Observations on Jakie Rabinowitz

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The Jazz Singer 1927.

What was the deal with the way he couldn’t sit still while he was eating? Was it that he had so much rhythm in his bones that he just couldn’t contain it?

At a certain point when he’s singing “Toot, Toot, Tootsie, goodbye. . .” he whistles. Do people actually whistle like that, sticking most of the hand inside the mouth, and “playing” it with the other hand?

And that voice. Al Jolson and Jakie Rabinowitz were supposed to be Jewish kids from NYC (although Jolson was born in St Petersburg, Russian). Not any kind of Northern or Yiddish accent to me. He sounded a lot more like “The Kingfish” from “Amos ‘n’ Andy.” Were Al and Jakie just unable to shake off their minstrel pasts?

2

What can I say? It was a bad movie. Bad, BAD movie [Eve with rolled-up newspaper, hitting movie on the nose].

Jolson could, however, whistle like that—it was one of his stage tricks.

Now can you explain to me how Zsa Zsa Gabor was the only girl on Venus with a Hungarian accent in “Queen of Outer Space?”