1950-11-06 — Page 4

THE CHINA MAILTM MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1930.

QUEENS ALHAMBRA The End of THE JOLSON STORY

AIR CONDITIONED

AIR-CONDITIONED

TO-DAY ONLÝ AT 2.30, 5.15, 7.20 & 9.30 P.M.

The Bride gets the Thrills! FATHER gets the Bills!

M«G$ gỉnfully seine SPENCER TRACY

JOAN BENNETT ELIZABETH TAYLOR

Father of the Bride

́À METRO BÓLDWYTO-SEATER POCTEURE

• OPENS TO-MORROW

QUEEN'S

Alfred Hitchcock's "STAGE FRIGHT"

Jane WYMAN Marlono DIETRICH

ALHAMBRA

The Woman Plays

With Fire"

A Chiness Ricture

LEE Liberty

☆ SHOWING TO-DAY ★

4 SHOWS AT 2.30, 5.30, 7.30 & 9.30 P.M.

EVEN FUNNIER THAN IN

"MY-FRIEND IRMA

MARTIN AND LEWIS

The Screens New

Comery Team

*Patumovni prosents

MyFiend buna Goes West

JOHN CORINHE DIANA storing LUND · CALVET LYNN

DEAN MARTIN and JERRY LEWIS

MAKE WILSON as a AHAL WALLIS PRODUCTION

Dioded by HAL WALKER

Sowplay by Cy Havard and Parbe Lary

ALSO: LATEST PARAMOUNT. NEWS

ORIENTAL

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Take Any Eastern Tram Car or Happy Valley Bus

Final Showing To-day: 2.30-5.30—7.30 & 9.30 p.m. SEE MacArthur, Nimitz and their mon from the Sfart to the ATOM Bomb and the Jap's Unconditional Surrender!

He WAS America's show business

-it made him £3,000,000

by MILTON SHULMAN

HAHROUGH the artistry and career of Al Jol- son the laughter and tears of America swept around and through the world...

For in him were synthesised the folk-lore, the brashness, the rhythm, the humour, the sent ment, the dynamism and the magnetism that have produced that gigantic Pagilacci of enter- tainment known as American

show business,

To the exuberance of the American nogro he added the lilting pathos of the American Jow and the unique modernised

version

Hollywood that the talking pic- turo was here to stay.

This was followed by. The Singing, Fool, where again the sentimental picture of Al Jolson beseeching three-year-old Davy Lee to climb upen his knee, Sonny Boy," ensured oceans of sobs and sighs in the cinemas of the world and made a toriuno for Jolson and his producers.

The Jolson Story began in St Petersburg, now Leningrad, in 1836 when, Asa Yoelcom was born the son of an orthodox rabbi whose family had sung the synagogue for in generations.

live

The family emigrated to the of the black-faced United States while Jolson was comedian was the result.

a child, and his first stago ap- made in New white pearance was Down on one knee, gloved hands clasped in sup- York in 1899 as one of the mob

SONNY BOY

His most Estous song -in-the first falkies.

and..

úneziravagant - man -clthough there were. » meny mours that he had lost a large fortuns in the thirties, it.

belleved that he managed to retain an extremely comfor- abip income.

His

Jolson's

re

hectic social and

wives

followed the

matrimonial:

pattern of so many who become Luccessful in the American entertainment world.

He was married four times, His first wife, Henrietta Keller, divorced him la 1010. In 1020 his marriage to Alina Osborne was dissolved.

His most publicisca marriage was to Ruby Keeler, a music. hall comedicine and tap dancer. Hor roles in films like 42nd

provided her with a popular ac- claim almost as enthusiastle as that that given her husband,

plication, white teeth gleaming in The Children of the Ghotro. cympathetic manner in which Street and Gold Diggers of 1933

through the bulbous Ups, his stentorian, yet melodie, voice could send an

audience home His break-away

drenched with tears and tipsy with tunes about comfelds ogeing coloured manules and the folks back home.

His fortune

He reached down deep into our sub-conscious and plucked at the nostalgia and bathos and self-pity that we all try so hard to submerge, and hide. Through his alchemy he produced sadness and galety and made himself. something like £8,000,000 while doing it.

"But his artistry might have been confined to a relatively of Broadway small audience theatre-goers had it not been for the advent of the talking picture.

Groping their way through this new medium, the Warner Brothers in 1827 decided to use Bome fragments of Jolson's own life, starring Jolson himself for their first talking picture.

It was called the Jazz Singer and recounted the story of a boy who turned from singing in a synagogue to the more non- sectarian and profitable pursuit of singing jazz la the music- hall

His start

Even though the imperfect synchronisation left Jolson some- times looking like a breathless goldfish, his singing of Mammy and other minstrel songs assured

Then in that pecullar, un-

Americans treat their enter- tainers, Jason's name and talent

interest notoriously tickle public.

ceased

to

6

Their eventual separation and divorce in 1939 was followed by with that frantic the public interest which only stars of the of a Jolson, Ingrid Bergman or Rita Hayworth can attain. In 1945 he married Erle Chennault Galbraith.

