Mammy *** (1930, Al Jolson, Lois Moran, Lowell Sherman, Louise Dresser, Hobart Bosworth) – Classic Movie Review 9534

Al Jolson stars as minstrel singer Al Fuller, in director Michael Curtiz’s sparky 1930 behind-the-scenes theatre musical Mammy, with a shooting, an Irving Berlin score and Louise Dresser all thrown in as Mammy.

Jolson has fallen for Nora Meadows (Lois Moran), daughter of the minstrel show’s manager (Hobart Bosworth), but the girl is in love with Billy West (Lowell Sherman).

Mammy suffers from a daft yarn, with some longueurs in the telling. But the exuberant Jolson shows why he was the world’s darling at the time, Berlin’s music is still appealing, and the (now dodgy, politically incorrect) minstrel show details keep their fascination.

The black and white film’s highspot is the long minstrel revue, originally in two-strip Technicolor.

Also in the cast are Mitchell Lewis, Tully Marshall, Jack Curtis, Noah Beery Sr, Ray Cooke, Stanley Fields and Lee Moran.

Mammy is directed by Michael Curtiz, runs 83 minutes, is made and released by Warner Bros, is written by L Gordon Rigby (adaptation) and Joseph Jackson (adaptation), based on the play Mr Bones by Irving Berlin and James Gleason (uncredited), is shot in black and white by Barney McGill, with two colour sequences, is produced by Walter Morosco and is scored by Louis Silvers, with music by Irving Berlin.

There are two colour sequences – in reels seven and eight.

There is a preserved print in the UCLA Film and Television archives.

Two songs written by Irving Berlin and sung by Al Jolson are missing from the existing prints: ‘The Call of the South’ and ‘Knights of the Road’.

The Jazz Singer (1927) is the first feature-length movie with audible dialogue, in which Jolson speaks 281 (improvised) words (‘Wait a minute, wait a minute… You ain’t heard nothin’ yet… Do you want to hear Toot, Toot, Tootsie?’) to his Mammy.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9534

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