A Plantation Act (1926)

Directed by

Philip Roscoe

Genre

musical film

Country

United States

Runtime

10 min

Rating

4.3 of 10 from 6 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Al Jolson performs three of his hit songs on a stage set designed like a plantation. The short film presents his act as a live performance with curtain calls and direct address to the audience.

datedtheatricallive-feelenergeticnostalgicrecordedstagey

What happens

A Plantation Act (1926) is an early Vitaphone sound-on-disc short film starring Al Jolson, the first film that Jolson starred in. Jolson in blackface sings three of his hit songs: "April Showers", "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody", and "When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along)". The film presents him as if in a live stage performance, complete with three curtain calls at the finish. Jolson is dressed as a plantation worker for the entirety of the short, but performs only his entrance in character. For the remainder of the film he speaks and performs to the audience as Al Jolson. The film features one set, that of a cabin with farmland behind it, and a cage with live chickens. Two fixed film cameras are used to give a wide shot and a medium shot of Jolson and the set. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Mammy (1930)
• The Jolson Story (1946)
• Jolson Sings Again (1950)
• Manhattan Parade (1931)
• The Singing Brakeman (1929)
• The Song and Dance Man (1926)
• Striving for Fortune (1926)
• A Rhapsody in Black and Blue (1932)