Yidl mitn fidl

I must confess that I'm not that much of a fan of Broadway musicals to begin with, and that is what this film most resembles. And as dumbed down and precious as most Broadway musicals are, this movie is ten times more so. I can only imagine just how starved the world must have been for Yiddish entertainment in 1936 in order for this insignificant item to have become a smash hit, both in Poland and in some areas of the US. Beyond the brainless screenplay and childishly simple songs, I found the famous Molly Picon to be very disappointing. I think part of the reason is that she is 38 in this film, well past her prime. I also believe she was never that good looking. But I must admit she did manage to be fairly animated and vivacious. Another strange quality of this film is its almost lunatic defiance shown with respect to some of the marginal character's grotesque appearance, especially those with very bad teeth. I'm 50 myself, and my teeth are yellow from years of cigar smoking, and they have gaps due to gum disease, so I'm not perfect. And I realize that a smile is still a smile, no matter now snaggle-toothed, especially if it's from someone you have affection for. But the scraggily beards and the repellent, bad-toothed grimaces that are thrust into the audience's face here are hard to understand. Frankly they just made me nauseous. I leave it to other, more astute cultural critics than myself to make sense of why this was included in the manner it was. All in all, I guess I'd have to say that this movie is little more than an historical footnote. If you have a soft spot in your heart for Yiddish culture, than maybe you can forgive this movie's many and large faults. I couldn't.

A young girl and her father are on their uppers in pre WWII Eastern Europe.

She plays the fiddle and he the double bass so they set off on their travels as wandering klezmorim (musicians). He's worried that she will attract the wrong kind of attention, so she dresses as a boy. (It wouldn't fool anyone, but suspend that disbelief.) They catch a lift from a passing haycart and sing and play their theme tune, Yidl mitn Fidl. "Life is a song!" (fortunately lidl rhymes with fidl), "Life is a joke!". They fall in with two other musicians: Froym, on violin, and Isaac, on clarinet. The band is a hit. Yidl falls in love with the goodlooking Froym and is particularly sent by his fiddle-playing (I know how she feels). She pours out her heart in a plaintive song (all music written by Abe Ellstein). They get booked to play at a wedding. Yidl finds out the bride doesn't want to marry her elderly fiance, so they kidnap her. "Life is a joke!" they tell her, and her voice adds something to their "philharmonie". In fact she's talent spotted in Warsaw and given a gig at a theatre, but at that moment her old love Yossl turns up and she runs off with him. I won't spoil the ending. It ends happily, but ... See it.

Yes, it's creaky and naive, and Yidl's impersonation of a boy can get a bit trying at times. The music, even through a scratchy soundtrack, is heart-stopping. In Yiddish with English subtitles. xxxxx

I'm writing mainly as a corrective to the appallingly ignorant review that complains about Molly Picon being too unattractive, the bad teeth of some of the extras, and the fact that this movie is too much like a musical -- that's because it IS a musical.

Let's be honest -- anyone who seeks out this movie isn't looking for stunning cinematography, a witty plot, or world-class acting. If it wasn't for the uniqueness of the time and place in which it was made, it wouldn't be worth remembering. The plot is creaky, the acting a bit hammy, and the dialogue forgettable. But that's not why you watch this movie. You watch it because it is, to the modern eye, not so much an entertainment as a fascinating and tragic historical document of a culture and a people that was, at the time of filming, about to be obliterated. You watch it because you want to see what an actual shtetl looked like, to get a real life glimpse of a community that had its own language and music and traditions, and because you know that that community is about to be wiped out. There is an eerie quality in watching the film, because you know that most of the people flickering before you, singing and laughing and going about their daily business, would in a short time most likely be rounded up and sent to the death camps.

You don't have to be specifically interested in Yiddish culture to appreciate that aspect of the movie -- you just have to be interested in the ways people used to live, especially when those ways have disappeared for one reason or another. (People who enjoy this movie may also enjoy "Nanook of the North," a documentary about the traditional ways of the Inuit -- you can see how an actual igloo was made.) Perhaps the movie will appeal more to historians or ethnographers rather than the casual movie-goer just looking for an entertaining way to spend 90 minutes. So please, don't complain about bad teeth and unattractive leading ladies, because if that's all you're looking for, there are plenty of better places to look.

Molly Picon in the lead as the girl who joins her father and two other musicians roving the countryside of Poland to play at gatherings, bars, weddings and other occasions, steals the film at first sight from the first scene to the last, with her marvellous acting, her extremely expressive mimicry and her fantastic musical lyricism - as an actress, the one she most reminds of is Giulietta Masina in films like "La strada" and others, but Molly Picon is in addition definitely also a stage primadonna, although rather a picturesque one than a grand one. The music in the film is throughout wonderful and constantly performed with inspiration and true musical joy, and the story is also as charming as any yarns like "Fiddler on the Roof". She plays the violin, her father plays the double bass, and her best friend also plays the violin, he is performing a great solo in the most lyrical episode of the film, while the fourth member plays the clarinet. They enjoy life in poverty in the countryside sleeping in barns and getting frequently into quarrels with local people and between themselves - it's the first major conflict that leads to their forming a quartet. The film is dominatingly hilarious, sparkling of good humour from the first to the last, and after 84 years it has acquired a quality of timelessness in its universal simple humanity in plain enjoyment of the basics of life, glorifying the simplicity of human contentment.

Fascinating film. A sly comedy with terrific music has Molly Picon posing as a boy (for safety) and traveling the countryside with her father after they have been dispossessed. As musicians, they meet up with a pair of wanderers and the four strike up some merry music and get involved in various situations, including a wedding and a theater.

Picon is no more convincing as a boy than were Marion Davies or Barbra Streisand in various films, but you suspend your disbelief and go with the flow. Picon is a major comic talent and also had a nice singing voice. Also good in the cast as Simche Fostel as her father, Max Bozyk as Izak, and Leon Liebgold as Froim. Dora Fakiel is funny as the widow Trauba.

Joseph Green wrote, produced, and directed this film, shooting in Poland in 1935/36. The film has almost a documentary feel at times, capturing the look and sounds of rural Poland before the German invasion in 1939. It's a world long gone. Green filmed three more movies up through 1938 and escaped Poland with his films and returned to America.

YIDDLE WITH HIS FIDDLE was certainly a low-budget affair, but it was a worldwide hit in its day, especially in New York City where its box office clout rivaled that of any Hollywood film of the day.

Highlights of the film are the wedding party scene and Picon's musical turn on a theater stage after she has ditched the boy's disguise. The film is available from several sources and has English subs.

In a final and sad note, Green never made another film after 1938. He said he gave up filmmaking because his audience was gone. He was referring to the Holocaust and the extermination of 6 million Jews.