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The Yiddish Film Industry
Title
The Yiddish Film Industry
Description
The first synchronous Yiddish-language talkie was produced in 1929, only 18 months after the first (ever) talkie, The Jazz Singer, which, remarkably, centered on the experiences of a Jewish performer. The interwar period saw the accelerated growth of the Yiddish-language film industry that brought movie-makers and directors from America to shoot scenes of authentic Jewish life in Poland. The biggest hits of the Golden Age (1935-1939) were Yidl With his Fiddle (Yidl Mitn Fidl), Green Fields (Grine Felder) and The Dybbuk (Der dibek).
In Yidl Mitn Fidl, Picon's character disguises herself as a boy in order to escape an arranged marriage and perform with a band of klezmorim. With the exception of Picon, the rest of the cast was drawn from Warsaw's various theatrical ensembles. Here, Picon also cross-dresses to play the title character Shmendrik, a movie based on the 1877 operetta composd by the theater's founder, Avrom Goldfaden.
Actress Molly Picon (1898-1992) in Shmendrik; Rokhl Holzer in Al Khet; and Ida Kaminska as The Jazz Singer on the Polish-Yiddish stage
In Yidl Mitn Fidl, Picon's character disguises herself as a boy in order to escape an arranged marriage and perform with a band of klezmorim. With the exception of Picon, the rest of the cast was drawn from Warsaw's various theatrical ensembles. Here, Picon also cross-dresses to play the title character Shmendrik, a movie based on the 1877 operetta composd by the theater's founder, Avrom Goldfaden.
Actress Molly Picon (1898-1992) in Shmendrik; Rokhl Holzer in Al Khet; and Ida Kaminska as The Jazz Singer on the Polish-Yiddish stage
Source
RG8
Publisher
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
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Citation
“The Yiddish Film Industry,” YIVO Online Exhibitions, accessed March 23, 2023, https://ataleoftwomuseums.yivo.org/items/show/2232.