Customer Reviews

The Singing Blacksmith

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.