The Jazz Singer

Long before he garnered critical acclaim for his ‘serious’ performance as Jerry Langford in Martin Scorsese’s The Kind of Comedy, Jerry Lewis proved he was more than just a silly comic with his fine dramatic work in this 1959 television special. The film, which premiered on NBC’s Lincoln-Mercury Startime TV series, has been dug out of the comedian’s comedy vaults, given a bit of polish and is now available for all in a B&W kinescope of the broadcast and an extremely rare color video recording, one of the earliest surviving examples of color television. Whichever way you watch it, you’ll be impressed. Lewis keeps the funny business on the stage for when his character, a night club performer, does his act. And he’s pretty funny, too. It’s the serious side, the side he shows as the man who denied his family and faith to follow his dreams that sticks with you.