The American matchmaker

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Movie
German title The American matchmaker
Original title American damsel
Country of production United States
original language Yiddish
Publishing year 1940
length 2340.86 m (9 reels), 85 (DVD: 87) minutes
Rod
Director Edgar G. Ulmer
script Shirley Ulmer as S. Castle, after Gustav H. Heimo
production Edgar G. Ulmer, Fame Films Inc.
music Sam Morgenstern
camera J. Burgi Contner and Edward Hyland
cut Hans E. Mandl
occupation

Also:

  • Esther Adler, H. Appel, I. Arco, M. Boodkin, Charles Cohn, B. Gailing, A. Gross, Miriam Grossman, Sarah Krohner, M. Henig, M. Lerner, V. Luboff, William Mercur, Jacob Mestel, Adrienne Ulmer and Arthur Winters

The American matchmaker (original title: Amerikaer Schadchen ; אמעריקאנער שגכן) is the title of a Yiddish sound film that Edgar G. Ulmer directed in 1940 for Fame Films Inc. based on a script written by his wife Shirley Ulmer under the pseudonym S. Castle based on a story by Gustav H. Heimo (actually Gustav Horowitz, born February 4, 1895 in Vienna, died February 28, 1986 in California, USA, cousin of Edgar G. Ulmer). B. Ressler wrote the dialogues. The leading role was played by Leo Fuchs , who was known in the Jewish theaters on Second Avenue as the "Yiddish Fred Astaire." He was assisted by Judith Abarbanel, who had previously appeared in the Yiddish films Uncle Moses (1932) and The Cantor's Son (1937).

action

The wealthy Jewish-American businessman Nat Silver was engaged to be married seven times, and his eighth engagement is about to fall apart. Smart as he is, he learns from the fact that it is he who first has to learn how to arrange a good match before he can find a suitable partner for himself. So he takes on a new name, calls himself Nat Gold and becomes a matchmaker, in Yiddish: a shadkhn . Contrary to all traditions, he starts his company - of which he understands nothing - in a dressing gown and a plastron tie, and refuses to take money for his services, with which he roused the local shadkhonim against him. The idea of ​​a matchmaker trust is at least as foreign to them as it is to staff meetings and spectacular advertising. In American shadchen , the customs of the Eastern European shtetl meet the refined New York way of life and the result is a romantic comedy.

background

The recordings were made in the Bronx . The set was designed by William Saulter , the interior was designed by W. Mack. J. Burgi Contner and Edward Hyland took care of the photography , Dean Cole made the sound recordings . Anna Guskin and William Mercur assisted the director . Hans E. Mandl edited the film. The costumes were designed by Mme. Berthé and E. Rosenthal. Gustav Horowitz was the production manager . The score was conducted by Sam Morgenstern. S. Rubinstein wrote the English subtitles. The film was a production of Fame Films Inc. and was distributed by Fame-Pictures Distributors Inc.

American Shadkhn , in English The Matchmaker , premiered on May 6, 1940 in New York City . It remained sporadically in the program until September, but without great success at the box office.

Film music

The film contains the following songs sung in Yiddish, the words of which were composed by William Mercur. They are presented by Leo Fuchs:

  • Oj oj oj shpil [shpil mir a shtikhele] (music: trad.)
  • Ikh bin a shayner bocher (music: trad.)
  • Drink, brother, drink (music: trad.)
  • Musical Tango (music: trad.)

The following are quoted from classical music:

reception

The film was featured in the New York Times . AMERIKANER SCHADCHEN, set in 1900, shows a follow-up conflict of Jewish immigration to the USA, the conflict between the “second generation”, children with their parents who were still born in Russia or Poland.

Stefan Grissemann calls the American Schadkhn Ulmers “most American, but paradoxically also his most personal work so far in terms of content”.

Miriam Strube thinks that American Schadkhn was clearly a forerunner of films like Woody Allen ’s Annie Hall . Because it is also about questions of Jewish identity: about responsibility, the feeling of being different from the society of the WASPs , the intellectual view of life, urban conditions, neurotic uncertainty and, in connection with this, the interest in - as well as the questioning of - psychoanalysis Freud's and gender problems. Even the title of the film, she believes, combines the very traditional Jewish figure of the schadchen with American identity and thus alludes to the clash of cultures, the consequences of which are inevitably ambivalence and divided consciousness. When the protagonist Nat decides to become a schadchen after the failure of his eighth engagement , he not only follows the example of his uncle Shya, who was a successful matchmaker in the old world, but also modernizes the image of this profession, Americanizes the business that he wants to operate. He takes off the beard and hat that the old schadchonim wore, instead dresses more like a diplomat, and his company sign identifies him as an advisor for human relations .

