THE JAZZ SINGER: a revisionist take on this much maligned musical

I've generally been a supporter of The Golden Raspberry Awards, or Razzies. They've done a great job over the years of shining a mercilessly harsh light on Hollywood's more tasteless or talentless excesses, but I do have to take issue with their choice of Worst Actor for their first ever awards in 1981.
The Raspberry went to Neil Diamond for his performance in THE JAZZ SINGER and, having just watched the film, I think they gave it to the wrong guy.

This 1980 musical drama marked Diamond's big screen acting debut and while he's no Laurence Olivier (more on him in a moment) he's actually not that bad. I'd go so far as to describe him as  adequate in the part of Yussel Rabinovitch, a cantor's son who upsets his devoutly Jewish family when he leaves New York for Los Angeles to pursue a career as a pop (not a jazz) singer.
Yussel's rise to fame, under the more easily pronounceable name of Jess Robin, is implausibly meteoric, but Diamond is reasonably convincing and never embarrasses himself (apart from with his haircut). Which is more than can be said for Olivier as his father, Cantor Rabinovitch. In religious terms it's verging on blasphemous, but in acting terms it is entirely appropriate to describe Olivier's performance as hammy in the extreme. He shamelessly steals every scene he's in with displays of stereotypical Yiddish theatrics that would have made Al Jolson blush. The Razzies were right on the money when they awarded the greatest actor of his generation the Golden Raspberry for Worst Supporting Actor of 1980.
I've read reports that when Richard Fleischer was brought in to salvage the movie after original director Sidney J.Furie was fired, he insisted on re-shooting most of Olivier's scenes because he had overacted so badly. Given his overheated performance in the version that made it to the big screen, it's almost impossible to imagine how bad he must have been in the discarded version. If only someone had saved those scenes - what wonderful DVD extras they would have made!
Fleischer and Furie were both nominated for worst director but lost out to Robert Greenwald for 'Xanadu' which, I reckon is a far worse film than THE JAZZ SINGER. But the one redeeming factor both these films have in common is some great music on the soundtrack. Where 'Xanadu' had the title track by Olivia Newton John and ELO, THE JAZZ SINGER has 'America', 'Hello Again' and the wonderful, Golden Globe nominated 'Love on the rocks.'
With music that mighty it's possible to forgive all the other inadequacies.