SAY IT WITH SONGS (WB, 1929), directed by Lloyd Bacon, reunites the legendary Al Jolson with little boy wonder, Davey Lee, of 'SINGING FOOL' (WB, 1928) fame, in yet another sentimental musical drama that failed to live up to the success of its predecessor. This, Jolson's third feature film, contains several firsts in his movie career: His first full length talkie (unlike his previous two efforts which were silent with talking and singing sequences); his first to not present him singing a song in blackface (HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM in 1933 was his second and last); and the first Al Jolson movie to flop at the box office. It was also one of the few films in his career in which his on-screen character isn't named AL, and the second and last to cast him as a married man.

Jolson plays Joe Lane, a former boxer now a successful radio singer. He is happily married with a loving wife, Katherine (Marion Nixon), and a little boy he calls "Little Pal" (Davey Lee). Joe's biggest fault is being unreliable, and weakness is losing all his money while gambling with the boys, but his soft spot in his heart goes to his "Little Pal." Joe owes much to his success to Arthur Phillips (Kenneth Thomson), his best friend, but in reality, Phillips has his eyes on Katherine, and is not ashamed to admit it directly to her. One night after standing up his wife in favor of gambling, Joe returns home to find Katherine now fed up with him and telling him that they should separate. After the couple patch up their differences, Katherine finds herself having to tell Joe the truth about Arthur coming on to her, who promises Joe further success if she "would be nice to him." Upon hearing this, Joe flares up and tells her that he'll "kill him." This line is overheard by Little Pal in the next room, unaware that this is his father's figure of speech not actually meant to be carried out. But what's said and done are two different things. While Arthur is driving Joe to the radio station, Joe, unable to control his temper, has the car stopped and begins fighting with Arthur on the sidewalk. After Arthur's head accidently hits the stone cornice, Joe leaves him there for being injured, and walks over to the station to do his final broadcast before quitting, unaware how seriously injured Arthur is, so injured that he dies. The police locate Joe at the radio station where his arrest is heard over the air. At the trial, it is Little Pal's testament of what he had overheard his father say the night of Arthur's death that has Joe sentenced to prison on a manslaughter charge, leaving his wife to support herself by returning to her former position as nurse to Doctor Arthur Phillips (Holmes Herbert), a middle-aged physician who is still in love with her. After Joe is paroled, he comes to visit Little Pal at McKinley's School for Boys where they have a tearful reunion. After Joe leaves, the boy follows his dad down the street only to get struck by a passing truck. Diagnosed with an injured spine and a sore paralysis, Joe is advised to go to a specialist, Doctor Merrill, who can perform the delicate operation. But Merrill has a price, to have Joe go away and never see Katherine and the boy again so that he can marry her after the divorce, or for Joe to pay the high fee of $5,000.

As syrupy as the plot sounds, it's even more thicker on screen. Relying heavily on the success of THE SINGING FOOL, lightning didn't strike twice for Jolson, Lee and director Bacon. Jolson and Lee even repeated some of the same sentimental gimmics they did in the previous film, including Davey Lee's raising his arms to have his Daddy pick him up and give him a kiss, or vice versa. The heavy melodramatics might have worked somehow had it not been for Al Jolson's bad acting. Segments where he gets overly excited finds him screeching in his voice and looking back and forth with his left mouth open as if he were waiting for further direction from his director. Overacting is evident when he cries in his jail cell after telling his wife he never wants to see her again during visiting hours. Even worse, after he finds that his son was the one struck by a passing truck, he unconvincingly shouts out, "Oh my God, it's MY baby." Also when Jolson is singing, particularly "One Sweet Kiss" on a coast to coast radio hookup on Christmas day, he does this in a manner of dramatics, in the hope by doing this will earn him an Academy Award. But regardless of the results, the finished product is at times embarrassing to watch. As Robert Osborne once said in one of its rare TV presentations on Turner Classic Movies, audiences flocked to theaters to see the film (hoping to get more of that Jolson magic, as he did with THE SINGING FOOL), but business dropped in a hurry, and the movie quickly disappeared. Fortunately, however, it did not become one of many lost films from the "dawn of sound" era.

SAY IT WITH SONGS, such as it is, does include some interesting scenes of potential. One set in prison where Joe sings "Why Can't You" to his fellow prisoners, followed by a montage and split screen of fellow convicts before the fadeout as he concludes the song with his face behind the prison bars; Little Davey falling asleep and dreaming of his Dad appearing to him and singing "Little Pal"; and another which borrows from the climatic scene of the silent version of STELLA DALLAS (1925) which has Joe looking in on his son from the outside window. Marion Nixon, in her Janet Gaynor manner, wasn't much help in her partake as Joe's wife. Like Jolson, her acting would improve on screen in later years, but it is Jolson's performance that boggs down the plot. Aside from the lead actors, Davey Lee has his tender moments on screen, but at times it's hard to understand what he's saying. One scene in which he follows his father on the street comes off funny because he's wabbling either like a puppet of like silent film comic Charlie Chaplin. With this movie nearly forgotten, Davey Lee will always be remembered more for his role as Sonny Boy than as Little Pal. He would retire from the screen in 1930 at the ripe old age of six.

SAY IT WITH SONGS does have its handful of songs, but none made it to the hit parade. The songs include: "Used to You," "Little Pal," "I'm in Seventh Heaven," "Why Can't You?" "One Sweet Kiss," "Little Pal," "Little Pal" (reprises) and "I'm in Seventh Heaven." Supposedly distributed in theaters at 95 minutes, TV print that airs on TCM, is 85 minutes, ten minutes shorter. I'm not sure whether the film currently available is from a reissue print or from a shorter copy released to theaters after its initial premiere. But one noticeable cut occurs in the early portion of the story in the radio station where Joe Lane asks one of the visiting sponsors if he wants to hear his new song, "I'm Crazy for You." After Joe goes over to the piano to plug it, the scene that follows is dialogue between Katherine and Arthur Phillips in his office. Another reported song, "Back in Your Own Back Yard," supposedly written for the film, is also absent. While both these songs do not exist in the existing print, they are, however, included in a 1980s soundtrack recording titled "Legends of the Musical Stage (Rare Soundtrack Recordings 1928-1930), compliments from Sandy Hook Records. To date, SAY IT WITH SONGS never made it to video cassette, but did become part of the Al Jolson film collection when distributed on laser disc in the early 1990s.

Also seen in supporting roles are Fred Kohler Sr. as Joe's cellmate; Arthur Hoyt and John Bowers.

SAY IT WITH SONGS is not the kind of movie one would see for entertainment, but mainly as a curiosity to see why this film failed and why it doesn't hold up today. But thanks to TCM for airing SAY IT WITH SONGS just the same. It satisfied my curiosity.