King of Jazz debuted in 1930 amid a cinematic era dominated by musical revues and the evolution of two-color Technicolor. One of the most expensive and elaborately staged films of its time, King of Jazz centered on bandleader Paul Whiteman — a large, curiously mustachioed man who in the 1920s was as famous as Babe Ruth — and his talented orchestra.
A number of other curiosities were on display within the film’s revue format that were distinctive, including the first use of Technicolor animation and the debut screen performance of the crooner Bing Crosby, whose baby face is adorned with an alarming abundance of rouge (possibly in an attempt to take advantage of the film’s Technicolor capabilities).
Yet, coming on the heels of likeminded fare, King of Jazz fell through the cracks during its initial run. It was altered for re-release a few years later, but then fell into obscurity and was rarely seen again.
But now, 86 years after its release, NBCUniversal is debuting a digitally restored version of King of Jazz that comes as close as possible to what audiences witnessed in 1930. On Thursday evening, it is getting a special screening at the Kenwood Theatre as the centerpiece of a fundraising event for Media Heritage, Inc., a nonprofit organization devoted to the history of radio, television and film. The organization’s emphasis is on Cincinnati broadcast history, but its leaders are also devotees of classic cinema.
“It was certainly a very expensive restoration, and I think Universal was hesitant to commit to it in the past,” says James Layton, the manager of the Film Preservation Center at the Museum of Modern Art who has extensively researched King of Jazz. “But there were various reasons why it finally did happen. One big impetus was the film getting registered in 2013 on the National Film Registry, which is a national list of films of historical, artistic and cultural importance that is run by the Library of Congress. And then Universal rediscovered some of the original elements when they were doing a new inventory of their holdings.”
Layton would know — he’s the co-author of The Dawn of Technicolor: 1915-1935 and the forthcoming The King of Jazz: Paul Whiteman’s Technicolor Revue, a lush, impressively detailed book about the creation of a film that hasn’t been seen properly since the Herbert Hoover administration.
“Also, in recent years Universal has set up their own in-house digital restoration department, which allows them to do restorations more efficiently,” Layton continues. “So it’s a convergence of all of these things, and the timing just worked out.”
Layton is an endless encyclopedia of information when it comes to Hollywood’s transition from the silent to talkie eras. And he, of course, has a theory about why King of Jazz was not a success during its initial theatrical run.
“If it had been released in 1929 at the peak of musicals, it would have been a smash hit, but it came just a little too late,” he says. (It cost $2 million to produce in 1930, a massive amount at the time.)
A truncated, highly altered VHS version of the film surfaced in the 1980s, one that nonetheless included King of Jazz’s signature sequence — a glorious performance of “Rhapsody in Blue,” during which Whiteman’s orchestra plays within a giant recreation of a grand piano. (That version can be seen via streaming at archive.org.)
“The VHS release is certainly incomplete, and it’s actually in the wrong order and there were all sorts of other issues with it,” Layton says. “The visual quality is terrible and the colors don’t look like what it originally looked like. The restoration is a complete revelation. They’ve gone back to the original camera negative and they’ve tried to piece the film back together as much as they can.”
Layton is excited about the possibility of a whole new audience being exposed to a film and a cinematic era that deserves more attention. “This is really an amazing glimpse of what was technically possible, what was visually possible and the quality of performances at that time. It’s a fascinating window back in time.”
KING OF JAZZ screens at 7 p.m. Thursday at Kenwood Theatre, 7815 Kenwood Ave. General seating $25; VIP seating $50. More info/tickets at mediaheritage.org.
This article appears in Aug 24-31, 2016.