Le rabbin au Far West

I read all the commentaries and disagree with most, but particularly those who moan about this being "slow" for the first 45 minutes. Look. This is a classic. The story is great. A misanthropic rabbi comes to a congregation in San Francisco and get waylaid and falls into (mis)adventures with a seedy character. This unlikely duo make their way to SF undergoing a number of adventures. If you do not understand the yiddishekeit of this film, go take a look at the Marx brothers. The scene where battered Wilder sees the Amish and goes screaming in Yiddish only to discover the cross in the bible in one of the farmer's pockets and faints dead away, is worth the price of admission along. The voting scene at the Yeshiva where only the little boy votes for Wilder invoking the older Rabbi turning his eyes to heaven and saying, "It's going to be close!" is likewise great. This is zany Yiddish theater at its best. Wilder, always overacting, is SUPERB as the rabbi. Ford is merely great as the kindhearted outlaw. The bad guys are bad, the characters they meet along the way, Schiavelli and veteran character actor Ian Wolfe are great as the Trappist monks, even Joe Kapp is great as the Mexican RR worker. This is great watching and one of my favorite films. Don't knock it. It's hilarious. Check it out!

This is a great film. Gene Wilder plays an authentic Polish rabbi with a believable Yiddish accent in a buddy movie romp through the Wild West. Harrison Ford, in his pre-Indiana Jones incarnation, makes an effective side-kick. This is truly among Wilder's best roles. Robert Nurenberg's review couldn't have said it any better... except Wilder did not portray a rabbinical school dropout, though he was not likely the most outstanding pupil. He was a trained rabbi sent to America to assume a pulpit in San Francisco where he would marry the woman hand picked by a match-maker. What happens on the way from Poland to California is more than worth a single viewing! The Frisco Kid is a most enjoyable, insightful, and entertaining film. A well-deserved 10/10!

This is one of my all-time favorite comedies. A lot of it is gritty, but the movie never loses sight of the humor it's trying to get across.

Gene Wilder is the center of it. Anyone could have played Ford's role, but he does a competent job. He's not really believable, but the ROLE isn't believable. It's hard to be a good guy when you're threatening peoples' lives in order to rob them.

Wilder is the whole movie, except for Val Bisoglio as Chief Gray Cloud. Wilder portrays a lost man in the wilds of frontier America, and he does it well. The movie itself deftly avoids moralizing about the 'right' religion. The Amish people helping the Rabbi on his journey is very realistic. They would not have turned down another religious man; they would have helped him, just as they do, in the film. I appreciate little touches, like this. It would have been far too easy to portray the Amish (or Mennonites; it's hard to tell, with a movie set in that time period) as ultraconservative bigots, but instead, the production crew chose to show them realistically.

This is a sweet, funny movie, with some real drama, unless you're just too cynical to care. And if you ARE too cynical to care, I truly pity you. This is a fun, exciting movie that anyone should like.

knsevy KCMO

When the "Frisco Kid" first came on tv two decades ago I recorded it and watched it over and over, my wife and friends and I quoting parts of it at each other at appropriate moments in our lives.

I read the (some) lukewarm comments here on the Database and the more positive ones and let them ride, just keeping this small pearl tucked away as my favorite movie. Then last night I came home, turned on the tv and caught Gene Wilder as the rabbi Avram Belinksi trying NOT to look at the woman on the train's wondrous cleavage as he was making his way to 1850 San Francisco, so I and sat down and watched the movie through again. It is still as funny, quaint, realistic, well acted and kind as it has ever been.

Gene Wilder demonstrates the best acting he has ever done. He IS Avram Belinski. Complex, human, childlike and oh so (what I imagine) European Jewish. A stranger in a doubly strange land. Strange by being an urban Pole in the "wild west" and strange by being a Jew in that world. I learnt a lot about "Jewishness" from this movie, and at the same time a lot about Americanism too. Being neither myself I can still appreciate the humour. Humanist, long suffering, realistic and proud.

Whatever it is inside me that makes me feel good and part of humanity is touched by "The Frisco Kid". That is why I regard it as my "favorite" movie, not the best movie ever made. That title I reserve for another totally different obscure B/W movie called "King and Country" whose demonstrated injustice is counter-balanced by Avram's integrity.

One of the best "feel-good" movies I have ever seen. I once heard Gene Wilder say that he got the Rabbi's accent from his grandfather, and I can believe it!

A few weeks ago, my husband and I were channel surfing in the middle of the night, and came across the movie, dubbed in Spanish. We ended up staying awake until the wee hours of the morning, just to watch this gem.

A gentle film, not afraid to show a love of religion and of friendship, I wish that more movies were like this.