Symphony of Six Million

If I were picking a list of films for a Jewish film festival, Symphony Of Six Million would be right at the top of my list. Gregory LaCava directed it and with a rather florid style that probably would not go over with today's audience. Still it is quite a picture of the Jewish experience in America during the Depression years.

Ricardo Cortez stars here as an idealistic young kid who seeing the disease and poverty around him in the Lower East Side neighborhood he comes from works and studies hard to become a doctor. Cortez indeed becomes a doctor and opens a clinic in the old neighborhood.

But as his family sees it, he's too good for that. His brother Noel Madison persuades him to move uptown and start gathering a rich patient list in order that the entire family can move out and their parents Anna Appel and Gregory Ratoff can now take it easy.

Soon enough though Cortez forgets why he became a doctor with all the acclaim he now receives and the big money he commands. In the end he faces crises involving the health of two loved ones. He fails one and saves the other and possibly saves his soul as well.

One thing LaCava did was capture the Lower East Side of New York Jewish neighborhood. Appel and Ratoff were both veterans of the Yiddish theater and they really carry their parts off well. Cortez was also Jewish in real life, real name Jacob Kranz. He only got that name because he got his start playing Rudolph Valentino knockoff parts on the silent screen.

Irene Dunne is Cortez's co-star and she has little to do here as the girl who loves him since childhood. The film totally focuses around Cortez and his family dynamic.

Too melodramatic for today's audience, still Symphony For Six Million is a great picture of Jewish life in America in the not too distant past.

(There may be some Spoilers) Growing up in the Jewish ghetto on the lower East Side of Manhattan Felix Kauber, Ricardo Cortez, always wanted to help those less fortunate them himself which drove him to go into medical school and become a doctor. Working at the lower East Side Cherry Street Clinic Felix was happy helping the people in the area who couldn't afford to pay a family doctor or wait hours on end at the local hospital emergency ward for treatment which was no where up to the high standards that Felix provided for them free of charge.

Happy with his lot in life Felix's life begins to change for the worse when his greedy younger brother Magnus,Noal Maison, persuades their mom Mrs. Hanna Klauber, Anna Appal, to somewhat reluctantly tell Felix that he was throwing away his future as a high paid Park Avenue doctor, treating neurotic but very rich society women, by giving his service to people who were more or less charity cases.

It takes a while for Felix to change his lifestyle and doctors office, from downtrodden Cherry Street to rich and swanky Park Avenue, feeling rightly at first that his roots and friends that needed him most were in that poor to middle-class community. Finally taking his mom's and brothers advice Felix moves up in the world of medicine, and list of high class patients, becoming one of the foremost and respected surgeons in New York. But what he doesn't know until it's almost too late is that he traded in his humanity as well as his soul for a pot of porridge; like Esau the twin brother of Jacob traded his birthright in the bible.

Very effective and ahead of it's time early talkie about a Jewish family without the usual racial and ethnic stereotype. We even have Felix have a girlfriend the sweet and caring braille teacher Jessica, Irene Dunne, who seems to be non-Jewish, Jessica looks and acts like she's Irish, with his very Jewish parents not making a point of it which you would have expected in a very Jewish movie like "Symphony for Six Million".

Felix's father Mayer, Gregory Ratoff, as well as his mother Hanna and girlfriend Jessica become more and more distant from Filex as he becomes part of the upper crust of high society without even him realizing. When Felix wasn't able to attend to young Georgie, a boy from then ghetto, who died on the operating table that Felix finally realized that eh had gone astray; Georgie died with the words Felix on his lips. Felix got the news of Georgie's death from Jessica whom he at first, until he realized that it was her, didn't want to see her at his office because she didn't have a doctor's appointment.

Felix trying to keep his past in the Lower East Side behind him has it catch up with Felix big-time when his father Meyer suffers a stroke at a party given by Fielx's sister and her husband as well as their new born son. Filex being the only one who could remove the deadly tumor from his fathers brain suddenly freezes-up and in the ensuing operation Mayer dies on the operating table. It has to be said that Felix did the best he, or any other brain surgeon, could have but still held himself responsible for his fathers Meyer Klauber's death.

Broken in both mind and body Felix mindlessly roams the streets of New York in a haze not knowing if he'll ever be able to hold a scalpel in his hands again and goes into a deep depression where he just about gave up any hope or future from himself. It's when Felix got the word that his girlfriend Jessica is to be operated on, for the removable a spine tumor, that the old Felix came back. The attending physician Dr. Schiffen,John S. Polis, feeling that Felix is a much better surgeon then he'll ever be allows Felix to operate on Jessica. A bit rusty and out of form Felix never the less ends up saving Jessica in a miraculous spine operation thus saving both her life and redeeming his soul and his lifelong concern for the city's underprivileged.

