The Jazz Singer

The Jazz Singer was the first feature length film with spoken dialog as part of the dramatic action. Set in the 1920s, it deals with the elemental conflicts underlying a precise historical moment for the first-generation Jew in America—sacred versus profane, Jew versus Gentile, ascetic versus libertine, deprivation versus economic promise, immobility versus displacement.

Robert L. Carringer, Associate Professor of English and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois at Ubrana-Champaign, has written numerous articles on film and, with Barry Sabath, The Film Career of Ernest Lubitsch.

Tino Balio is professor emeritus of film in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and former director of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. He is author of United Artists, Volume 1, 1919–1950 and Volume 2, 1951–1978 as well as Grand Design: Hollywood as Modern Business Enterprise, 1930–1939. He is editor of The American Film Industry and Hollywood in the Age of Television.