ABSTRACT
Studio on Sunset Boulevard, Al Jolson is industriously, unwittingly, engaged in the destruction of one great art and the creation of another. After an initial chorus sung with Jolson's usual nervy bravura, he suddenly stops. While the crew stands transfixed, Jolson keeps talking, a torrent of unaccustomed words in the midst of a predominantly silent film, a medium that has proudly subsisted on pantomime or, at the most, synchronized underscoring, sound effects, and a laconic word or two. But now every word that Jolson says is being recorded by a single large, black, cylindrical microphone a foot above his head, which transmits the sound to a 16-inch wax disc spinning at 33 1/3 revolutions a minute. Jolson leans on McAvoy, an experienced actress who has worked for leading directors such as Ernst Lubitsch. While Jolson is out of town fulfilling a nightclub engagement, Warners begins production with location scenes in New York that don't require his presence.
