A Plantation Act

Warner Bros. Vitaphone, 1926. Al Jolson, in blackface, performing three songs as if on a stage: April Showers, Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody, When the Red, Red Robin. About ten minutes, sound-on-disc, his first film appearance. A recorded act, not a story. The disc sync is the point; the minstrel costume is the form he brought from the Winter Garden. Historically a Vitaphone demonstration more than a drama.