The Purimshpiler (The Jester)

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"Der Purimshpiler (The Jester)" opened with the above ad in the Yiddish Forward (Forverts) newspaper on December 5, 1937. It reads in part:
The first Yiddish movie operetta with a Hollywood scope! An image that perpetuates the beautiful Jewish types and traditions!
25 cents, until 1 p.m. on Wednesday.
Joseph Green presents Miriam Kressyn, Hymie Jacobson, Zygmunt Turkow and a cast of 1,500 people in "Der Purimspiler"
at the Cameo Theatre on 42nd Street and Broadway.


The Cast:
Jennie Goldstein	...	Betty Glickstein
Sylvia Dell	...	Sally Glickstein, R.N.
Muni Serebroff	...	Dr. Max Feinberg
Harvey Kier	...	Dr. Jack Glickstein
Michael Rosenberg	...	Chaym Itsche, the chicken-flicker
Jacob Wexler	...	Uncle Leibish Glickstein
Bettie Bialis	...	Betty, as a child
Bettie Jacobs	...	The Widow Dubrish
Joan Carroll	...	Sally, as a child
Abraham Teitelbaum	...	Gershon Glickstein, father
Celia Boodkin	...	Rachel Glickstein, mother
Rebecca Weintraub	...	Margaret (Anderson's office nurse)
Yudl Dubinsky	...	Kalman Klapper, the marriage broker
Ida Adler
Anetta Hoffman
Anna Levine

DER PURIMSPILER
(THE JESTER)
Director: Joseph Green and Jan Nowina-Przybylski.
Dialogue and Song Lyrics by Itzik Manger
Music by Nicholas Brodsky.
Filmed outside of Warsaw and in Kazimierz.
Released in U.S. on December 5, 1937.
90 minutes
black & white

"Set in a Galician shtetl before World War I, this musical comedy is rich with itinerant performers and star-crossed lovers. Negotiating the romantic rapids are a lonely jester, a circus performer, and Esther, the shoemaker's daughter, whose poor father tries to marry her into a prominent family. the intrigue climaxes with a Pruim shpil (Purim play), and its parade of costumes, buffoonery, and music.

Directors Joseph Green (Yiddle with His Fiddle, Mamele, A Letter to Mother) and Jan Nowina-Przybylski filmed on location on a farm near Warsaw and in Kazimierz.

The film's wonderful circus and vaudeville set pieces and music offer a taste of Warsaw's then-thriving Yiddish revues and cabarets, which were obliterated during the Holocaust.

New film restoration includes new English subtitles and the preservation of rare, original blue & sepia-toned segments." -- The National Center for Jewish Film