Uma Ponte Chamada Esperança

Alby Sherman (Elliott Gould) owns a small Brooklyn deli. He's desperate to buy an upscale Manhattan restaurant, but he needs an investment from Uncle Benjamin (Sid Caesar). In exchange for $60k, Benjamin wants him to dump his Irish girlfriend Elizabeth Anderson (Margaux Hemingway) of two years and marry a nice Jewish girl.

Director Menahem Golan is most well known for co-owning The Cannon Group. This is not his usual B-action movies, but he does do plenty of other stuff. I'm guessing that he has an affinity for Uncle Benjamin as a character. I do question Elizabeth who has never met his mother or been to his deli. That's not a good look for her. She's also too quick to do the dumping. Margaux does not project such weak will. The love story needs some work. As for Alby, his bad business sense is more frustrating than funny. Otherwise, Elliott Gould is really good. Carol Kane has some fun. The big dinner scene is really interesting although I would do it slightly different. There is no denying Sid Caesar's greatness. This is a fine slice of New York kosher pizza.

Ok, this is not a classic, but it has enough nice touches to make it enjoyable. Sometimes good actors make a so-so film less enjoyable because you end up grieving over the waste of talent. Not so here. If you like Carol Kane, Elliott Gould, Shelley Winters, Margaux Hemingway, or Sid Caesar (who gives a knockout performance), if you liked 'Enter Laughing' or 'Crossing Delancey', or even 'Used People', you'll like this. Worth a rent if you're in the right mood.

This movie was a disaster of sorts in that it failed miserably at the box office perhaps due to its very strong Jewish content. Nevertheless for the Jewish audience it is a fantastic comedy where we laugh at ourselves. There are some flies in the ointment. As always the Jewish boy in question can not have a Jewish girl-friend. Hollywood does not accept the fact that Jews marry Jews and Alby ( a rather fat Elliot Gould!!) is no exception, but his shiksa is worth her weight in gold. A Jewish mother would kill to have a daughter-in-law as caring as Elizabeth is to her diabetic shlemiel of a son. Margaux Hemingway (may she rest in peace) is wonderful in this role. We lost a terrific actress here. The Family is a pastiche of all the stereotypes we Jews love and hate so well: the rich uncle who is a tough businessman with a heart of gold and his bitch of a wife and useless son. The usual hangers-on and assorted nebbishes who work for him are there - God this fits my family to a "T" !!! The scene at the synagogue is wonderful and the Lubliner Rebbe is well interpreted by the great Zvi Scooler. The celebration at the Rumanian restaurant is word for word exact of whatever we had in the 1950's. Shelly Winters is a great actress her role is a treat to watch. Her outburst at the restaurant is the hit of the show. When we heard the audience gasp (99% Jewish) I felt that the movie was an effective comedy - but I also knew that a 99% gentile audience would not see the humour and sadly I was right.

This is a marginal film and must be accepted as such but that is too bad because there is enough in there to amuse everybody. Elliot Gould and his friend Nick played by my favorite cro-magnon Burt Young are a pair of shleppers that you have to love - that piss scene is wild. The scene in Uncle Benjamin's house with the plastic on the chairs must be preserved in a Jewish museum - that is exactly how we were!!! Sid Caesar is Uncle Benjamin and is a delight. His acting ranges from shtick meshuga to Shakespearean pathos. Anyway grab a copy at the local Blockbusters or whatever and invite the family and...enjoy!! To hell with the bad reviews - what do "they" know ?????

Extremely stereotypical, but I'm using movie with Elliot Gould and Marguax Hemmingway... said Caesar is also on board and he is top-notch along with the rest of the cast editing is choppy and corny... and Hemingway's performance truly haunts me as she should've had a much better career than she did... she is absolutely luminous and does some really terrific emotional work... Elliot Gould is very dependable and lovable in his role... and the chemistry between him and Hemmingway is palpable. A pretty good popcorn movie that could've and should've been better but for what it is... it does very well in it's messaging... and performances, especially with Elliot and Hemingway are top-notch.

My review was written in January 1984 after viewing at a Midtown Manhattan screening room.

"Over the Brooklyn Bridge" is producer-director (and Cannon Group chairman) Menahem Golan's love letter to New York City: a warm and pleasant romance similar to the type of films topliner Elliott Gould (and George Segal, as well) used to make 10 or 15 years earlier. Boasting an outstanding (and promotable) supporting performance by Sid Caesar as Gould's bossy uncle, the picture (geared to the audience that attended "My Favorite Year") should do okay business when released later this year through MGM-UA, following its current debut in Tel Aviv.

Screenplay by the late Arnold Somkin (who died in 1982 before production began, and to whom "Bridge" is dedicated) is short on laughs but very effective in portraying a loving, romantic view of New York and its melting pot of ethnic groups. As directed by Golan, and cheerfully lit by cameraman Adam Greenberg, the Big Apple is a paradise where even 42nd Street and the subways are sources of glamor rather than the cliched eyesores they represent in most recent N. Y.-lensed films.

Gould stars as Alby Sherman, owner of a Brooklyn eatery who dreams of buying a posh restaurant on the East Side in midtown Manhattan. His love affair with an aristocratic Catholic girl from Philadelphia (Margaux Hemingway) raises the ire of his Jewish family, particularly the patriarch Uncle Benjamin (Sid Caesar), a women's underwear manufacturer who would rather have Alby marry his fourth cousin Cheryl (Carol Kane).

The basic conflict, as Alby must choose between his dream girl and career advancement (Uncle Benjamin offers a key loan with strings attached0 is not developed beyond the plot gimmick stage, but "Bridge" works well as an actors' vehicle. Leads Gould and Hemingway are solid in the central roles, with standout support from a large cast. Given perhaps the best opportunity in an off-and-on film career to date (including his starring assignments for William Castle in the 1960s), Caesar is very funny as a man who tries to run everyone else's lives for them. He is extremely moving at the film's moment of catharsis, enduring Gould's ultimate rebellion in a strong last reel scene set at an engagement party.

Kane is delightfully droll as the virginal intellectual whose demure exterior hides a rather kinky fatnasy-sex life. There are also nice spots for an Italian pal played by the ubiquitous Burt Young and a variety of other ethnic types.

Release title is a bit weak, with the dialog plugging most of the discarded monikers for this project: "Alby's Special", "Alby's Delight" and "My Darling Shiksa". The marketing challenge is to find an audience for a nice little film which avoids contemporary hooks in favor of romantic-comedy formulas that worked well in the late 1960s.