As a movie, "The Jazz Singer" is not terribly good. However, Neil Diamond's music make it worth at least a look. Particularly relevant in these times is his hit "(Coming To) America, an anthem extolling immigration and the contribution of immigrants to American culture. The acting, however, is another story. This was one of Laurence Olivier's "made it for the money" flicks and Lucie Arnaz was tragically miscast. As an actor, Diamond is a great singer. I don't know what spoilers I'm adding here but I figure it's better to err on the side of caution.

Dreadful piece of tripe was a career low point for all involved. Although I heard she is good on stage, a medium whose best performers often can not transition to pictures, Lucie Arnaz just did not possess the magnetism to be a film star. She's bland and uninteresting but even with that she still gives the best performance in the movie! Neil Diamond is a fine singer but as this movie proved his gifts did not reach to acting competency. The great Laurence Olivier sinks right along with the rest by giving a ham-hock of a performance, perhaps his worst ever. Badly directed and antiquated even when shot originally in the twenties this is a total miss.

Speaking of self-evident comedy: Neil Diamond as a Jewish cantor's son whose father, played by Olivier, objects to his dreams of pop-rock stardom (there's regrettably no jazz to be found). The chief pleasure, if you can call it that, is in observing the clash of acting styles between neophyte Diamond, who can't project emotion, and Olivier, whose mailed-in performance uses bathos as its emotion of choice. Fortunately, Fleischer is a no-nonsense director, so he backs up this risible melodrama with convincingly grubby Brooklyn locations and an interesting glimpse into religion-based lives. If nothing else, the scenes detailing synagogue rituals and bar mitzvah celebrations are a window into an alien world (to me), and Diamond's songs are fairly good. Favorite moment: the dejected, bearded Diamond walking away from the studio and ending up in a honky-tonk bar in Laredo, singing a country-western arrangement of "Please Don't Take My Sunshine Away" for the appreciative owner.

Balladeering "rock" singer Neil Diamond's puerile brand of romantic pop certainly has its followers, yet his soggy uplift is an uncomfortable match in this modern-day story of a Jewish cantor's son chucking the synagogue for a chance at mass stardom. The film is a big bogus cliché embalmed in Hollywood-ized Saran-Wrap, and Diamond's acting debut consists of a series of glowering poses. Remake of the 1927 and 1953 films does try to be clever (such as an early scene with Diamond singing in an all-black nightclub), but the minute the love story with Lucie Arnaz is interjected, any energy the movie has worked up goes right out the window (it's just a plot-device, though Arnaz keeps her dignity). Laurence Olivier overacts as Diamond's father, mincing and spitting out his lines in what results as a Jewish parody, and the finale is a laughably cheap artifice. If you really must hear "America" or "Love On The Rocks", you'd be better off with the CD. *1/2 from ****