Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

The intense rush of nostalgia that Aviva Kempner's film floods the audience with is carefully interrupted with well-placed--though brief--darker sides of the facets of Gertrude Berg's extraordinarily unique life. For instance, we're shown the close relationship with her mother in earlier years, but later told a more troubling aspect which adds depth but never spoils Berg's optimism that was such a hallmark in her material.

This technique is constantly employed and keeps us engaged with one exception: The McCarthy era is given a longer sequence into how the Red Channel affected those in Berg's circle and brought shame to a country that ironically also provided opportunity to many mentioned in the film, many of whom were broken beyond repair by rumor and suspicion.

There's generous archival footage that covers the entirety of Berg's life, and reminds us of her contribution not only to early radio and television, but of a rare driven talent that can still touch us today. We're fortunate this film was made when it was since some of the original cast and friends and colleagues provide primary source material. This is a warm and loving portrait that also touches on difficulties most pioneers face.

When is a Jewish mother not a Jewish Mother? When she doesn't act just like Molly Goldberg, the heroine of a popular radio and television comedy, The Goldbergs, in the first half of the 20th century. Aviva Kempner's informative documentary about the life of Gertrude Berg, who played Molly, is more a survey of radio and TV culture at that time than an insightful probe into the life of one of broadcasting's pioneer women.

Kempner's ability to weave in segments from shows, videos, interviews, and archival photographs puts the audience into the creative hotbed of the Depression through the post-WWII '50's. No one, not even Zero Mostel, can steal the stage from the affectionate, strong-willed character and actress (indeed, the two seem the same, so thoroughly did Berg develop Molly from within herself and her life).

Remarkably, Berg also wrote all the shows, a precursor of the all-in-one writer, producer, and actor talents of later generations. Perhaps because of her assimilation into the character of Molly, the film is unable to penetrate the character of the real Gertrude, although I suspect the two sides of Gertrude are just that character. The documentary comments on Berg's sometimes tyrannical off-stage persona, and it does a reasonably good job showing the sacrifices she made to defend her radio and TV husband, Phillip Loeb, from accusations of Red Channels that he was a communist. That conflict and the decision, not hers, to locate the TV show from the Bronx to the suburbs, helped the closing of her career.

It is probable that the notion of the benign, caring Jewish mother, was shaped in part by Gertrude Berg. It is almost certain she was a force behind the TV sitcom paradigm and the emergence of Lucille Ball as the new model of modern TV housewife-comedienne.

Yoo-Hoo is a winning history lesson in broadcasting and women in all media.

History is replete with countless stories of exceptional individuals. Unfortunately, when people discuss famous women, African Americans, Hispanics, ,etc. they tend to lean towards those individuals who are better known. Every so often there is the exception, the telling of those not remembered or forgotten, this documentary being one of them. Going into the theater I carried with me only the knowledge of who Getrude Berg was. I came out with a deep appreciation of what she accomplished in her life as a writer of 12,000 scripts; first lady of television, etc. and her overall impact. I was impressed especially at her work on behalf of her costar Phillip Loeb during the Communist witchhunts of the 1950s. This is an exceptional documentary and worth taking the time to see.

If you liked "Good Night and Good Luck," one of the most under-appreciated movies of the last few years, you will also enjoy this movie, which is being marketed the wrong way and will probably miss its most potentially appreciative audience.

Unlike GNAGL, this is a documentary. It raises a lot of fascinating questions that it does not pursue, and that can get frustrating at times. Why, since it had been such a hit - and it was - on radio in the 1930s was the radio show canceled in 1946? What reasons did CBS give for not wanting to pick up the TV program that Gertrude Berg developed out of it, when so many early TV programs were in fact continuations of popular radio programs?

A lot of the 50+ year old recollections of people who heard the radio program or saw the TV program don't ring true, and are really a misleading waste of time. Several of those people remark, for example, that "no one saw the Goldbergs as Jewish, but just as a family," yet Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who I believe is one of those who says something to that effect, also recounts that on her first day on the Surpreme Court, Thurgood Marshall addressed her as Mrs. Goldberg. Obviously, American audiences viewed the Goldbergs as not just any American family, but as a Jewish family.

On the other hand, a fair amount is made of the originality of portraying a Jewish family on the radio (and then TV). This is completely out of context, and again very misleading. Most of the big figures in 1930s radio and early television were Jewish - Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Fred Allen, Burns and Allen, etc. - and on radio there was Fanny Brice. How was "The Goldbergs" different from those programs?

At one point the issue is raised of whether the program presented Jews as negative stereotypes. This is hastily dismissed with a remark that unlike Amos and Andy, who on radio had originally been acted by two white men, Berg chose only Jewish (the exact word is Yiddish) actors to take roles in her show. But that doesn't prove that the characters weren't negative stereotypes, as Amos and Andy continued to be when it moved to TV and was played by Black comedians. That line also gets forgotten when it is explained that for TV Berg picked a gentile to play the part of her son, a fascinating issue that gets no development.

There are also simple factual errors. When the narrative gets to the beginning of "The Goldbergs" on radio, it is stated that there were two radio networks: ABC and CBS. There were, in fact, two radio networks then, but they were CBS and NBC. ABC was not sprung off NBC until World War II. There are other historical errors as well.

All of the foregoing is negative commentary, I realize. Please do not read it as saying that I did not enjoy the movie, however. Quite to the contrary, I was fascinated by every moment of it. Berg turns out to have been a very intelligent, fascinating workaholic, and is presented as interesting enough by this movie that you want to know a LOT more about her and how she was viewed during her time.

Anyone with an interest in the blacklisting of the McCarthy era and the beginnings of network radio and television will find this movie fascinating, as I did, and I heartily recommend it. But it leaves you, or at least me, wanting to know so much more. I can only hope this leads to a new interest in Gertrude Berg and the shows she created, so that we can get answers to some of those questions.

It is always fun to go back and see the early days of TV. Coming as it did mostly or frequently from radio, this early look at a woman that was as popular as Oprah in her day.

To see a strong woman like Gertrude Berg, who came from a difficult childhood due to the death of her brother and the resulting mental difficulties that beset her mother, develop a character and a family show that everyone in the country followed, was amazing.

To see people like Edward R. Murrow and Ed Sullivan, and the evil red scare that brought about the show's eventual demise is a telling reminder of why Fox News and the Tea Party is so dangerous today.

It was an enjoyable journey into the birth of TV, and the birth of sitcoms.