The Jazz Singer & Neil Diamond ROCK! . This review is for my wife, Marilyn, as our wedding song came from it:    I was a senior in high school when this movie first hit the theaters and I loved it then and I love it now.  Yes, the acting is a bit hammy by Laurence Olivier who was attempting to appease the Jewish population after giving an Oscar-nominated performance a year or so before for playing with great relish a vicious Nazi who tortures, via dentist equipment, Dustin Hoffman in "The Marathon Man."  Can anyone forget his famous line from that film, "Is it safe?"   In addition, Lucie Arnez is no great actress, but what she lacks in talent she makes up for in her charming honest portrayal as Diamond's compassionate agent.   Lastly, Neil Diamond is certainly no great actor either, no matter how much I love him as musician and entertainer, but this movie somehow works despite these noted flaws and some rather amateurish direction by Richard Fleicher.  Perhaps the movie succeeds because the plot is as timeless as Hollywood gets.    We all love to experience someone achieving his or her goals and that's why these kinds of movies withstand the test of time even when the critics blast them.  Consider the following:  While Olivier hams it up a bit, he is still great to watch and demands your respect.   Lucie Arnez is disarmingly charming in her role as an agent trying to help someone she believes in, but also trying not to be caught up in her client's personal life.  Of course, Neil Diamond is no actor, but he is pleasing to watch and he's certainly believable in a role that he was destined to play as it mirrors his own story quite a bit; he came from a family of dentists and was expected to be one also, but he dropped out in his last semester and hit the road with a backpack and his guitar --the rest is history.  Lastly, the music is awesome.  Diamond was at the height of his career musically when he did this film and the soundtrack produced 3 #1 songs and was one of Billboard's longest running soundtrack best-sellers.  This was no fluke as Diamond had already won praise for his song "Be" from the film "Jonathan Livingston Seagull."  He knows how to write music for films and I wish he had more opportunities to do so.    While the movie wasn't necessarily "a hit," but it did find a substantial audience and made a good profit.  Something about it made it work even though it is admittedly flawed.  It went on to greater success on VHS and DVD and this new addition will probably sell just as well or better with the improved sound clarity that the other releases seriously lacked.  I was happy to read here that I wasn't the only one turning up the volume for the dialogue and lower it for the music segments.  That drove me nuts in the earlier releases.    Moving along, although I am Christian, I grew up in a mostly Jewish section in Brooklyn, New York, in fact, not far from where Diamond and Streisand actually grew up.  My home was near Diamond's high school.  Anyhow, between that and having dated a wonderful Jewish girl most of my high school days I grew to appreciate the Jewish faith and culture.  My neighborhood local theater re-released this film numerous times and I went to see it each time they played it.  It was the first movie I took my wife to see back in April of 1983 and she loved it and cried at the end as many in the theater did.  The #1 song "Hello Again" went on to become "our song" and the one we danced to at our wedding as your spouse should also be your best friend and that's what the song is about and even the movie as well to some degree as Diamond's wife in the film never shared his interests or desires although she was aware of them since they were little kids growing up in the same neighborhood.  She kept crying how he had changed when he became a pop-rock star when in reality his desires had simply come true.  All she ever attempted to do in the film was either hold him back or ignore his dreams and a spouse should never do either of those.    Having said all this it is obvious that my love for Diamond's music, Hollywoods tireless theme of success against the odds, watching any performance by the great Olivier, and sharing this film with the woman I would eventually spend the next 24 years of my life with make me a bias reviewer here.  I concede that observation, but still contend that in spite of this film's obvious flaws, it is still great entertainment.    Enjoy this classic
Output: POS