Performances in recent times

The National Center for Jewish Film released "American Shadkhn" on DVD in 1998 in a restored version and with new English subtitles as part of its series The Yiddish Features of Edgar Ulmer ; the restored version is 2 minutes longer than the 1940 version.

"American Shadkhn" was screened on August 10, 2005 at the Rhode Island International Film Festival .

With an introduction by the co-director of the National Center for Jewish Film , Lisa Rivo, the film was also shown at the Washington Jewish Film Festival (WJFF) on Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 12:30 pm at the Goethe-Institut Washington .

literature

  • Micha Brumlik, Ronny Loewy: The Yiddish Cinema. German Filmmuseum, 1982, ISBN 3-88799-002-1 , pp. 7–8, 117.
  • Gabriele Coen, Isotta Toso (Ed.): Klezmer! la musica popolare ebraica dallo shtetl a John Zorn. Castelvecchi Verlag, 2000, ISBN 88-8210-108-8 , pp. 123-125.
  • Bill Crohn: Film Comment Edgar G. Ulmer. Film Society of Lincoln Center. (filmcomment.com)
  • Guido Fink: Non solo Woody Allen: la tradizione ebraica nel cinema americano. (= Biblioteca Marsilio (Saggi Marsilio)). Marsilio Publishing House, 2001, ISBN 88-317-7074-8 , pp. 74, 289.
  • Roger Fristoe: American damage. 1940. (tcm.com)
  • Stefan Grissemann: Man in the shadows: the filmmaker Edgar G. Ulmer. Zsolnay Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3-552-05227-5 , pp. 93, 128, 138 ff., 142, 150, 375.
  • Bernd Herzogenrath (Ed.): The Films of Edgar G. Ulmer. Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8108-6736-9 , pp. 82, 100-103.
  • Jim [d. i. James Lewis] Hoberman: Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds (= Interfaces, studies in visual culture, author J. Hoberman ). National Center for Jewish Film, Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY). Dartmouth College Press, Hanover, NH 2010, ISBN 978-1-58465-870-2 , pp. 191, 314, 316-322, 360.
  • Jan-Christopher Horak: Fluchtpunkt Hollywood: a documentation on film emigration after 1933. MAkS, Münster 1986, ISBN 3-88811-303-2 , pp. 152, 172, 191–192.
  • Elèna Mortara Di Veroli, Laura Quercioli Mincer (eds.): Il mondo yiddish. Volume 2 (= La rassegna mensile di Israel. Gennaio-Agosto. Volume 62, issues 1-2). Unione della Comunità Ebraiche Italiane, 1996, p. 384.
  • Rudolf Ulrich: Austrians in Hollywood. 2nd, revised edition. Filmarchiv Austria, 2004, ISBN 3-901932-29-1 , pp. 151-152, 538.
  • Anne-Lise Weidmann, Samuel Bréan: Traduire le yiddish. Le yiddish au cinéma - le cinéma yiddish. (ataa.fr) (French)

Web links

Film clips

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Roger Fristoe: Americaner Schadchen (1940), online at tcm.com
  2. ↑ Photo of the artist, aufgen. 1937.
  3. ↑ yiddishcinema.net , (yiddishcinema.net)
  4. ↑ cf. Obituary Sam Morgenstern, Composer, 83 in the New York Times , published: December 30, 1989.
  5. ↑ cf. IMDb / release dates
  6. ↑ so Grissemann p. 144.
  7. ↑ Still photo of the scene at ataa.fr
  8. ↑ cf. Of Local Origin in nytimes.com , May 7, 1940, p. 31.
  9. ↑ Brumlik - Loewy 1982, p. 8.
  10. ↑ Grissemann p. 139.
  11. ↑ in Herzogenrath p. 100 f.
  12. ↑ together with the Yiddish short film I Want to Be A Boarder (איך וויל זיין א בארדער / Ikh Vil Zayn a Boarder, USA 1937, with Leo Fuchs and Yetta Zwerling, director: Joseph Seiden ), cf. jewishfilm.org
  13. ↑ cf. IMDb / trivia
  14. ↑ cf. IMDb / release info