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Welcome to the Movies!

 

   
   
  The Cast:    
       
Maurice Schwartz ... Leybke
Oscar Beregi Sr. ... Count Esaky
Dagny Servaes ... Helena, the Count's daughter
Fritz Strassny ... Scribe
Bina Abramowitz ... Grandmother
Berta Gerstin ... Jadviga, Helena's Chambermaid
Anna Appel ... Zsusi, Leybke's foster mother
Mae Schoenfeld Lotte Stranger ...  
Wolf Goldfaden ... Zimel, the innkeeper
Isidore Cashier ... Steward
Mae Schoenfeld Betty Reve ... Kreyndl
Mark Schweid ... Hunchback
Carl Goetz ... Stefan, Captain of the Guard
Morris Strassberg ... Jailor
Mae Schoenfeld Wolf Silberberg ... Rabbi
Jacob Mestel ... Second rabbi
Mae Schoenfeld Joseph Schwartzberg ... Sexton

 

 

YIZKOR
Directed by Sidney M. Goldin, George Roland
Written by Harry Seckler (play and screenplay)
 Re-edited, with additional sound sequences
and narration filmed and recorded in New York City in 1932.
Re-edit released in the United States on May 27, 1933.
Austria, 1924
100 minutes, silent, B & W
 

Yizkor dramatizes its theme of fidelity to one's self, one's community and one's religion through a plot that revolves around hostage-taking, heroism and resistance. In a small Volhynian village, the local Count's daughter falls in love with Leybke, a handsome Jewish guardsman, but all her attempts to win him fail as he is in love with and betrothed to Kreyndl. The Countess desperately tries to seduce Leybke, and avenges her failure by falsely accusing him of attacking her. Arrested on the eve of his wedding, Leybke escapes and marries Kreyndl, but after they flee the entire Jewish community is held hostage. Leybke gives himself up, is buried alive and the Countess commits suicide.

-- The National Center for Jewish Film

 


A revamp of an old Yiddish silent. Must have been quite a production in the old days. The picture today isn't much to look or listen at, a good deal of it having been botched. But Jews are easy to please in the theatre. They'll go for it.

Starts off with a little boy asking the Rabbi what "Yiskor" means. Rabbi begins telling an old legend that the prayer is based on. Old silent picture is used to portray the story he's telling while his voice goes on describing the action. In a couple [of] spot pieces are re-enacted for talk and song purposes, and these bits are pretty well blended in. The editing could have been a bit better, and the sound could have been improved upon also.

The old film has to do with a haughty princess who falls in love with a Jewish soldier in her father's guards. She tries to make love to him; he won't give in because he's in love with a Jewish girl. So the princess has him sent to jail, then goes down and commits suicide in his cell. That looks like murder to the others, so they bury the lad alive. And for some reason not made clear in the film, his action calls for prayer from all Judaism once a year.

The action is pretty bad throughout, but Maurice Schwartz is a name to conjure with in the Yiddish theatre.

-- Kauf, Variety, June 6, 1933.

 

Here is a flip clip from the movie.


 

 


 




Cast listings courtesy of www.imdb.com.
 

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