Romance of a Jewess (1908)

This early D.W. Griffith short shows the director's interest in Jewish ghetto life, portrayed here with sympathy and sentimentality. The melodramatic plot involves the conflict between generations in an immigrant Jewish family.

Director:

D.W. Griffith

Writer:

D.W. Griffith

Stars:

Florence Lawrence, George Gebhardt, Gladys Egan

Cast

Credited cast:
Florence Lawrence	...	Ruth Simonson
George Gebhardt	...	Simon Bimberg
Gladys Egan	...	The Daughter
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
John R. Cumpson	...	Customer
Guy Hedlund
Charles Inslee
Arthur V. Johnson	...	In Bookstore / Matchmaker
Alfred Paget
Mack Sennett	...	Customer / In Bookstore / Doctor
Harry Solter	...	Customer / Rubinstein
Mabel Stoughton	...	Customer (unconfirmed)

Storyline

A pawn shop. A man arranges a marriage with the owner's daughter, but she declines for love. The couple is cut off, and opens a book shop; some years later, he dies in a fall from a ladder. She is despondent; her daughter goes to seek help, and ends up a customer at her grandfather's pawn shop, not knowing the connection.

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Plot Keywords:

jewish | jewish culture | melodrama | silent

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Genres:

Drama | Short

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 October 1908 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

American Mutoscope & Biograph

Technical Specs

Runtime:

10 min 16 min

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

User Reviews

Early Griffith

One of Griffith's early directing efforts, Romance of a Jewess already shows some of the themes that would interest Griffith for most of his career: the clash of both races and generations, Jewish ghetto life, and the sentimental position the beloved mother apparently holds in the life of all men.

The story is simple and eternal. A young Jewish woman, working in the pawnshop owned by her recently widowed father - we see the mother's death in what seems to be a somewhat superfluous scene - rebels against the arranged marriage organised for her by him, and chooses a native Indian bookseller, much to her father's displeasure. The father banishes her from his sight, but he and his daughter are fated to be reunited under tragic circumstances...

The film is fairly ordinary, but clearly well directed for the time, although the acting is still very much of the exaggerated gesture school. Only in the brief scenes in which Griffith takes his camera out onto the real streets of New York does the film truly come alive.

It was interesting to see the American Bioscope logo clearly visible on the wall of the pawnshop, put there by the makers in an attempt to stop other distributors from duping the film (copying it and passing it off under their own name - a practice that was common in the wild, early days of cinema). It's also amusing to note that, even though a number of years pass during the telling of the story, the old pawnbroker still hasn't managed to shift that guitar hanging on the wall...