The Jazz Singer

After the movie was finished, Sir Laurence Olivier went to New York City for a short time, and had dinner in a restaurant with friends. During the dinner, he recalled to his friends something he said about the movie while Sidney J. Furie was still directing: "This piss is shit." Olivier later said a reporter must have been at the table next to his, because the next day the New York Daily News reported what he said (though with both vulgar words changed to cleaner derogatory words). This news soon spread completely across the country, and with threats of lawsuits in the air, Olivier quickly made a statement to the press claiming that in the end, the movie had been made well, and that he totally supported it. Olivier also wrote a handwritten ten-page letter to director Richard Fleischer, not only apologizing for the restaurant incident, but also indirectly giving an explanation as to why he was making so many movies strictly for the money.

Jess sings to an audience in California in the middle of the movie. At the movie's ending, he is singing to an audience in New York (it is assumed from the progression of the film) and it is quite obviously the same audience and venue. A number of audience members are present in both scenes. There is a woman with glasses wearing a vest and white shirt, a man in the middle of the audience with a checked cap, and a large man having a great time down front clapping very excitedly.

Featured in Sneak Previews: The Jazz Singer/Seems Like Old Times/A Change of Seasons/Resurrection (1980)