King of Jazz. John Murray Anderson, 1930.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #915, released 2018. English language. Runtime approximately 100 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
What a disappointing drag. You know how some people call pop vocal music of the adult contemporary sort “jazz”? This film documents early stages of that error.
If you pretend to care, the Criterion release also includes the equally uninteresting short films All Americans (1929) which is just another version of King of Jazz’s finale, and I Know Everybody and Everybody’s Racket (1933) which is some other monotonous thing. For film historians, King of Jazz showcases the problems with early two-strip Technicolor, most notable in the big production number Rhapsody in Teal.