A Plantation Act (1926) is an early Vitaphone sound-on-disc short film starring Al Jolson, the first film that Jolson starred in. Jolson in blackface sings three of his hit songs: "April Showers", "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody", and "When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along)".
The full, public domain film
Black & white version
two-color Technicolor version
The film presents him as if in a live stage performance, complete with three curtain calls at the finish. Jolson is dressed as a plantation worker for the entirety of the short, but only performs his entrance in character. For the remainder of the film he speaks and performs to the audience as Al Jolson. The film features one set, that of a cabin with farmland behind it, and a cage with live chickens. Two fixed film cameras are used to give a wide shot and a medium shot of Jolson and the set.
Its premiere took place on October 7, 1926, at the Colony Theatre, New York, where it concluded a program of short subjects that accompanied Warner Brothers' second feature-length Vitaphone film The Better 'Ole. The "Intermission" card which appears at its end derives from that use. Critics praised A Plantation Act as the hit of the show.[1]
The short was long believed to be a lost film, and its unavailability fueled the misconception that Jolson's first sound film was the famous feature-length milestone The Jazz Singer, which premiered almost exactly one year later. A mute print of A Plantation Act was eventually found in the Library of Congress, mislabeled as a preview for The Jazz Singer. A copy of the corresponding soundtrack disc also came to light, but it had been broken into four pieces and glued back together so imperfectly that it would not play through. After some careful surgery, restoration technicians succeeded in making a usable dub from the disc and digitally removing the pops and clicks resulting from the damage.[1] The restored film was included on a LaserDisc published in the 1990s and as a bonus feature on the 2007 3-disc DVD release of The Jazz Singer.
^ abVitaphone News, vol.2 no.2 (Fall/Winter-1994). Retrieved April 5, 2016.
APlantationAct (1926) is an early Vitaphone sound-on-disc short film starring Al Jolson, the first film that Jolson starred in. Jolson in blackface sings...
PlantationAct may refer to: PlantationAct 1740 (1740), an act of the British Parliament on the American Colonies APlantationAct (1926), an early sound...
Britain. The Crown saw the plantations as a means of controlling, anglicising and 'civilising' Gaelic Ireland. The main plantations took place from the 1550s...
an act [...] it is, amongst other things, enacted, that the officers for collecting and managing his Majesty's revenue, and inspecting the plantation trade...
The PlantationAct 1740 (referring to colonies) or the Naturalization Act 1740 are common names used for an act of the British Parliament (13 Geo. 2....
perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on aplantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, coffee, tea...
Jolson starred in the talking film APlantationAct. This simulation of a stage performance by Jolson was presented in a program of musical shorts, demonstrating...
England. The purpose of the act was to stop the carrying of plantation goods to another plantation with their subsequent shipment to a foreign country on the...
The Act of Settlement 1662 (14 & 15 Chas. 2 Sess. 4. c. 2 (I)) was passed by the Irish Parliament in Dublin. It was a partial reversal of the Cromwellian...
Parte Mohriez recognized citizenship for a Saudi Muslim man in 1944. Congress modeled the Act on the PlantationAct 1740 of the British Parliament (13 Geo...
the pun-filled stump speech. The final act consisted of a slapstick musical plantation skit or a send-up of a popular play. Minstrel songs and sketches...
The Plantation of Ulster (Irish: Plandáil Uladh; Ulster Scots: Plantin o Ulstèr) was the organised colonisation (plantation) of Ulster – a province of...
The Governors of PlantationsAct 1698 (11 Will. 3. c. 12) or "An Act to punish Governors of Plantations in this Kingdom for crimes by them committed in...
This is a list of plantations and/or plantation houses in the U.S. state of Louisiana that are National Historic Landmarks, listed on the National Register...
Sugar plantations in the Caribbean were a major part of the economy of the islands in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Most Caribbean islands were...
Mediterranean. While docked in Hawaii, he worked on a pineapple plantation, acted at the community theatre and sang on a local radio program. In 1938, he decided...
and that the large plantation system developed. In the 15 years between the invention of the cotton gin and the passage of the Act Prohibiting Importation...
Drax Hall Estate is a sugarcane plantation situated in Saint George, Barbados, in the Caribbean. Drax Hall still stands on the site where sugarcane was...
characteristics of many plantations of the period in their exploitation of slavery, their particular significance was as a part of a charitable bequest in...
Lindbergh's takeoff for Paris. Al Jolson films APlantationAct, one of the first unreleased talkies and a test film for The Jazz Singer Ang Tatlong Hambog...
first sugar plantation. In 1836 the first 8,000 pounds (3,600 kg) of sugar and molasses was shipped to the United States. The plantation town of Koloa...
1940s, the LeBeau Plantation was known as the Cardone Hotel. On Thursday, June 26, 1986, the LeBeau Plantation house was damaged in an act of arson. On Friday...
Global Information