IMDb RATING
7.2/10
6.6K
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A Polish-Jewish family comes to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, the family and their children try to make themselves a better future in the so-called promised land... Read allA Polish-Jewish family comes to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, the family and their children try to make themselves a better future in the so-called promised land.A Polish-Jewish family comes to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, the family and their children try to make themselves a better future in the so-called promised land.
- Nominated for 4 Oscars
- 2 wins & 23 nominations total
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe home in the suburbs where the Kaye family moves from Avalon is Writer, Producer, and Director Barry Levinson's actual childhood home in Forest Park, west of Baltimore's city center.
- GoofsWhen Baltimore's Bromo-Seltzer clock tower is shown at the movie's opening, that 1914 depiction omits the brightly-lit 51-foot tall blue Bromo-Seltzer bottle that had adorned the top of the tower from 1911 through 1936. Descriptions from the time period report the blue glow could be seen from miles around. The oversight is particularly notable because the film's concurrent narration mentions the city's bright lights.
- Quotes
Sam Krichinsky: If I knew things would no longer be, I would have tried to remember better.
- Crazy creditsThe credits roll over a photograph of Avalon, which begins as a sharp color photograph, but fades into a worn black-and-white picture at the end.
- SoundtracksAnniversary Song
Music by Iosif Ivanovici, arranged by Saul Chaplin, lyrics by Al Jolson and Saul Chaplin
Performed by Al Jolson
Courtesy of MCA Records
Featured review
Thank you Barry Levinson!!!!!
Avalon is really a beautifully written story and Levinson's cast is excellent. This really is one of the better stories of the American experience. Actually I'd have to say it's the BEST story of the American experience ever brought to film. I say that knowing that it really is the urban Jewish-American experience and not one that is necessarily shared by other groups. I dont care for rigid definitions of the American experience because it can be a vastly differing one. Having said that though, I must still say that Avalon is a wonderful chronicling of an American immigrant family originaly from Eastern Europe who put down roots in the Avalon section of Baltimore. It is refreshing in that New York City is generally credited for this kind of narrative. So much so that it's easy to forget that ethnic communities sprang up in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco etc. Not just NYC. Through the narration of Sam Krichinsky we see his children and grandchildren grow up and he grow old. We are with him when his wife (Joan Plowright)passes away, When his son's business is destroyed by fire, when he argues with his oldest Brother and a great rift divides the Krichinskys forever. we hear his stories of this and that and always he returns to the 4th of July 1914 when he arrived in Baltimore for the first time. Levinson is fantastic as he films what is obviously an idealized representation seen only in Sam Krichinsky's "rose colored" memory of the event. There is so much poignance, sorrow, and love in "Avalon" and small details become deeply profound moments in the life of an elderly man struggling to remember the good times while the world moves on. The closing scene in which Sam's Grandson (now a father himself), with whom he has always had a close relationship, visits him in a nursing home. We know from Sam's state that the end cannot be far. Its a brief scene with little dialogue but it is AWESOME!!!! in the sublime way it conveys it's message. I choke up just thinking about that scene. See "Avalon"!!!
helpful•110
- ddicarlo-2
- Aug 4, 2000
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- 適者生存
- Filming locations
- 3170 Cliftmont Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland, USA(Ann and Jules' new home)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $20,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $15,740,796
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $226,613
- Oct 8, 1990
- Gross worldwide
- $15,779,578
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