Product Details

• Actors: Moishe Oysher; Miriam Riselle; Florence Weiss; Anna Appel;
• Directors: Edgar G Ulmer
• Format: Black & White, Collector's Edition, Restored, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: Yiddish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: National Center For Jewish Film
• DVD Release Date: May 1, 2005
• Run Time: 105 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000A0C6YI
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,333 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Archer Winston, New York Post

"Sincerity and richly Jewish characters taken from the source."

Product Description

THE SINGING BLACKSMITH (Yankl Der Schmid)
USA, 1938, 105 minutes, B&W, Yiddish with new English subtitles, preserved, digitally restored and re-mastered
Directed by: Edgar G. Ulmer
Written by: David Pinski
Music by: Jacob Weinberg
Cinematography by: William Miller
Edited by: Jack Kemp
Produced by: Ludwig Landy, Roman Rebush
Starring: Moishe Oysher, Miriam Riselle, Florence Weiss, Anna Appel,Herschel Bernardi, Michael Goldstein and Max Vodnoy

Moishe Oysher, the renowned cantor and star of Yiddish radio, stars in Edgar G. Ulmer’s musical version of David Pinski’s play Yankl der shmid. Singing, dancing, and flashing his eyes, Oysher gives his most robust performance as a passionate shtetl blacksmith who must struggle against temptation to become a mensch. Recently rediscovered footage makes this the most complete extant version of Ulmer’s lively folk operetta, replete with an example of Yiddish swing.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating cultural object, June 2, 2008

By 

Reckless DC Music (Whitneyville, CT USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Singing Blacksmith (DVD)

This movie captures an interesting moment in Jewish culture. This all Yiddish production gives us a window into Yiddish theater of the 1930s. It makes clear the values that were important in Jewish culture at the time as Oysher, who plays a jaunty blacksmith who loves to drink and sing, must find a way to become a righteous man despite his hard living inclinations. The songs are terrific and Oysher really knows how to make them come to life. The other characters are great examples of the stereotypes of the Yiddish stage and I particularly enjoyed the rivalry between the male and the female matchmaker.

What also fascinated me was the realization that, with the exception of one scene, every character in the movie was Jewish. The film had managed to capture the insular and complete Jewish world of Eastern Europe. And the one scene where a non-Jew appears is quite telling. Oysher is arguing with another character when a policeman walks by. Suddenly Oysher and his opponent become the best of friends and are jovial, at least until the policeman continues on his way--and that marks the only appearance in the movie of a non-Jew.

The story is only so-so, but I found myself so fascinated by the cultural differences, the great singing, the interesting presentation of complex and full Jewish culture that I have to give this film five stars.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Chraming if slow, March 9, 2008

By 

Benjamin D. Matis "Ben" (NYC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Singing Blacksmith (DVD)

oysher is charming. the movie moves very slowly, or it least it feels like it, and was obviously shot on the cheap. It's a very fine trasfer and the quality of the DVD is very high.

3.0 out of 5 stars Classic Yiddish Schund, December 18, 2010

By 

moose_of_many_waters (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Singing Blacksmith (DVD)

As a kid, I used to be taken by my parents to see plays like this in Miami, so for me this movie is a trip down memory lane. The story here - about virtue, family, and temptation - follows the classic tropes of the Yiddish Schund (the soap operas that dominated Yiddish theater). But you don't watch this movie for the story. You watch it for its depiction of Yiddish culture, a culture that disappeared because of mass murder in WWII.

In contrast to Polish Yiddish movies of this era, The Singing Blacksmith, made in the US, doesn't portray 1930s Yiddish European culture, but harkens back to the turn of the 20th century. It's a highly stylized and airbrushed portrait, but still quite valuable.

The performances are just so so. Moishe Oysher can sing, but he's not much of an actor. Also, the Yiddish is just so so. The sound quality is bad and it would seem that some of the actors weren't native speakers (and maybe were just speaking Yiddish phonetically). As a movie, I'd give this one a pass. As a cultural artifact, it's very valuable.