Movies: Al Jolson

After returning home from the Vietnam War, veteran Jacob Singer struggles to maintain his sanity. Plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks, Singer rapidly falls apart as the world and people around him morph and twist into disturbing images. His girl...

A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer. This is the first full length feature film to use synchronized sound, and is the original film musical....

This tribute to Myrna Loy is organized chronologically with a few photographs, many film clips, a handful of personal appearances, and a detailed commentary delivered on camera by Kathleen Turner. Turner walks us through Loy's career as a dancer and ...

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression....

Harry and Inez are a dance team at the Wonder Bar. Inez loves Harry, but he is in love with Liane, the wife of a wealthy business man. Al Wonder and the conductor/singer Tommy are in love with Inez. When Inez finds out that Harry wants to leave Paris...

While a few Hollywood celebrities such as James Stewart and Clark Gable saw combat during World War II, the majority used their talents to rally the American public through bond sales, morale-boosting USO tours, patriotic war dramas and escapist film...

Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were battling the Depression as well as eventually getting ready for another World War....

An irresponsible Broadway star gets mixed up with gambling and gangsters....

Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies....

At the turn of the 20th century, young Asa Yoelson decides to go against the wishes of his cantor father and pursue a career in show business. Gradually working his way up through the vaudeville ranks, Asa — now calling himself Al Jolson — joins a bl...

Fictionalized biography of George Gershwin and his fight to bring serious music to Broadway....

Rose Sargent, a Roaring '20s singer, becomes a Ziegfeld Follies star as her criminal husband gets deeper in trouble....

Swanee River is a 1940 American biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, then is accused of sympathizing when the Civil War breaks out. Typical of 20th Century Fox biopics of...

A New York tramp falls in love with the mayor's amnesiac girlfriend after rescuing her from a suicide attempt....

Ice skating is the theme; at the Tropical Ice Garden, in Westwood Hills, are seen a flock of skating stars including Irene Dare and Phyllis Ann Thomoson, as well as Hollywood luminaries such as Franklyn Pangborn, Norma Shearer, Rita Hayworth, Mickey ...

This short traces the history of sound in the movies, beginning with French scientist Leon Scott's experiments in 1857. Featured are snippets from early sound pictures....

This short was released in connection with the 20th anniversary of Warner Brothers' first exhibition of the Vitaphone sound-on-film process on 6 August 1926. The film highlights Thomas A. Edison and Alexander Graham Bell's efforts that contributed to...

Gus, the trusty family retainer, has hopes of riding his boss' horse, Big Boy, to victory at the Kentucky Derby....

Feature-length compilation of 1920s newsreel footage, with commentary about news, sports, lifestyles, and historical figures....

A documentary of Hollywood's first great Latin Lover, the contradictions in his personal life, and his premature death....