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Welcome to the Movies!











 

   
  The Cast:    
       
Ludwig Satz ... Edouard Wien
Lucy Levine ... Golde Blumberg
Isidore Cashier ... Oscar Stein
Mae Schoenfeld Lillian Feinman ... Auntie Kaufman
Michael Rosenberg ... The Stage Manager
Jacob Frank ...  
Mae Schoenfeld Zita Makar ...  
Mae Schoenfeld Anne Shapiro ...  
Mae Schoenfeld Anne G. Sterling ...  

 


ZAYN VAYBS LUBOVNIK
(His Wife's Lover)
Directed by Sidney M. Goldin.
Written by Sheyne Rokhl Semkoff.
First released in the U.S. on 25 September 1931.
80 minutes; B & W

Based on the novel "Love and Passion" by Isidore Zolotarefsky. "Love and Sacrifice" is a prime example of "shund," the melodramatic theatrical escapist entertainment of the Yiddish theater. It opened at the Clinton Theater April 7, 1936 and was held over three weeks as the most popular Yiddish movie the Clinton had shown to date. Produced by Joseph Seiden over two days in a loft in New York City on a miniscule budget, this tale of a middle-class matron who shoots the man who compromises her was a tremendous success. The story of a long-suffering mother who goes to prison for shooting a would-be suitor employs many archetypes of Yiddish theater. From the conflict between the sacrificing mother and the homewrecking schemer, to the reunion of parent and child at a celebratory wedding the film provides a classic example of the Yiddish-American cinema.

-- The National Center for Jewish Film

 

"His Wife's Lover" is a 1931 Yiddish-language classic for good reason. It’s hailed as the first Jewish musical comedy sound film and was written by a woman, Sheyne Rokhl Simkoff (pen name Shin Ra-Chell).

“Lover” stars comedian Ludwig Satz as Eddie, a stage actor who sets out to prove that honorable women exist. Three main characters provide the conflict: Eddie, his woman-hating uncle, and working-girl Goldie. Eddie disguises himself as an intolerable elderly millionaire to see whether Goldie is swayed by money. Satz plays the impression to its extremes. Viewers and Goldie alike cringe at the sight of him.

The story’s rom-com sensibility is classic in its tropes: the invented identity, the bet gone awry, the battle of the sexes and the use of wordplay. “What good is my life if my wife loves me?” Eddie asks, fist clenched and clothes disheveled. It’s the kind of comedy that’s still accessible almost a century later.

-- The Atlanta Jewish Times


 



Cast listings courtesy of www.imdb.com.
 

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