Nowhere as corny as you would expect it to be with a solid performance by Ricardo Cortez, who's Jewish himself, as the humble and caring Jewish doctor Felix Klauber. Felix learned in the end what he always believed, until he was corrupted by a fistful of shekels. Felix learned that being a physician and surgeon is to live by the rule that he always had deeply etched in both his heart and soul and upheld until greed and high society momentary blinded him of it: "I dedicate these two hands..That the lame may walk, the halt be strong..Lifting up the needy; comforting the dying. This is my oath in the Temple of Healing".

Like a good soup, there are many elements to this movie. You first have to start with a good stock. The stock in this movie is the Lower East Side of New York in the 30's. The hustle and bustle, the rag pickers, the pushcarts, the tailors, the fishmongers. The whole flavor of life in the Jewish ghetto. Without this backdrop the movie would fall flat.

Next are the ingredients. The cast in this movie is genuine and almost flawless. Gregory Ratoff as the father, Ricardo Cortez (Jacob Krantz) as his son - the doctor, and Noel Madison as the ambitious brother. They are all authentic and they are all Jewish. I said almost flawless because there is one flaw. Irene Dunne is cast as the love interest. She is a good actress, but she is clearly a shiksa in looks, speech, and mannerism. She stood out like a pork chop amongst the knishes and kugels.

Finally, none of this would matter if somebody didn't know how to cook. The story isn't original - as a matter of fact it is still being done today. A young boy grows up in poverty. A poor but nourishing neighborhood. He is part of a loving family which supports him in his quest to become a doctor. He succeeds and decides to devote his life to helping the underclass in the ghetto. His brother, meanwhile, becomes a successful businessman and convinces him that he should move "uptown" in order to make more money and help the family. He moves up the social ladder, becomes a raging success, and is celebrated by the rich and famous. Through a series of tragedies it becomes clear to him that he has lost his roots. It is only here,at the very end, that we have to give the director (probably at the direction of the producer David O. Selznick) a little melodramatic license. This movie was made in 1932 and drama was the order of the day.

You want subtle - watch something else. You want to choke up and feel good. Watch this.

Note: Although it was entirely unintentional, and could not have been imagined, there is an uncanny connection between the title of this movie and the holocaust which came to light a decade later. Six Million.

The story is nice, the theme pleasant (money isn't everything), but the outstanding element is the Jewish working-class background of a non-orthodox family. Not claustrophobic like the Jazz Singer and other self-pitying films, this film has an open and sunny attitude that makes it very accessible. Excellent, warm portrayals by Gregory Ratoff and Anna Appel as the stereotypical parents.

Several people posting reviews for "Symphony of Six Million" have made some terrific points. One is that the title of this film, about Jews in New York, eerily suggests the Holocaust - well, that's why I watched it, in fact. I didn't read the description too clearly, saw the word Jewish, and I thought it was about Jews in Germany escaping to New York. The second comment was that it is a depiction of a Jewish family that several years later would not have been done in Hollywood for various reasons.

"Symphony of Six Million" stars Ricardo Cortez, Gregory Ratoff and Irene Dunne. It's the story of a young Jewish boy, Felix Klauber (Cortez) who grows up in the ghetto wanting to be a doctor who helps the people there. All is well until he is pressured by his brother Magnus (Noel Madison) to help the family get out of the ghetto so his father doesn't have to work so hard, his sister can marry well, etc., none of which he can do working for the poor. So Felix gives up his dream and moves to the upper West Side and then to Park Avenue, becoming more and more unhappy. Then there is a tragedy, and Felix is forced to re-look at his life.

The Fannie Hurst story is dated, melodramatic and is filled with stereotypical dialogue such as "you want I should" with a sing-songy voice throughout. Yet it shows the life of an immigrant in the ghetto that moves up and manages to hold interest, mainly because the family exhibits warmth, love, humor and charm. Gregory Ratoff is terrific as Mr. Klauber. Cortez, always an affable actor, has some of the heaviest dialogue, so at times his acting seems overdone. Noel Madison as Felix's brother has the right energy for his role and is a little reminiscent of the actor Phil Casnoff. As others have pointed out, Irene Dunne isn't low-class enough as Felix's crippled girlfriend, and one wonders throughout why she and Felix didn't get married. She is so pretty as a brunette, however, and has a lovely quality.

This is the first fully-orchestrated talkie, and the music is completely distracting with its weeping violin sounds. The other distracting thing is that characters speak off camera and it sounds as if the actors are being fed lines by a director's assistant - the sound has no presence at all as it isn't miked.

What makes this film especially dated is the idea of someone becoming a doctor to work in a clinic and help people and not care about money. This may have been the America of 1932; it sure isn't now. Well worth seeing.