Crossing Delancey (1988)

A Manhattan single meets a man through her Jewish grandmother's matchmaker.

Director:

Joan Micklin Silver

Writers:

Susan Sandler (play), Susan Sandler (screenplay)

Stars:

Amy Irving, Peter Riegert, Reizl Bozyk

Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Amy Irving	...	Isabelle Grossman
Peter Riegert	...	Sam Posner
Reizl Bozyk	...	Bubbie Kantor
Jeroen Krabbé	...	Anton Maes
Sylvia Miles	...	Hannah Mandelbaum
George Martin	...	Lionel
John Bedford Lloyd	...	Nick
Claudia Silver	...	Cecilia Monk
David Hyde Pierce	...	Mark (as David Pierce)
Rosemary Harris	...	Pauline Swift
Suzzy Roche	...	Marilyn Cohen
Amy Wright	...	Ricki
Faye Grant	...	Candyce
Deborah Offner	...	Karen
Kathleen Wilhoite	...	Myla Bondy

Storyline

Isabelle's life revolves around the New York bookshop she works in and the intellectual friends of both sexes she meets there. Her grandmother remains less than impressed and decides to hire a good old-fashioned Jewish matchmaker to help Isabelle's love-life along. Enter pickle-maker Sam who immediately takes to Isabelle. She however is irritated by the whole business, at least to start with.

---

Plot Keywords:

jewish | bookstore | matchmaker | pickle | matchmaking | 

---

Taglines:

A funny movie about getting serious.

---

Genres:

Comedy | Romance

---

Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English French Hebrew Yiddish

Release Date:

16 September 1988 (USA)

Also Known As:

Izzy et Sam

Filming Locations:

Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Gross:

$16,262,415 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This was the first (and only) English-language film for Reizl Bozyk, who plays Izzy's grandmother, Bubbe Kantor. She was a leading actress in Yiddish theatre for many years.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Anton Maes: [People are arriving at an event at a book store. There are sounds of employees greeting them, checking them in, serving champagne. Izzy is collecting empty plastic cups and napkins. She sees a woman put a book from the shelf in her bag, and deftly removes and replaces it. Anton is watching her from across the nook and motions her over. Their eyes lock as she approaches] So, you won't be out of a job.
[He plunks down his cup on her tray]

---

Connections

References Annie Hall (1977)

---

Soundtracks

"POUNDING"
Performed by The Roches
Written by Terre Roche and Suzzy Roche

User Reviews

An Underrated Gem

Funny, but most of the comments here are raving about the movie, yet somehow

it only scored 6.7 stars at the time of this posting. To me, Crossing Delancey is one of the best romantic comedies ever made and ranks highly among my favorite movies in general.

Reizl Bozyk's performance as Bubbie Kantor is priceless. Amy Irving and Peter Riegert have amazing chemistry and all of the characters are very well defined and well portrayed, although I think the matchmaker was just a tad over-the-top, even for a yenta. But that's okay, The storyline is paced just right - a great flick to do popcorn by.

Though I would ordinarily give it an 8.5, I rated it 10 stars to bring the average closer to what the reviews (and my personal opinion) reflect.