The Heart of New York

A Jewish plumber finds that the invention which brings the wealth of which he has long dreamt also tears his family apart. A loud and noisy screen adaptation of a successful stage play which somehow entertains despite being filled with antiquated jokes and situations. The broad caricatures make it somewhat irrelevant, though, and the forgotten comedy team of Joe Smith and Charles Dale grow a little tiring

Back in the day, Smith and Dale were a very famous stage act. However, they never made it in films--mostly because their very, very ethnic humor had very limited appeal. It might have played well in New York and with Jewish audiences, but the rest of America most likely had no interest in heavily accented Jewish-American humor. In fact, I'm surprised Warner Brothers even made the film. Most of their film appearances were in Vitaphone shorts but here with "Heart of New York" they were in one of their few starring full-length movies.

So is any of this any good? Well, at least for me the answer is NO. Much of the problem is that the film (as shown on Turner Classic Movies) isn't captioned and understanding the heavy accents was difficult--especially since I am hard of hearing. Additionally, and much more important, is that most of the humor just isn't funny. This isn't to say Jewish humor couldn't be funny. After all, I love the films of Max Davidson and his humor was very, very Jewish...but it also relied much more on funny situations as opposed to hearing Smith and Dale butcher the English language (which gets old VERY fast).

The bottom line is that I am glad this film exists as it's one of the few that feature a bygone sort of borsht humor--but I really prefer them in smaller doses (like in their shorts).

"Heart Of New York" is essentially a filmed stage play, and since it is a heavily ethnic story it was probably put on by the NY Jewish Theater group. It is about Mendel the Plumber (George Sidney), who lives on the Lower East Side during the depression and is constantly short of money for the basics - food, rent, clothing, etc. He is a dreamer, not a worker and is waiting to hit it big on one of his inventions. His wife is a long-suffering yente (Anna Appel) who harasses him to bring in some money. Then, one day, it happens ...

The story is unremarkable but the reason to watch this picture is to watch one of Vaudeville's most celebrated comedy teams, Smith and Dale. They get precious little screen time but just enough to pull an ordinary movie into the Must-See category with their fractured English repartee and caricature personages. They were a very funny team and are largely forgotten today and didn't make many films. One of their best vaudeville routines can be seen in "Two Tickets To Broadway" (1951). They make an average curio of a movie special indeed.

It was great to see an apparently faithful Yiddish style play on screen. The humor is good but not remarkable.

Unfortunately no-one told the actors to tone down the delivery for the camera so it seems like everyone especially the comedy team are yelling constantly.

This film brought back great memories of my growing up in NYC and enjoying the wonderful relationships of Jewish families and friends. Their funny jokes and good humor every day. This picture showed in great detail how people struggled and took care of each other no matter who you were. Joe Smith and George Sidney(Mendel) gave excellent performances and his wife Ruth Hall(Lillian) It is a must see picture, especially when the washing machine is invented!