An advertisement for the film in the
Philadelphia editon
of the Yiddish Forward, which appeared on April 15, 1933:
Europa Theatre, Market, Above 16th.
Continous from 11 a.m.; 40 cents to 1 p.m. ... Today ... An entire
day from 11 in the morning, until 11 in the evening ... The first
100 percent Yiddish-spoken film from Soviet Russia! See what a
Jewish worker, who has spent 28 years in America, has found out when
he now returns to Russia ... "The Return of Nathan Becker," It will
be seen for the first time as it lives now in Soviet Russia ... Hear
the beloved Yiddish folk songs from the old country ... Performed by
the chorus and ballet of the Moscow State Theatre, together with the
Leningrad Symphony Orchestra ... The best and truest greeting from
the present Russia. A pleasure that will last for a long time and
will not be forgotten.
Neytn Beker Fort Aheym
(The Return of Nathan Becker)
Directed by Boris
Shpis and Mark Milman
Screenplay by Peretz Markish
Music by Yevgeni Brusilovsky
USSR, 1932
Russian and Yiddish with English Subtitles
94 minutes, B & W
Released in the Soviet Union on December 3, 1932.
Released in the United States on April 14, 1933.
This rare, newly restored feature was
originally advertised as "the first Yiddish talkie from
Soviet Russia." The plot centers on Nathan Becker, a Jewish
bricklayer who returns to Russia after 28 years in America.
After reuniting with his father (played with comic
eccentricity by Solomon Mikhoels) Nathan leaves the shtetl
to work in the new industrial center of Magnitogorsk.
There, he and his African-American
friend Jim soon find that the work habits they acquired in
America that helped them to "build New York together"
conflict with the Soviet system. While the film's resolution
emphasizes the triumph of socialist productivity, the
screenplay by Yiddish author Peretz Markish reflects the
warmth and humor of the Jewish spirit.
The
Return of Nathan Becker is the only Russian Yiddish
sound feature film produced in the Soviet Union and was made
for domestic consumption as well as for export to the United
States. The film uses the character of Nathan Becker to
dramatize of the failiure of American capitalism and
assimilation, while glorifying the success and productivity
of the new Soviet system. The film also depicts the shtetl
way of life was backward and grotesque and promotes a shift
away from this life and traditional Jewish values. It is a
product of the Communist regime's determined efforts to
reduce the rich Jewish cultural heritage to "Communist in
content and Yiddish in form only."
Solomon Mihoels, actor and director of
the Moscow Yiddish State Theater who also starred in the
1925 film Jewish Luck has a leading role. The
screenplay was written by Peretz Markish, the renowned
Soviet Yiddish poet. Mikhoels was killed by Stalin's agents
in 1948 and four years later Markish was executed along side
the leading proponents of Soviet Yiddish culture.