The fact that his abandon-

He relires in 1993 and little ment on a career as a Jewish war feard about him until he cantor to become a popular set out on a long and exhaust singer at first broke his father's ing tour during World War II heart has already been well and entertaining American troops stature tearfully told in both The Jazz from the Aleutians to India. Singer and a later flm version called The Jolson of his te

broke box-office Story which

sides of the records on both

Atlantic.

Following the usual round of circus and vaudeville engage-

Jolson achieved no ments, Al

Another, miracle of imagina- tion on the part of a Hollywood executive resulted in The Jolson Story, made at the end of the war, which retold the fabulous story of Jolson's career.

▲ new young

actor, Larry unusual success until an old Parks, was given the part of Al Negro dresser suggested that he Jolson while the sound track should do a hinck-face act. "If carried the raucous, sentimental your skin's black they always voice of Jolson himself. laugh," philosophically said the Negro.

But with Lis burnt-cork make-up Jobson not only made his audience laugh at him, but made them cry and sympathise with him as well,

In 1911 while he was appear Ing with a group of minstrels the audience was so insistent ho go on singing that he had to turn round to the rest of the cast and say, "You can go

mysit

ד

His

come-back

Not only was the film a great financial success, but it intro- duced an entire generation to such familiar Jolson favourites as Sonny Boy, California Hote Round My I Come, Rainbow Shoulder and You Made Me Love You.

Joison had a quick temper 'and there was more than one occasion when he let fly with his dats to settle some incident when words secaned to have lost their offectiveness.

AS THE WORLD. WILL REMEMBER HIM In The Singing Fool. 1928

Men Of Kent Have

To Hop To It With

Those

on.

Beards

The men of Canterbury have got to get a move Dozens of them have been persuaded to grow a beard so that they may more realistically take part in the town's Festival of Britain pageant, "Chaucer and his Pilgrims," for the Mayor, Coun- cillor Jennings, who is the chief commissar for the culture of beards, wants the genuine article to be such a great occasion and not the sported on property beard.

One medical authority, they are "established" In the of fashion took however, puts, the average old days men Jolson was extremely con-beard growth at the rate of great care of their specimens. They had them dyed, curled and scious of hir value as a booster an eighth of an inch a week. clipped into a variety of peculiar of morale during World War which requires the men of outlines, and at night protected and he was one of the first to offer his services as an enter Kent to hurry with their them from disarrangement with

cultivation if they are to be cardboard really copiously bearded in tuiner for GIs in Korea,

time.

His faith

Covora. It

established that they really did sleep with their whiskern out- side the bedclothes.

AMERICA'S YOUNGEST

Such tolerance has not always been

in Kentish encouraged In his devotion to his art, in paris. For instance, the Burgh- his unrelenting enthusiasm, in moto of Canterbury shows that always to one of the early sheriffs and his The Jolson Story was followed his sincere desire home. I'm finishing the show by Joison: Sings Again Larry give the best of himself, in his friend had to pay 32, 4d. and Parks again portrayed Jolson, unfading faith in the creed that is. 8d. in taxes respectively for which prompted some wag to the show must go on, Al Jolson wearing beards

It was rather more expensive that in Elizabeth's day, when every most rewarding, sense of

fortnight's remark that "when Jolson dies was a trouper in the best, and

beard of above a much-abused term. they will bury Larry Parks."

He brought the richness, the growth had a 3s, tax levied on It is estimated that Jomon's

the sparkle and the It. It did not stop the bearded earnings on The Singing Fool vitality,

of American cult by any means, and George

New boss of the Ameri alone were about £300,000. In Internationalism 1935 he admitted that he had entertainment to the world. He Killingworth, the Ambassador earned about £3,000,000 as un could have asked for no more, to Moscow, had one just over can Air Forces in Europe,

-London Express Service) entertainer to date. He was not

This was followed by a series of musical shows on Broadway which included such hits as n Belle Parec,

of The Whirl Sinbad, Wonder Bar Society, and Hold On To Your Hats, The film The Jazz Singer sent his name rocketing to interua tional fame.

COULD ATOM

WE BEAT THE BOMBERS?

1.

:

5ft, in length.

PUBLIC UNREST There was great public unrest

AIR BOSS

Lieut.-General Lauris Nor stad, at 48 is the youngest three-star general in ser

in 1705 when Peter the Great vice. In Washington, he is: on the known as "the bright young. imposed a beard tax Russians, according to the wealth mun of the Air Corps." and rank of the individual con-

ecrried. Prevailing fashion in Nofstad 1 of Spartinavian that time was for descent, part Swedish part night fighters produced good Europe at

shaven and Norwegian: His fatheros results. But the flow of all-men to be clean weather and night fighters into Peter, intent on his westernising:

wanted his male population to Lutheran minister. R. A. F. squadrons is too slow,

A blond alx-footer, conform to the vogue.

