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- The last Yiddish feature made in Poland before WWII, this 1939 film was based on a 1907 play by the prolific playwright Jacob Gordin. Best known for his folksy didacticism and moralism, Gordin brought the common life of the Lower East Side to the Yiddish stage. With over 100 plays to his credit, Gordin was a formative influence on modern Yiddish theater. He was so popular among theatergoers that reportedly a quarter of a million people attended his funeral in New York City. Without a Home is the story of the separation and hardships faced by immigrants in America at the turn of the century. Its touching portrayal of the hardships of immigrant life enthralled Jewish theater audiences and it became part of the standard Yiddish stage repertoire in America and Poland. The film provides a poignant and dramatic picture of a difficult era, focusing on the bleak prospects for the survival of traditional Jewish family values. When the eldest son of the Rivkin family is drowned, the father leaves his family in Europe to go to America. There he finds only financial hardship and loneliness, struggling to find a way to bring the rest of his family over. The stellar cast includes stage actress Ida Kaminska and the hilarious comedy duo, Dzigan and Shumacher, who provide a healthy measure of comic relief. The title, Without a Home, intended by Gordin to symbolize the uprooted Jewish immigrant family and by extension, the Jewish people, was a particularly poignant one for Jewish film audiences in Poland on the eve of WWII. The film underscored the growing sense among Polish Jews facing the Nazi threat and increasing antisemitism in Poland that they too might soon be "without a home."
- A mining adventure centered on a courageous engineer and his love.
- Adaptation of the Tadeusz Doega Mostowicz. With focus mainly on the fast-paced action, "Three Hearts" still stand out against the other contemporary productions in the '30's. The movie begins when two boy are born and are switched at birth and raised in different conditions. They will face their parents after years.
- Krystyna, an office girl, falls in love with Marlecki, the son of a very wealthy industrialist.
- Vivid cinematography and music evoke the industrial and cultural center that was Bialystok in 1939. Images of smokestacks, power looms, and textile workers; downtown shops and buses, market day with peasants and horses; schools, synagogues, the Sholem Aleichem Library, the TOZ sanatorium, and a community-run summer camp reflect the diversity of the city's 200-year-old Jewish community. In addition to the tile-roofed home of Dr. Zamenhof, creator of Esperanto, Jewish Life in Bialystok features memorable images of a spacious park where young adults relax and children play.
- Stylish women promenade through modern Lwow's thriving market squares to a piano-and-violin accompaniment suggesting urban rhythms. Also known as Lemberg and home to an old, well-established Jewish community, this city nestled in a valley projects an aura of prosperity. Parks and pavilions punctuate its public spaces as trucks, pushcarts and bicycles ply its busy streets. Among the Jewish community landmarks shown are the Yad Haruzim Trade Union Building, the Old Ghetto, the softly curving exterior of the Modern Temple, the orthodox school, the Moorish-looking Lazarus Hospital and the grave of the "Golden Rose"-filmed in warm, dappled light-and the Nowosci Theater.
- Focusing on Cracow's Jewish quarter, this film intermingles old and new, using music to enhance the images. Streetcars share tree-lined streets with horse-drawn carriages; people conduct business under umbrella-covered markets and arcaded market halls; parks and schoolyards host sports, games and animated discussions. Scenes of the famous Remu Synagogue and the Alte Shul, an orphanage, a hospital, the Jewish Community Council, and several schools convey the vitality of this age-old Jewish community.
- This rare film document captures the spirit of Jewish life in pre-World War II Vilna. Lively narration and music accompany film sequences of people engaged in the rituals and realities of daily existence at work, at play, in the synagogue, and in school. Vilna's famous landmarks-the Strashun Library, Shnipeshiker Cemetery and the YIVO Institute-are among the film's highlights.