The Jolson Story

Probably the most famous Hollywood showbiz biography, in which the black-faced Al (Parks) bellows his way from burlesque to Broadway and beyond, falls in love with musical comedy star 'Julie Benson' (read Ruby Keeler), but falls more in love with his audience's applause. Jolson himself sings on the soundtrack ('Avalon', 'Toot, Toot, Tootsie' and many more), Larry Parks impersonates him with studied sincerity, and the musical numbers are attractively staged by Joseph H Lewis (whose more usual territories were Westerns and films noirs). More of the same followed, with contrived plot and without Lewis, in Jolson Sings Again (1949).