward down Wilshire Blvd in later years.
Like other film versions of this story, this 1952 version was also filmed entirely in Los Angeles. It is this time depicted as a congregation Sinai Temple in Philadelphia. Again, having Los Angeles sites being staged as east coast Jewish communities.
Today the grand Moorish-Byzantine synagogue building shown in this film is the location of a Korean church, occupying a building which retains much of its Jewish character. Yet the building has seem some changes over the years as the church has made it their own. So it’s really thrilling to in this version of the film see this fine synagogue in its prime, captured through the fine lenses of a major Hollywood film production.
In this 1952 production of The Jazz Singer, Danny Thomas does an outstanding job; in this film he ends up delivering one of the best cantoral presentations to ever grace a Hollywood film. Danny had trained for this role under the tutelage of notable cantors; he was vocally coached for this part by Cantor Carl Urstein who was the musical director at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and Cantor Moe Silverman of Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago.
Danny Thomas is said to have sang cantonal music in other productions as well, at one time making a lasting impression with his rendition of Rabbi Israel Goldfarb’s famous melody for Shalom Aleichem. He had also previously played a leading role as a cantor in the movie “Big City” in 1948. He was so good at playing the part, a lot of people going forward just assumed he was Jewish.
Now even for to the untrained ear, the singing parts of the cantor father are remarkable and stand apart as phenomenal. Though Eduardo Franz played the father on-screen, the singing heard in the film was actually a musical voice-over performed by the very talented Cantor Saul Silverman of Temple Israel of Hollywood.
ODD HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES:
Jerry Lewis – The Jazz Singer (1959); made for television production.
This second version of the Jazz Singer in 1952 would be adapted into a taped television version for Ford sponsored show Startime and broadcast on NBC on October 13, 1959. In this version Eduard Franz would reprise his role as the Cantor Rabinowitz, and this time playing the role of a son who was only interested in singing jazz music and making comedy, played by the comedian Jerry Lewis (born Joseph Levitch). In which the movie ends with Jerry Lewis singing Kol Nidrei in clown-face make-up.
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