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.

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Plot Keywords:

screenplay adapted by author | new york city | judaism | matchmaking | based on play | 

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Taglines:

A funny movie about getting serious.

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Genres:

Comedy | Romance

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English French Hebrew Yiddish

Release Date:

16 September 1988 (USA)

Also Known As:

Crossing Delancey

Filming Locations:

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

Box Office

Budget:

$4,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$46,711, 28 August 1988

Gross USA:

$16,262,415

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$16,262,415

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

The pickle store as referred to in the film was Guss' Pickles, located at 35 Essex Street, below Delancey Street. A New York tradition, since 1920. Currently, The Pickle Guys, located at the corner of Essex & Grand Streets, continues that tradition.

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Goofs

The synopsis of Anton's new book, visible when he signs an autograph, is clearly a summary of the story of this film (or the original play), mentioning Isabelle, her job, her grandmother, etc. If that was indeed the story of that book, Isabelle would have had some stern comments for Anton when she read it.

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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]

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Connections

Referenced in At the Movies: Pretty Woman/Blind Fury/A Shock to the System/The Fourth War/Lambada (1990)

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Soundtracks

She's Going
Written by The Beat (as The English Beat)
Performed by The Beat (as The English Beat)
Courtesy of IRS Records

User Reviews

Izzy, Sam, and Bubbe

There are a set of films from the 1980s and 1990s that are very well done comedies about dating or finding one's true love. The best known one is MOONSTRUCK, but others are WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING and this one, CROSSING DELANCEY. Like MOONSTRUCK, CROSSING DELANCEY deals with an ethnic group. Cher's movie was a valentine about Italian Americans. CROSSING DELANCEY is a similar valentine about Jewish Americans in Manhattan.

Izzy (Amy Irving, in her best film part) is pretty happy. She is an independent woman who works in a famous private book shop, gets to be in contact with the leading writers of the day (she tells of speaking to Isaac Bashevits Singer at one point), and has a nice rent controlled apartment near Central Park. But her beloved grandmother Bubbe (Reizl Bozyk) is upset that Izzy is still single. She approaches the local, Lower East Side, matchmaker (Sylvia Miles) to find a groom for her granddaughter. Izzy is appalled at this, but she does come to dinner to meet the young man (Sam - Peter Riegert). He's a businessman (he and his brother run a pickle selling business on Delancey Street). Sam is a smart and nice guy, but Izzy is stand-offish because of her set of modern values.

The title refers to Izzy's assimilated views versus the standards of her grandmother and Sam. She does not want to be associated with old style lifestyles that represent an earlier era. But Sam tells her a story about a friend of his who was forced to buy a new hat when he lost his old cap "Crossing Delancey", and his life was changed was changed as a result (he got engaged in two days). Sam reinforces the story by sending Izzy a new hat (as though to suggest trying something different).

Izzy's state of mind is also confused because she has a sexual interest in a popular novelist named Anton Maas (Jerome Krabbe). Maas is certainly a gifted novelist, with a ready line of colorful patter that causes certain types of women (like Izzy) to swoon. But he is a little self-centered for all that, though Izzy does not notice this for awhile. But she does feel, after getting Sam's gift, that she should do something for him - she tries to set him up with a girlfriend. But she suddenly discovers he is a nice guy, and she begins to wonder if she has made a serious error.

This description of the film is inadequate, especially at it can barely touch the performances of Ms Bozyk (her only film lead role - after a lifetime in Yiddish theater she got this, and proved she should have had many more film performances to her credit), and Sarah Miles as the loud, overbearing, matchmaker Mrs. Hannah Mandlebaum. David Hyde Pierce appears as one of Izzy's fellow employees at the bookstore - an early role for the future Niles Crane. And Rosemary Harris appears as a "Marianne Moore" poet at a soirée, who makes the mistake of trying to patronize Krabbe (in his most sympathetic in the film - he returns the comment with interest). The movie has everything, including a version of a comedy chase (involving a taxicab with an unbelievably bad driver) and moments of hamish philosophy by Bubbe over a bottle of cherry herring. Altogether one perfect romantic comedy.