Succeeding sovereigns con- said to be a brilliant planner Arc our fighter pilots led by OULD Britain survive be pressurised. A stray bullet and tast, U. 5. nighters have had men who have practical extinued and oven extended the and administrator

perience of flying in the jet age? tax until it was finally abolished apart from the Air attacks by atom- can de-pressurise a plane in them for a long time.

atter the death of: Feter III in thing. stantly. If that happened at Another trouble of strato-

At last they aro. Fighter C-

12-year-old dauätter carrying strato - jet 45,000.

blood an airman's

sphere Intercoption is that at

la a talented "hors" would actually boil, He would bombers?

by prized over 40,000ft. It is impossible to in-C. Sir Basli Embry, one of 102. The taxienunce the issue die in three seconds.

pick out planes flying more than the greatest war plote of all of special gold tokens, which

time, has a relentless rule. It have, become.

Mrs Norstad, in: her mid Exercise Emperor, just finish-

no answer has been about: 457mlies :away..

is: "Loadership from the cockpit collectors. They are very rare, for large numbers of them were ***ed, the biggest air. defence test So far

Because there in no dust in and not from the office."

destroyed by an frate public as thirties, met her future, hus- band in Hawail where she ever held in Britain, suggests found to this problem. that our chances are improving. We must also find an answer the sky at that height. there is

When I was at Fighter Com-soon as the tax was abolished. Here is the situation in question to the problem of clothing. no rofraction and no light is. and answer form.

Fighter pilots on stand-by reflected from the surfaces of mand during the exercise a're- It is expected that the men was born. They married there. AT 2.30.

5.00,

How have the problems must often sit in their cockpits hunted planes am told that pont came through from a pilot of Canterbury will take little She designs and makes all her. 7.206.9,40 of air defence changed since

19407 P.M.

Commencing To-morrow: "MY FOOLISH HEART”

FINAL

SHOWING PROADWAY 7.20 0.9.49

TO-DAY

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NOW YOU CAN SEE IT! TO CLEAVE A HIGHWAY. THROUGH THE SKIEST THE · FOOD · AIRLIFT TO BERLINI

MONTGOMERY

CLIFT

AY LAST IT CAN BE TOLD!

THE BIG STORY

BEHIND THE AIRLIFT!

ACEPACK

DOUGLAS

COLORT

at 12.30, 5.20,

TODAY MAJESTIC 7.20 & 9.30

BONLY S

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INIA MAYO

A Bombors are four times faster and y twice as high. bomba is

| Destruktio 2172 hold

Incalculably

policy of attrition, which won

By HUGH

DUNDAS

A

HIS Kristin

woman.

who

had been engaged in trouble with their beards orice own clothes, a stratosphere dog-fight, with

long-range escort fighters--0

now development in jet fighting.

The pilot was Air, Vico-Mar-

shal Tom Pike; who commands SIDE GLANCES

the group which defends Lon don and the South of England.

fighters, to help our pilota see squadronsen thing unheard of the enemy, under those condi- f the last war.

Battle of Brimin when A dressed for the stratosphere, small radar nets vid be Mited b) He files in a Metoo with his small but steady percentage of ready for immediate, tako-off. eremy raiders was destroyed in When the sun blazes down on tions.

metni2 plaftice cockpit tempera- be shot down before they reach tures roach 100 degrees Fahr. or

every rald, is no longer accept- able. A

must high percentago

their target.

same

and

And so be can form his own now problema Is radar loceping pace with impression of

which arise, and back his judg war-plane development?

ment with many years of Ser- Has defcibe kept 'pace?

The pilots, became drenched Yes.

es. Radar defence, is a vice experience. medand for trans Broadly speaking, Yes. In in weather WITHIN FIVE underraaned, but teclinical it is not a dopressing survey. Korpike Emperor a good per MINUTES they may be at, a development has progressed. centage of the "fet bombers height of over 30,0001 in a Radar detection of fet, raiders in Fighter Command hote

great leadera, te pilots, represented by Vampires from temperature far below pro, Exercise Emperor was good.".. Cermany, was intercepted bo-

their damp clothes frozen. G But their Ministry must first-class planes. There Is an

atmosphere of keenness to reaching the ope result is frostbite, posait- rudar defences.

swiftly close the gaps in our

urgency

If the Government hands out What is it like fighting at the completo collapse. tremendous heights of the jet Fighter Command, chiefs...are. Can Fighter Command' com the equipment, and if recruiting ape7

demanding cockpits which can pete as well at night as by day? maintains its progress, we chall

safe in our beds, P-Inviortée that Talarmiinidyo Uteve alternatively refrigerated: or The standard 3 of 2 stonkumam at such heights cockpits must heated. They should get them, flying in higher trail över, wid

FERDINAND

རi

What a Bird?

By Mik

By Galbenith